In order to convince them, you have to start with what they believe, value, or desire. You begin, in other words, with the commonplace.
The advantageous. This is the über-topic of deliberative argument, persuasion that deals with choices and the future. The other forms of rhetoric cover right and wrong, good and bad. Deliberative argument talks about what is best for the audience. That is where persuasion comes in; you make the audience believe your own choice to be the advantageous one.
The commonplace. Any cliché, belief, or value can serve as your audience’s boiled-down public opinion. This is the starting point of your argument, the ground the audience currently stands on. Logos makes them think that your own opinion is a very small step from their commonplace.
Babbling. When your audience repeats the same thing over and over, it is probably mouthing a commonplace.
The commonplace label. Apply a commonplace to an idea, a proposal, or a piece of legislation; anyone who opposes it will risk seeming like an outsider.
The rejection. Another good commonplace spotter. When your audience turns you down, listen to the language it uses; chances are you will hear a commonplace. Use it when the argument resumes.
12. Persuade on Your Terms
THE SISTER FRAME
How to define the issue in your favor
MR. BURNS: Oh, meltdown. It’s one of those annoying buzzwords. We prefer to call it an unrequested fission surplus. —THE SIMPSONS
A girl was having serious sister trouble. Home from school, she was making herself a peanut butter sandwich when her big sister stomped into the kitchen and glared at the jar. “Are you taking the last of the peanut butter? You’re such a pig!” Big Sister went on telling Little Sister how she always thought only of herself and that she should grow up or nobody would ever love her. Little Sister ended up leaving the kitchen without her sandwich.
“What should I have said?” she asked me later. Knowing I was into rhetoric, she wanted to know whether I could give her a strategy for the next time her sister blew up.
Why, yes, I replied. There was such a strategy that might just leave her eating her sandwich in peace while driving Big Sister up a wall. Win-win. It’s called framing. Framing helps you reset any disagreement, letting you put the topic—and your opponent—exactly where you want them. You’ll find framing strategy behind every well-run presidential campaign, marketing effort, and trial lawyer’s presentation, as well as in the devious heads of manipulators across the land. In this chapter you’ll learn how to use framing to gain control of an argument while keeping your opponent from boxing you in.
But wait. What exactly is a frame?
Think of it as the box that contains an argument. It sets the bounds of discussion. You might say it’s what the whole argument is about.
What’s the original frame in the Peanut Butter Case? Piggishness. Big Sister stomps in and accuses Little Sister of using up the last of the jar. But the argument is really about Little Sister’s selfishness. Big Sister has built a frame around the issue with the words “You’re such a pig.” It’s hard to defend yourself against a charge that you’re basically a grasping, peanut-butter-snarfing little jerk. You could deny that you’re a pig, but what good would that do? You could find another jar in the pantry, but that won’t let you recover from all your past alleged piggishness.
Instead, I told Little Sister, she could reframe the whole issue. Remember, a frame is what the issue is all about. One great way to reframe is to challenge the frame. Instead of getting defensive or going hungry, Little Sister could look deeply sympathetic and gaze sadly into Big Sister’s eyes.
LITTLE SISTER: Is this really about peanut butter? Tell me what’s wrong.
Suddenly the frame shifts from piggish Little Sister to psychologically tormented Big Sister. Don’t expect Big Sister to break down sobbing and admit that her boyfriend said something really mean and she doesn’t love him anymore and Little Sister is the only person in the world who understands her and she is so sorry she blew up about the peanut butter and she really really needs a hug. Much more likely, Big Sister will get all defensive, say, “Nothing’s wrong—stop being such a jerk,” and stomp out. Leaving Little Sister in peace with her sandwich.
By reframing the issue, she moves the argument to a more favorable ground. The problem shifts from Little Sister to Big Sister with a simple rhetorical question: Is this really about me? And so the ground gets yanked right out from under the attacker.
Reframing entails refusing to accept the opponent’s definition of what the issue is about, and then substituting your own. You define the issue in your terms.
Framing is all about definitions, and definitions are all about swapping around terms.
Nuclear Commonplaces
In framing strategy, you want to choose terms that favor you while putting your opponent in a bad light. That means using words that already carry a big emotional throw weight with your audience. Let’s call them commonplace words—the key words that form commonplaces.
Persuasion Alert
I’m trying to make my own issue, rhetoric, appeal to as broad an audience as possible. So when I talk about “defining” and “labeling”—terms that carry negative emotional baggage for many readers—I emphasize defense over offense. Notice how I use spare, oh-by-the-way language when I refer to attacking with commonplace words. The technical name for this technique of skipping over an awkward subject is metastasis. It’s one of the more manipulative figures.
Look at the quotation at the beginning of this chapter. Mr. Burns owns a nuclear power plant that has had an accident. He tries to define the issue by replacing “meltdown” with “unrequested fission surplus.” “Meltdown” is a commonplace word, heavily laden with emotion; he swaps it for jargonistic terms that don’t show up in any commonplace. They have almost no emotional effect. While we might object to his new terms, his dislike of “meltdown” is understandable. The term is burdened with so much connotative baggage that Burns feels compelled to swap it out. The words “chemicals” and “logging” have a similar negative connotation—unfairly, in many cases. Where would we be without chemicals and wood? Yet you would have a hard time redefining either of these words for just about any audience except chemists and loggers.
Your job as a persuader is to find the commonplace words that appeal most to your audience—or, if you’re on the attack, repel them. Politicians use focus groups to test terms like “reform” and “protection,” which resonate with American voters—for now. Attach “reform” to enough pork legislation, though, and politicians may find themselves stuck with a negative commonplace word. You don’t need focus groups to deal with smaller audiences. Just listen to the expressions people use, and spot the key persuasive words.
We need to be more aggressive.
Let’s come up with a robust strategy.
Welcome to the team.
If we work smarter, we’ll win.
I like him. He has a good heart.
We need to change the paradigm.
I can’t relate to her way of working.
Chalk it up to a learning experience.
He was traumatized in his last job.
All of the italicized words reflect certain attitudes and come with varying emotional charges—all positive except for the last one. Don’t call your new plan innovative if you hear the word “robust” repeatedly. Call it robust. Refer to your plan as a team effort that changes the paradigm. Of course, you don’t have to speak like a cliché-programmed humanoid. I exaggerate for effect. Just remember to spot the key words and use them to define the issue.
Get Out of a Tough Scrape
The words people use to sum up an argument constitute the issue’s definition: “It’s about values.” “It’s about getting things done.” �
��This is really about wanting to go out Saturday night.” The rhetorical tenet that there are two sides to everything applies to issues as well: there are two descriptions to every issue.
Suppose you returned your rental car with big scrapes down each side. (I actually did this in Nice, France.) What’s the issue? The agency will obviously call it an “operator error.” The driver (me) can try to redefine the issue to one of “wrong equipment.” What did the company mean by renting me a car too big for the Riviera’s narrow, walled streets? That issue favored me. (Fortunately, I didn’t have to use it. The worker in the return lot took one look at the car, gave a Gallic shrug, and sent me on my way.)
Look at other issues and their two-sided descriptions.
Argument Tool
FRAMING: The same thing as defining an issue. Find the persuadable audience’s commonplaces. Define the issue in the broadest context. Then deal with the specific problem at hand, using the future tense.
Abortion: A baby’s right to live, or a woman’s right to her own body.
Gun control: Our shockingly violent society, or a citizen’s right to protect himself.
Borrowing the car: A privilege, or a matter of fairness (big sister got to borrow it last week).
A framing consultant lurks behind almost every candidate, and universities offer courses in the subject. But framing essentially follows the same rhetorical principles we have been talking about.
First, look for the most popular commonplaces among the persuadable audience—the undecideds and moderates. You might call this the bumper sticker phase of an argument. As always, the most persuadable audience is the one in the middle. If you happen to debate abortion, your most persuadable audience is the one that wants neither to ban all abortions nor to allow them without restriction. A good pro-choice slogan might be “An Egg Is Not a Chicken” or “Make Abortions Safe and Rare.” (Hillary Clinton and her husband, Bill, have been fond of the second one.) While “An Egg Is Not a Chicken” isn’t exactly a household rule of thumb, it still counts as a commonplace in Aristotle’s book, because it appeals to the commonsense notion that you can’t make an omelet out of a chicken. The slogan also works to convey the image of an embryo as an egg and not something that moves and responds to you.
Once you have your commonplaces nailed down, you want to make sure that the issue covers as broad a context as possible—appealing to the maximum number of people with the widest ideological and institutional diversity.
TRY THIS AT WORK
A broad context trumps a narrow one in a political situation; this includes office politics. Suppose the company wants to merge your department with one headed by an idiot. How should you define the issue? In terms of fairness? The manager’s competence? Or your department’s ability to produce more as an independent entity? Productivity is the broadest of the three issues, because it appeals to the widest array of company managers.
To continue with the abortion example: the pro-life movement did a wonderful job of attaching “culture of life” to the issue. This definition welcomed into the pro-lifers’ big ideological tent everyone who happened to be alive. (Of course, the commonplace may cause some political discomfort among pro-lifers who also support the death penalty. Executing criminals has its political merits, but fostering a culture of life isn’t one of them.)
The pro-choice side likes to define the issue as one of government intrusion. That’s fairly broad—many Americans are concerned about government intrusion—but still not as broad as “culture of life.” Besides, the anti-abortion movement managed to define the issue in positive terms (pro-life), while the pro-abortion-rights crowd got stuck with a negative issue (anti–government intrusion). In politics, “pro” usually beats “con.” What’s a poor advocate to do?
A wise one would separate the “rights” part of the equation from the “abortion” part. Rights are a positive thing, and a substantial majority of voters are indeed for abortion rights. Abortion, though, is a negative, and the same polls show that most voters are uncomfortable with it. So the most effective way to keep abortions legal is, paradoxically, to oppose them. The Clintons did just that with their slogan “Abortions Should Be Safe, Legal, and Rare.” (Personally, I would leave out the “legal” part, since “safe” already implies it. But that’s quibbling.) The issue turns from government interference to making abortions theoretically unnecessary. And when your audience thinks your stand will make abortions unnecessary, you have not just broadened the issue, you’ve solved it.
TRY THIS AT HOME
You can frame a family issue broadly by appealing to the values you know everyone shares. If your kids accuse you of working late too often, don’t say, “That’s what puts the food on the table.” The alternative, starvation, is probably unimaginable to well-fed children. Say instead, “I’m working late so we can go to Disney World.”
Am I just saying that activists appeal to a larger number when they moderate their stands? No, I’m saying that they expand their appeal when people see them as moderate. In the late 1990s, the pro-life movement abandoned most of its overt efforts to outlaw abortion altogether; instead, it worked around the edges, fighting late-term abortion and requiring parental permission for minors. The pro-lifers appealed to the commonplace that abortion is a bad thing, while avoiding the pitfall of rights. Meanwhile, some of the most prominent pro-choicers insisted on portraying abortion as another form of contraception. While neither side actually moderated its views—the pro-choice people continued to oppose any restrictions on abortion, while most pro-life organizations opposed any form of abortion—the choice crowd portrayed itself as extreme, while the pro-lifers looked relatively moderate.
You can understand why the decade from 1995 to 2005 saw a steady erosion of abortion rights, with clinics shutting down across the country.
But then along came Donald Trump, who in a debate with Hillary Clinton spoke of abortion in the most violent terms: “If you go with what Hillary is saying, in the ninth month you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby.” While this kind of apocalyptic language describing illegal infanticide might have appealed to his base, I doubt that Trump won over undecided voters with that line. He narrowed the frame too much.
Tax-and-Spend Labelers
Reframing an issue doesn’t always require changing the terms. You can accept the words your opponent uses.
SPOUSE: That kid of ours is plenty smart. He’s just lazy.
YOU: Yes, he’s lazy. So how do we motivate him?
Or you can change the terms.
YOU: No, I don’t think he’s lazy. He’s bored.
Or you can redefine them.
YOU: If “lazy” means frantically shooting aliens on a computer and picking up valuable hand-eye coordination, then he’s lazy.
Argument Tool
REDEFINITION: Don’t automatically accept the meaning your opponent attaches to a word. Redefine it in your favor.
One of the best ways to define the terms is to redefine them. Don’t accept your opponent’s definition. Come up with your own instead. That way you sound as though you agree with your opponent’s argument even while you cut the legs out from under it. For most lawyers, redefining is a matter of instinct. When President Bill Clinton told the special prosecutor, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is,” he was redefining a term—in the slickest, most lawyerly way, unfortunately. Wayne in the movie Wayne’s World does better.
WAYNE: Garth, marriage is punishment for shoplifting in some countries.
Now, when I talk about defining the terms, I don’t necessarily mean choosing which of the Oxford English Dictionary’s eight definitions of “marriage” to use. The dictionary simply offers the literal meaning of the word, its denotation. Wayne does something different. He redefines the connotation
of the word—the unconscious thoughts that the term sparks in people’s minds. Garth has teased Wayne by asking whether he plans to marry his girlfriend; to Garth, marriage connotes something adult and mushy. Wayne’s reply erases whatever marital image Garth has in his mind and replaces it with criminal justice.
Redefinition works well in politics, where candidates try to stick labels on each other.
PROGRESSIVE: My opponent wants to attack the rights of the gay and transgender community.
CONSERVATIVE: I’m not attacking rights, I’m defending rights: the rights of members of religious communities to practice their beliefs about sexuality.
Definition tactics can serve you just as well at home and in the office. They can help you fend off labeling—the rhetorical practice of attaching a pejorative term to a person or concept. The definition tactic gives you an effective instant retort. Do you accept your opponent’s definition or not?
You may find that your opponent’s insult actually favors you, presenting an opportunity for argument jujitsu.
Argument Tool
DEFINITION JUJITSU: Accept your opponent’s term and its connotation; then defend it as a positive thing.
SIBLING: You’re just talking like an egghead.
Thank You for Arguing (Revised and Updated) Page 15