Thank You for Arguing (Revised and Updated)

by Jay Heinrichs

  Once again Aristotle comes to the rescue, this time with deduction’s fraternal twin, induction. In rhetoric, inductive logic uses examples for its proof instead of commonplaces. Induction is great for when the audience’s commonplaces don’t work for you.

  Induction would look like this in Annie’s argument:

  ANNIE: I live in a Republican state, and my taxes keep going up. Your own mayor is Republican, and look how much taxes have increased in your city. Plus, Congress keeps borrowing money. How do you think they’ll ever reduce the deficit? It just shows that both parties inevitably raise taxes. The Democrats are simply honest about it. And given two politicians, I’ll vote for the honest one.

  That’s inductive logic. Annie’s examples prove that Republicans raise taxes. Therefore you should vote for the party that will not lie about it. Of course, Annie doesn’t prove that the Republicans raise taxes as much as Democrats do. But that’s for Kathy to argue.

  You can combine deduction and induction to make an especially strong argument. In this case, your proof has two parts: examples and premise. Once again, we can observe Homer Simpson’s logical pyrotechnics for illustration.

  HOMER: I’m not a bad guy! I work hard, and I love my kids. So why should I spend half my Sunday hearing about how I’m going to hell?

  Meanings

  The point you prove with examples is technically called a paradigm—a rule that you apply to the choice you want your audience to make.

  A splendid instance of logical induction as argument.

  Argument Tool

  THE RHETORICAL EXAMPLE: Fact, comparison, or story.

  Homer’s examples—works hard, loves his kids—show he is not such a bad guy. Having established his nice-guy premise, he heads straight to his conclusion: church wastes his time. Whether the examples actually do prove his case is up to the audience. And God. But the logic works.

  Homer recites facts, sort of. That’s one kind of example.

  But his examples are really more comparison than fact. Comparisons are the second kind of example. He works harder and loves his kids more than the average churchgoer.

  Then there’s a third kind of example, the story—jokes, fiction, fables, and pop culture. Most of the examples I use in this book fall in the story category.

  Let’s use all the logic we gained in this chapter. Suppose I want to persuade you to go to a poker game instead of the Mozart concert you had planned to attend. I start with an enthymeme:

  ME: You want to relax, right? Then there’s no choice. You’re going to play poker.

  That’s deductive logic. You want to relax. Therefore, let’s play poker. I skip what would have been the middle line of a syllogism: poker is more relaxing than Mozart. You already knew that. But then again, maybe you didn’t. Maybe I should use inductive logic—facts, comparisons, and stories—to shore up our premise that poker relaxes more than Mozart.

  Fact:

  ME: You yourself said nothing’s more soothing than a good cigar and three aces.

  TRY THIS IN A PRESENTATION

  Work up a logical outline. First, construct an enthymeme that uses something your audience believes in. It sums up your entire talk. The rest of the outline rests on inductive logic. List the facts, compare your argument with an opposing one, and include at least one anecdote that illustrates your point on the micro level. Go back and read Reagan’s speeches, and you’ll find that most of them use exactly this logical method. Or skip ahead to Chapter 25, where Cicero shows you how to outline a speech.

  Comparison:

  ME: Do they let you drink beer during a Mozart concert? Huh? Do they?

  Story:

  ME: I knew a guy who went to see Don Giovanni a few years ago. He suffers through the whole thing until right at the end, when he clutches his heart and slumps over dead. The last thing he sees before he dies is Don Giovanni getting sucked into hell.

  I suggest you try a similar argument on your significant other before your next night out. Scope out your partner’s commonplaces: Do you hear the word “relax” a lot when you plan a date, or does the word “boring” repeat itself?

  Now apply the commonplace to an argument packet: “Since [commonplace], then we should [your choice].”

  Throw in a few examples: fact, comparison, story, or all three. Now button your lip, baby. Button your coat.

  The Tools

  The historian Colyer Meriwether wrote that the American founders were masters at rhetorical logos: “They knew how to build an argument, to construct a logical fortress; that had been their pastime since youth. They could marshal words, they could explore the past…they had been doing that for years.” You now have the foundation to build your own logical fortress. Actually, it should be more like a logical mansion; the best persuaders are comfortable within their logic, and not afraid to let people in. Don’t worry. We’ll cover many more tools to make you feel more at home with logic.

  We started with the basic tools of logos.

  Deduction. Deductive logic applies a general principle to a particular matter. Rhetorical deduction uses a commonplace to reach a conclusion, interpreting the circumstances through a lens of beliefs and values.

  Enthymeme. The logical sandwich that contains deductive logic. “We should [choice], because [commonplace].” Aristotle took formal logic’s syllogism, stripped it down, and based it on a commonplace instead of a universal truth.

  Induction. In rhetoric, induction is argument by example. This kind of logic starts with the specific and moves to the general. Whereas deductive logic interprets the circumstances through an existing belief—a commonplace—inductive logic uses the circumstances to form a belief. It works best when you’re not sure your audience shares a commonplace.

  Fact, comparison, story. These are the three kinds of example to use in inductive logic.

  14. Make a Connection

  THE CHANDLER BING ADJUSTMENT

  Match your argument to the audience

  According as the man is, so must you humor him.

  —TERENCE (PUBLIUS TERENTIUS AFER)

  At this point, you may be feeling a little overwhelmed. So many tools! And we have not gone even halfway through this book! But take heart. While all those tools will help you develop a rhetorical habit of mind, seeing the argument in human nature (and in nature itself) all around you, there’s one persuasion tool that works better than any other. It will help you get your audience to take your choice and be happy about it.

  Aristotle spent many pages writing about this tool, but you don’t have to trust him. Trust any great salesperson. And let’s use a sales name for the tool: Call it The Hook.

  Argument Tool

  THE HOOK: Attach your argument to a need or desire of your audience.

  The Hook is simply what your audience wants. It’s your job to match your choice to the audience’s desire. That’s The Hook. We’ve seen it in action already. Want to borrow your mother’s car? Use the safety hook. Convince her that borrowing the car would be safer than other sketchier forms of transportation. Parents are all about safety. These days, I mean. In my day, people had more kids, and we kids had a sneaking suspicion that the reason they let us roam free was because we were dispensable. Plenty more kids where we came from. In the olden days, a better argument for borrowing the car would be utility. Kids were supposed to make themselves useful, not merely survive.

  The Hook comes from your audience’s motivation. What makes a person want to say “yes” without hesitation? Find this motive, and you have your hook.

  So let’s try it. Take a group of friends and try to spot the motivation of each one. Then hook them by applying that motive to your choice. Suppose your friends are the ones on Friends, that TV show from the nineties that everyone
seems to be freakishly bingeing. Each one of these characters seems to have a completely different personality (as well as a whole lot of free time and a penchant for sitting on couches). Imagine you’re a Friend yourself, and that you want to talk each of them into donating to a very important charity…say, an animal-loving organization called Save Horribly Ugly Cats (SHUC).

  Now ignore the studio audience while Gunther brings you a gigantic cup of coffee. And with perfect timing, in walks Ross. “Hey,” you say as he settles into the big chair next to your couch. “Just the person I want to see.”

  “You see me every day,” Ross says.

  Ignore the studio audience laughter and make your pitch. But wait. What’s Ross’s motivation? And where’s The Hook?

  The motivation is easy. Ross, a paleontologist, loves knowing things, and he feels insecure about anything he doesn’t know. So you ask him, “I was wondering. Are cats related to dinosaurs?”

  “Only in the sense that neither one will come when it’s called,” he says.

  Ignore the laughter.

  “Well, dinosaurs all looked different from each other. And cats come in all varieties.”

  Drink your coffee and listen while Ross explains that cats are all one species while dinosaurs are a whole family. Let him talk about genetic variation and adaptation. Ignore the frantic gestures of the director who thinks Friends will be canceled if Ross keeps going. Prompt him by asking why genetic variation is so important, and gently steer him toward genetic variation in cats and why breeding pretty show cats isn’t good for cats. Then bring up your big cause. Will it work? Well, at least you have his attention. At any rate, you can invite him to a meeting and mention a cute biologist who’ll be there.

  Then Phoebe walks in. You mentally go through her motivations: As a massage therapist, she could use another customer. You could offer to buy a massage in return for her contributing to SHUC. But she’s not that transactional a person. Business doesn’t motivate her.

  And here’s the important thing about finding The Hook: Don’t just look at needs. As Aristotle would tell you, you need to look for personalities (or personality types, as he would put it). Phoebe is an empath who adores animals and feels a weird psychic connection to them. So you show her a picture of an adorably horrible-looking cat. “Nobody loves her because she’s horrible looking,” you say.

  Persuasion Alert

  CANNED POP: Why am I using an ancient TV show as an example? I’m practicing what I preach. Educators tell me that high school and college students, who comprise a great many readers of this book, adore Friends. What would motivate a young audience into reading how to persuade a particular audience? Give them the pop culture that motivates them. As I’m writing this, it’s the number one content streamed on Netflix. For now. Soon, Warner Brothers will take Friends away from Netflix and offer it on its own streaming service. Which makes it very likely that, within a couple years, Friends will be an old memory. But that just makes a great rhetorical point: You need to monitor your audiences. Their motivations, cultural references, buzzwords, and judgment of what’s offensive or inoffensive change not only with people but with time.

  “Aww,” she says. “That’s so sad!” And then she launches into a cause she’s raising money for: smelly cats.

  Bear with me here. I’m teaching rhetoric.

  Most acts of persuasion don’t really have so much to do as changing minds from one opposite to the other, from pro to con, from for something to against something. Persuasion often has to do with priorities. Phoebe is not opposed to helping horribly ugly cats. But she’s more into helping smelly ones.

  Fundraisers talk about priority-raising all the time. We potential donors have a huge range of choices for where to give our heartfelt dollars: church, politics, land preservation, cancer research, third-world poverty, housing for the poor, ugly mammals…the list is endless. I had an aerospace client who wanted to get more Americans to support an increase in the money government spends on space programs. Polls show that an overwhelming majority of Americans support going into outer space. But if you ask them to rank space spending compared to other programs—Medicare, the environment, defense—space gets shoved pretty far down the list. So, as a persuasion consultant, I urged a content program aimed at policy-oriented thought leaders, the kind of pragmatic, educated Americans fascinated by economics. The argument went straight for their motivation: American future prosperity, and their personal ability to be in the know about it. Space, we argued, creates a larger economy. Spending government money on space could, in the long run, actually create more money to spend on Medicare and defense. Logos at its best.

  Which does not make a very good argument for animal-loving Phoebe. To change an empath’s priorities, we need to get personal. Make her fall in love—not with horribly ugly cats in general but with a single horribly ugly cat. Hold up the picture again. Describe its entire pathetic biography and its likely horribly ugly future…unless Phoebe contributes to the cause.

  Sold! She not only contributes money, she says she’ll adopt the cat. “Plus, I’m adopting a dog that’s even uglier! They’ll have something in common!”

  Ignore the applause.

  Chandler comes in next. Unlike Ross and Phoebe, Chandler has a transactional personality; he expects to get something for any effort. So you think about what kind of deal you can get him. And then a lightbulb comes on in your head: never mind the logos approach. Think ethos—the character approach. Chandler is a sucker for a relationship with women. So you employ another common fundraising trick: Get a suitable person to do the ask. Before he sits down, you whisper to Phoebe, “Chandler has money!”

  “He does? Let’s get some!”

  “No, I mean, tell him about the cat you’re adopting and get him to give money to the cause.”

  “Why should I do it?”

  “Because,” you say. “Because if you get him to give four times what you’re giving, that’s like multiplying your own money five times!”

  She smiles. “I should do that all the time and get rich.”

  Ignore the laughter.

  And she works on Chandler.

  Next comes Monica, a neat freak who would not like the idea of cats knocking things off shelves. On the other hand, she cooks and bakes in the hope that it will make people love her. So you ask Chandler to talk Monica into holding a fundraising dinner for SHUC. And you’re…

  Wait, here’s Joey! This not-so-bright lady’s man would do anything for a woman he finds beautiful. Ugly cats, not so much. Besides, Joey is broke. Fuhgeddaboudit.

  But then Ross says to Joey, “See that woman over there?” He points to a single woman ordering coffee.

  Joey smiles. “You know her?”

  “She’s a sucker for horribly ugly cats.”

  “For what?”

  “Cats. Horribly ugly ones.”

  “It’s a very important cause,” Chandler adds. “Tell her you gave money to Save Horribly Ugly Cats.”

  “But I didn’t give money to Save Horrible…”

  “I can fix that,” you say.

  And Joey borrows money from Chandler, gives it to you, and sidles up to a woman who’s about to be very confused.

  Meanwhile, self-centered Rachel, who’s supposed to be serving coffee, perches on the arm of the sofa. Don’t even try to get her to give money. Remember, you can’t persuade the unpersuaded.

  Would any of this work in real life? Well, in real life would you meet good-looking twentysomethings who hang out in a coffee shop all the time and can still afford impossibly spacious Manhattan apartments? The point of all this comes down to an essential rule of persuasion:

  It’s not about you.

  You can say how important cats are to you, and how your heart was broken when you saw these horribly ugly creatures in the pound, about to meet the
ir fate. That might get your audience’s attention, but you’ll only get their money with this pathetic argument if they’re more into you than into cats. In general, don’t talk about your needs, desires, and motivations. Find the ones in your audience, then attach your choice to those hooks.

  But what if your audience hasn’t starred in an old comedy series on Netflix?

  Well, if you’re a high school student and your audience happens to be your parents, you have your hook: safety. Parents today are all about keeping their children safe. It’s a pure pathetic argument, given that violent crime rates in America are actually lower than when your parents were your age.

  Now suppose your audience is a college admissions officer. How can you write an essay that appeals to that one person? And how can you do that if your essay is being used to apply to multiple schools? Think about that person’s situation. As you’ll see in Chapter 27, she’s reading many, many applications. Imagine yourself in that job. What would immediately hook you in an essay? A prosaic résumé that lists all your awesome accomplishments? Wonder how many of those essays she reads? At the very least, you must entertain her. The hook is her own boredom.

  TRY THIS IN A POLITICAL DISCUSSION

  If you find yourself in an argument with someone you don’t know well, don’t use the person’s appearance or clothing as clues to his desires. Definitely avoid making guesses based on gender or ethnicity. Simply ask a future-tense question. “What do you want this country to look like twenty years from now?” Or, “What do you hope to leave the next generation?”