Thank You for Arguing (Revised and Updated)

by Jay Heinrichs

  MOM: Can you tell me where I can find men’s shirts?

  SALESMAN: Sure. I can take you there if you like. Shopping for Father’s Day?

  MOM: I am. I know it sounds boring, but my husband needs a shirt.

  SALESMAN: Mmm, I’m afraid it does sound boring. I remember my mother used to make a big deal out of Father’s Day. Bigger than his birthday.

  MOM: What did she get him?

  SALESMAN (as if he just thought of the idea): May I show you something?

  At this point the salesman has my mother in a vulnerable state. If she had had her wits about her, Mom should have told herself two things:

  Useful Figure

  I mentioned the litotes earlier, but it’s worth showing you another example (“rarely produces disinterest”). In front of an intelligent audience, this ironic understatement can make you look cool and authoritative while your opponent looks like a blowhard.

  He’s a salesman.

  He wants to show me something.

  The combination rarely produces disinterest.

  MOM (brightly): What are you going to show me?

  SALESMAN: It’s right over here. I think you’re going to love it.

  MOM: Who’s it for?

  SALESMAN: It’s a really special Father’s Day surprise.

  MOM: So it’s for my husband?

  Argument Tool

  THE DODGED QUESTION: Ask who benefits from the choice. If you don’t get a straight answer, don’t trust that person’s disinterest.

  SALESMAN: Well, actually, it’s for the whole family.

  MOM: If I look at it, will you take me to the shirt department?

  When she asks who the surprise is for, the salesman dodges the question—a sure sign of a disinterest disconnect. Having spotted it, Mom brings the sales pitch to a crashing halt. Her failure to steer the conversation this way in real life resulted in a $2,000 pool table instead of a $30 shirt. And do you know how hard it is to return a pool table?

  A Salesman, Lying in a Mean

  The second characteristic of ethos, virtue, also has its disconnects, and it makes an especially good lie detector. Aristotle lets you put up a red flag even if you don’t know the person, even while he talks. The secret lies in Aristotle’s definition of virtue: “A state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean.”

  I know, I know. That hardly seems to define any kind of virtue you know. But the thing about Aristotle is, when you live with his idea for a bit, it begins to make a startling amount of sense. And you can use it to enhance your own reputation as well as evaluate the character of another person. Let’s see how.

  TRY THIS IN A MEETING

  Remember the false choice logical sin? If someone uses it, and seems to do it deliberately, don’t trust his virtue. He’s not interested in a reasonable argument.

  A state of character means rhetorical virtue, not the permanent kind. It exists only during the argument itself, and it adapts to the audience’s expectations, not the persuader’s. He could be a liar and a thief, but if you believe him to be virtuous, then he is virtuous—rhetorically and temporarily.

  That, for the moment, is his state of character.

  Concerned with choice. Aristotle means that virtue comes out of the choices the persuader makes, or those he tries to sell you on. A persuader who tries to prevent a choice—through distraction or threats or by pitching the argument in the past or present—lacks rhetorical virtue.

  Lying in a mean. That probably sounds Greek to you (it did to me at first), but the concept is at the heart of deliberative rhetoric. To Aristotle, the sweet spot of every question lies in the middle between extremes. A virtuous soldier is neither cowardly nor foolhardy, but exactly in between. He chooses not to fling himself at the enemy; he lives to fight another day. But he does fight. The virtuous person “lies in the mean” between patriot and cynic, alcoholic and teetotaler, workaholic and slacker, religious zealot and atheist. (If Aristotle had lived among us, I suppose he would have been an Episcopalian, or maybe a Presbyterian—some faith that lies midway between zealotry and atheism.)

  Persuasion Alert

  I employ a version of the reluctant conclusion here (“it did to me at first”): I myself was once turned off by the term, but its value compelled me to change my mind.

  If this person sounds like a milquetoast, remember that deliberative argument deals with choices, and Aristotle saw the middle road as the shortest one to any decision. The mean lies smack in the middle of the audience’s values. In short, virtue is a temporary, rhetorical condition—a state of character, not a permanent trait—and you can find it in the middle of the audience’s opinions, or the sweet spot between the extreme ranges of a choice. A virtuous choice is a moderate one. Someone who chooses it has virtue.

  Argument Tool

  THE VIRTUE YARDSTICK: Does the persuader find the sweet spot between the extremes of your values?

  How can you measure someone’s virtue? One way is to see whether he finds the sweet spot between extremes. For example, when you walk into a department store to buy something for Father’s Day, your mean lies in the middle of your budget. A virtuous salesman asks what you want to spend and sticks to that amount; a really virtuous salesman hits the sweet spot, taking your range of $50 to $100 and finding something that costs exactly $74.99. A salesman who fails to ask you for a range, or who tries to move your sweet spot to sell you a $2,000 pool table, lacks rhetorical virtue.

  Spotting a lack of virtue when numbers aren’t involved is a bit trickier. Another way to evaluate a persuader’s virtue is to ask yourself: “How does he describe the mean?”

  First, determine the middle of the road in any question. What is the mean in, say, child rearing? Aristotle would place it somewhere between severe beatings and letting the kid run rampant. You will want to fine-tune that mean according to your own lights.

  Persuasion Alert

  Personally, I wouldn’t take any child-rearing advice that doesn’t begin with “That depends on the kid.” As you’ll see in Chapter 18, the practically wise persuader uses “that depends” as his guide.

  Now imagine yourself a new parent asking people’s advice on how to raise a child. (In actuality, you rarely have to ask for advice; people are all too happy to volunteer it.) Your advisers may suggest all sorts of help—prophylactic Ritalin, avoidance of “no,” Baby Mozart, strict discipline—and if you know absolutely nothing from kids, you might have trouble sifting through all the theories. To test the virtue of the people advising you, ask them what they think of mainstream child psychologists like Dr. Spock or T. Berry Brazelton. If they respond with extreme terms—“radical,” “cruel,” “abusive”—then beware of their advice. They can disagree with the prevailing wisdom—that is the whole point of persuasion—but if they describe it as extreme, then they tag themselves as extremists.

  Rhetorical virtue lets you leverage what you know, applying that limited knowledge to areas where you don’t have the facts. This is especially useful with political issues, where the pundits and pols know more than you and I. Politicians often pitch their own arguments as the mean between extremes, even in these polarized days. They do that by making their opponents appear to lie further from the middle than they actually are. Conservatives can’t say the word “environmental” without following it with “extremist”; that makes anyone who expresses concern about global warming seem like a froth-at-the-mouth radical.

  Argument Tool

  THE EXTREMIST DETECTOR: An extremist will describe a moderate choice as extreme.

  CONSERVATIVE: Environmental extremists want to prevent a sensible energy policy, which is why they’re trying to block careful, animal-friendly drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

  Whenever you hear the word “e
xtremists” or “special interests,” consult your own interests. Do you like the idea of drilling in the wilderness? If not, does that make you an extremist? Take a look at the polls as well. Most Americans don’t want to drill in the wildlife refuge. So a group that opposes drilling isn’t, by definition, extremist.

  Now, if you do support drilling, does that make you a member of the far right?

  ENVIRONMENTALIST: He’s on the conservative extreme that wants to drill in Alaska so he can tool around in his SUV.

  You’ll often see people do the reverse of the extremist label, describing an extreme choice as moderate. Someone proposes marketing your product to teenagers. You know the teenage market, and you further know that appealing to it is a big risk. Yet the proposer describes it in moderate terms, showing a lack of rhetorical virtue. When he adds that the company should expand its advertising to cable TV, an area you know nothing about, assume that the decision would be just as radical. In other words, don’t trust his choice. In the current feisty political climate, though, officials make “moderate” sound like a bad word.

  As the Sophists liked to say, there are two sides to every question. Being on one side or the other does not make one an extremist. In fact, no rhetoric rule book forbids you from using the extremist or moderate label as a persuasive technique. If your own opinion lies outside the public’s mean, you can describe that mean as extreme. Or you can label your own position as moderate. But the technique is tricky, to say the least. Most audiences don’t appreciate being labeled as extremists. Usually when a persuader labels his opponent as extreme simply because she disagrees with him, he’s probably the extreme one. Don’t trust his virtue.

  You see this kind of labeling among liberals and conservatives on almost every issue.

  LIBERAL: The extreme Christian right wants prayer in the schools so it can impose its religion on others.

  Again, what are your interests? And what benefits the nation? Does allowing a small group to pray in a classroom really constitute established religion? Besides, given the country’s other problems, should people even waste time arguing about school prayer?

  APPROPRIATE RHETORICAL REPLY: Most Americans support school prayer. If that seems extreme, what does it make you?

  The old expression “There’s virtue in moderation” comes straight from Aristotle. Virtue is a state of character, concerned with choice, lying in a mean. When moderates face scorn from the faithful of both parties, what does that make our country? You can do your bit for democracy, and your own sanity, with this prefab reply: “I know reasonable people who hold that opinion. So who’s the extremist?”

  The Tools

  “And, after all, what is a lie?” Lord Byron asked in his poem Don Juan. “ ’Tis but / The truth in masquerade; and I defy / Historians, heroes, lawyers, priests, to put / A fact without some leaven of a lie.” Byron may exaggerate, but the truth is often difficult to suss out in an argument. Rhetoric allows you to skip that problem and focus on the person as well as what she says. In other words, ethos provides…not a lie detector, exactly, but a liar detector—with basic tools for telling how much you should trust someone’s sincerity and trustworthiness.

  Apply the needs test (disinterest). Are the persuader’s needs your needs? Whose needs is the person meeting?

  Check the extremes (virtue). How does he describe the opposing argument? How close is her middle-of-the-road to yours?

  18. Find the Sweet Spot

  MORE PERSUASION DETECTORS

  The defensive tools of practical wisdom

  A companion’s words of persuasion are effective. —HOMER

  In the last chapter, we saw Aristotle’s strangely sensible definition of virtue: a state of character, concerned with a choice, lying in a mean. Like virtue, practical wisdom also lies in the mean—or rather, the persuader’s apparent ability to find the sweet spot. While you want to know how virtuous he is, you also want to assess his ability to make a good choice, one that fits the occasion. We’re talking about Aristotle’s phronesis, or practical wisdom, here. It recognizes that the sweet spot changes according to the circumstances and the audience. If my mother were shopping for a house, the sweet spot would lie a couple of hundred thousand dollars beyond the price of a pool table. The principle gets more subtle when we talk about politics or business—or parenting, for that matter. Then you want to see all of a persuader’s phronesis kick in. Listen for two things.

  Argument Tool

  “THAT DEPENDS”: A trustworthy persuader matches her advice with the particular circumstances instead of applying a one-size-fits-all rule.

  First, you want to hear “That depends.” The practically wise person sizes up the problem before answering it. Your adviser should question you about the circumstances first. If she spouts a theory without having a clue about your problem, then don’t trust her judgment.

  NEW PARENT: I’m reading conflicting advice about toilet training. What’s a good age to wean a child from diapers?

  UNWISE ANSWER: I don’t believe in toilet training. Let the child determine when she’s ready.

  EVEN LESS WISE ANSWER: No later than age two.

  PRACTICALLY WISE ANSWER: That depends on the child. Does she show interest in toilet training? Are you willing to put in the effort? Are diapers giving you any problem?

  TRY THIS IF YOU’RE A PUNDIT

  Research shows that experts on TV make lousy prognosticators; in fact, the more knowledgeable the person is, the worse the predictions. Rhetoric provides a reason: pundits tend to overapply their experience to specific situations. A solution that won’t get you on talk shows but will improve your score is to do what modelers do: describe the likely outcome as conditions change. Bad pundit: “China will be the most powerful nation by the end of the century.” Practically wise pundit: “If we keep borrowing money from the Chinese, their economic clout will balance our military strength. If we get the deficit under control, we’re likely to remain on top.”

  I don’t speak entirely rhetorically here. Dorothy Jr., being our first, fell victim to all sorts of child-rearing books. Thankfully, she has no memory of our well-meaning incompetence involving tiny plastic toilets and panicky bathroom visits. It was a total failure. Months later, she trained herself. Now that our kids are grown, new parents think that my wife and I must know something about children. And in fact we do—about our own children. But what worked for Dorothy Jr. often was a disaster for George. So whenever anyone asks me for generic advice, I reply, “Don’t listen to any advice.”

  I make no exceptions, which, come to think of it, probably isn’t very practically wise of me. A far more sage person is my friend Dick. When my kids were little, Dick and his wife, Nancy, moved overseas. They were empty nesters, having raised five great kids and seen them through college. Dorothy and I visited the couple on a vacation in Europe, and I remember sitting on their apartment balcony confiding to Dick my frightening cluelessness as a parent.

  ME: It seems that by the time I figure out how to deal with one kid, she grows out of it, and then whatever worked for her doesn’t work for her brother. Sometimes I wonder if I’m ready to be a parent.

  DICK: I know what you mean. I’m still not ready to be a parent.

  It was the wisest, most reassuring parenting help I ever got.

  Persuasion Alert

  Aren’t swing voters moderate by definition? Calling Breyer a “liberal” and O’Connor a “conservative” exaggerates my point about their practical wisdom.

  Persuasion Alert

  Am I showing good phronesis here, or do you see a disconnect in my analogy? How much is a presidency like a marriage, really? The analogy may hold up better for the Supreme Court, where justices spend many decades in close quarters with one another.

  Phronesis divides the rules people from the im
provisers and helps us understand politics today. Our country suffers from a lack of perspective toward rules and improvisation. It’s no accident that two famous former swing voters on the Supreme Court, Stephen Breyer and Sandra Day O’Connor—a liberal Democrat and a conservative Republican, respectively—were the only justices with legislative backgrounds. They were deliberative thinkers, and the ones with the most phronesis. Their written opinions used the future tense more than the others’, and they tended to focus on the advantageous, deliberation’s chief topic. Chief Justice John Roberts, who has a political background himself, occasionally shows a spark of phronesis, as when he chose to uphold Obamacare. His former allies on the right excoriated him for it, calling him a “politician.” They were exactly right, in the wrong way. Practical wisdom is the compelling trait of good politics.

  When you think about it, choosing a Supreme Court justice or a president isn’t that different from choosing a spouse. Check out the candidates’ disinterest, virtue, and phronesis—their caring, cause, and craft—and you can make a reasonable prediction about how they will vote once they’re in office.