These strategies are important but cannot always overcome reality, you don't want to be the "fiery but peaceful protests" guy trying to maintain a frame that is falling apart in front of you. I was surprised at some of the most recent arguments in defense of Israel's attacks on Gaza which have focused on debating the legal definition of genocide. These are the most ineffective pro-Israel arguments I have seen but the sort of frames that worked in the past are not going to convince younger people who are much more familiar with the conflict.
"Challenging frames can be very difficult because once a frame becomes hegemonic in society, you can suffer significant consequences for rejecting it."
Interesting to see that people on the wrong side of a dominant frame have had some modest success in relitigating once the ability to enforce the frame diminishes. The Iraq war, Covid mitigations and the rape gangs scandal in the UK are some examples.
"But often more important are emotional appeals (pathos), or the status/character/“brand” of the person making the argument (ethos)"
I got a first hand experience in the importance of ethos the other day. I was talking to an associate pastor at my church about some of the things you discussed in your recent appearance with Michael Clary on Contratalk and just did not get *anywhere*. I have a professional degree and corresponding career so I wasn't some schlub off the street, but I could tell being unmarried tanked any credibility I would've otherwise had, just by the nature of the subject at issue. A valuable lesson there.
You remind me of a columnist of an earlier era, Mike McManus. He sold his column on grounds that he always wrote his commentary with a commitment to offer solutions to the problems he was addressing. That was in a time, like now, when most commentators thought the main task was to tell people what was wrong with the world, at some level or another. Later Mike developed a ministry aimed at improving marriage. He was an unusual commentator, as you are as well.
Pascal starts out the Pensees discussing the intuitive and mathematical (analytical) mind. I think many of our failures in communication are rooted in our cultural defanging of intuition. We confuse it with mere “feeling” about which facts don’t care (speaking of, what I believe, is failed rhetoric).
Pascal basically says that one can’t stand in for the other, you need both and they have their spheres. There are even attempts to take intuition and somehow turn it into analysis which always comes off weird anyway.
That being said we need to make sure if we fail it’s because of human free will not just because we thought ourselves too good to think about rhetoric or persuasion.
My favorite take on intuition is what former GE CEO Jack Welch said about trusting your gut. He found it more reliable in the negative cases. In other words, if his mind thought something made total sense, but his gut wasn't buying it, he would say no, or at least push for more confirmation.
OTOH, I don't remember who it was, but another businessman said he had learned to be skeptical of his gut in positive cases, particularly regarding hiring. This suggests we're prone to being swayed by someone's story and lose the big picture, so perhaps stories can, indeed, shift frames.
These strategies are important but cannot always overcome reality, you don't want to be the "fiery but peaceful protests" guy trying to maintain a frame that is falling apart in front of you. I was surprised at some of the most recent arguments in defense of Israel's attacks on Gaza which have focused on debating the legal definition of genocide. These are the most ineffective pro-Israel arguments I have seen but the sort of frames that worked in the past are not going to convince younger people who are much more familiar with the conflict.
"Challenging frames can be very difficult because once a frame becomes hegemonic in society, you can suffer significant consequences for rejecting it."
Interesting to see that people on the wrong side of a dominant frame have had some modest success in relitigating once the ability to enforce the frame diminishes. The Iraq war, Covid mitigations and the rape gangs scandal in the UK are some examples.
"But often more important are emotional appeals (pathos), or the status/character/“brand” of the person making the argument (ethos)"
I got a first hand experience in the importance of ethos the other day. I was talking to an associate pastor at my church about some of the things you discussed in your recent appearance with Michael Clary on Contratalk and just did not get *anywhere*. I have a professional degree and corresponding career so I wasn't some schlub off the street, but I could tell being unmarried tanked any credibility I would've otherwise had, just by the nature of the subject at issue. A valuable lesson there.
Aaron:
You remind me of a columnist of an earlier era, Mike McManus. He sold his column on grounds that he always wrote his commentary with a commitment to offer solutions to the problems he was addressing. That was in a time, like now, when most commentators thought the main task was to tell people what was wrong with the world, at some level or another. Later Mike developed a ministry aimed at improving marriage. He was an unusual commentator, as you are as well.
Russ
Interesting - I was not family with McManus.
Pascal starts out the Pensees discussing the intuitive and mathematical (analytical) mind. I think many of our failures in communication are rooted in our cultural defanging of intuition. We confuse it with mere “feeling” about which facts don’t care (speaking of, what I believe, is failed rhetoric).
Pascal basically says that one can’t stand in for the other, you need both and they have their spheres. There are even attempts to take intuition and somehow turn it into analysis which always comes off weird anyway.
That being said we need to make sure if we fail it’s because of human free will not just because we thought ourselves too good to think about rhetoric or persuasion.
My favorite take on intuition is what former GE CEO Jack Welch said about trusting your gut. He found it more reliable in the negative cases. In other words, if his mind thought something made total sense, but his gut wasn't buying it, he would say no, or at least push for more confirmation.
OTOH, I don't remember who it was, but another businessman said he had learned to be skeptical of his gut in positive cases, particularly regarding hiring. This suggests we're prone to being swayed by someone's story and lose the big picture, so perhaps stories can, indeed, shift frames.