Tag Archives: Aristotle

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Mindful of the Bullseye on Our Backs

Problem Practices, Rhetorical Mastery, , , , , , , ,

I wonder what it means to carry the awareness that we have bullseyes painted on our backs.

There’s something inherently disconcerting about being a “target.” The lethality implied in the early use of the term is still with us, more than it should be, but its also obvious that its meaning has clearly broadened.  Even so, the 17th Century origins of the term are grammatically consistent with how we still use it today, namely: to be the object of another’s attempt to have us yield. In the noun form, a “target” is a person. As a verb, to be “targeted” means that we are the quarry of someone else. A word rarely heard by our ancestors is now firmly in the canon of common usage.

In different language, the idea was even a rule of thumb for Aristotle, who instructed citizens of Macedonia on how to assess audiences, adjusting verbal appeals to match their characteristics.

What is so striking about the modern use of the word in marketing and every kind of communication is that it has become ubiquitous. A pitch for almost any ideology, service or product is strategically designed to convince anyone identified as falling within the target audience. This is still standard lingo of Marketing 101. My guess is that even children as young as eight or nine understand this form of exchange in what is too often a one-way transaction. Sellers often seem to reap benefits from their “core demographic” that exceed what comes to the buyer. This “margin” is a bedrock of American consumer culture.

I wonder what it means psychologically to carry the awareness that we have bullseyes painted on our backs. Our daily consciousness can’t help but remind us that we are being tracked for what we represent rather than who we are. We cannot live in this culture without the knowledge that others are interested in us less as free agents and more as bodies ready to comply with particular appeals. Add in just enough delusion, and someone within a target audience may be flattered by the apparent attention. But those who are more aware know better. Even so, the wary will still be among the consumers who collectively lost $3.3 billion in 2020 from online scams and other offers of things or services that were never delivered.

We now occupy a world where software makers target us with appeals to buy computer protection to ward off many others who target us for personal gain. On the internet, easy anonymity and clever algorithms mean that the odds can favor the grifters.

The side calculation of estimating our trust in others

To be sure, targeting is not always easy. It must happen amid an overload of channels and platforms, reducing the effectiveness of any one appeal. Selling today means aiming for prey concealed in a forest of competing distractions. Being noticed is one problem; being persuasive is another.

But the game persists. The uber-strategy of targeting has altered the ways we relate to others. The awareness of being in the crosshairs and about to receive another’s self-serving messages makes us wary. We are often unsure who we can trust. Interestingly, the idea of a person with “good character” who merits our confidence was Aristotle’s gold standard for effective persuasion.  In his words, who we are often speaks louder than what we say. Now, we must now constantly do side calculations to determine who among our many contacts will not violate our the faith we have placed in them.  Every calculation pushes us further into defensiveness and suspicion: realms that, among other things, are fertile ground for conspiracy theorists.

So, rhetorically, we now sit in a very different place. The strategy of the “double game” played for laughs in old classic films like The Music Man (1962) or The Sting (1973) has now taken on the attribute of  a common norm applied to messages that come to us from beyond the small bubble of family and friends. What was once a plot device has become a dominant and darker transactional pattern.

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Sometimes it Pays to Not Take the Bait

Problem Practices, , , , , , ,

[Forbearance is sometimes the best policy. It’s common to respond to every provocation. It’s even easier since our retorts can often be anonymous. But as this 2014 post notes, there is a degree of grace in letting a misguided view pass without a response]

 

In the age of Trump every verbal action seems to trigger a response. Judgments are easy and somehow self-affirming. It is always tempting to think that we are being helpful when we explain to the misguided how they have failed to notice their mistakes. Since others offer corrections or criticisms of our ideas or acts; the least we can do is return the favor

Aristotle was one of the first to systematically describe how a person should defend their ideas when challenged. He equated the ability to make counter-arguments as just another form of personal defense. Though the great philosopher used other words, he essentially noted that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be pushed around. This was about 380 B.C., demonstrating that some things never change.

Even so, it has perhaps become too easy to fire off a rejoinder or a personal attack. Most of us find it hard to be in a public space and not encounter cross-court slams from an ideological opponent that seem to need an equally aggressive return.

The digital world easily brings our indignation to the fore. Many websites welcome comments, the majority of which are misguidedly protected with anonymity. And it isn’t just the trolls that are rattling on about a writer’s sloppy logic or uncertain parentage. In private and public settings everyone seems to be ready with a hastily assembled attitude. The felicitous put-down is so common that screenplays and narratives seem to wilt in their absence. What dramatist could write a scene about a family Thanksgiving dinner without including at least a couple of estranged relatives rising to the bait of each other’s festering resentments? To make matters worse, some of us actually get paid to teach others how to argue, with special rewards going to those who are especially adept at incisive cross examination.

There are many circumstances when the urge to respond is worth suppressing. Sometimes saying nothing is better than any other alternative: less wounding or hurtful, or simply the best option in the presence of a communication partner who is out for the sport of a take-down.

The psychological rewards are overrated.

Even a brilliant rejoinder is not likely to force an errant advocate back on their heels. You may be itching to correct them. But they are probably determined to ignore you.

And there are costs to becoming shrill. Harry Truman famously sensed this. The former President had a hot temper. Even before he was elected he had more than his share of critics. But his approach to responding to criticism made a lot of sense. In the days when letters often carried a person’s most considered rebuttals, his habit was to go ahead and write to his critics, often in words that burned with righteous indignation. But he usually didn’t mail them. The letters simply went into a drawer, which somehow gave Truman the permission to move on to more constructive activities, such as a good game of poker.

Not responding to someone else’s provocative words can have at least two advantages. The first is that your comments probably won’t be received anyway. We tend to ignore non-congruent information, a process known in the social sciences as “confirmation bias,” but familiar to everyone who has ever said that “we hear only what we want to hear.” The second advantage is that rapid responses to others can carry the impression that the responder lacks a certain grace. Not every idea that comes into our heads is worth sharing. In addition, fiery replies sometimes indicate that we weren’t really listening. Just listen to almost any interview with former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Time gives us a better perspective. It allows us to better anticipate how our responses will be judged. Most importantly, it helps us break the cycle where one wounding response is simply piled on to another.