The subject of masculine forms of discourse has never been more top-of-mind.
In her book You Just Don’t Understand (1992) Deborah Tannen notes that men tend to be more assertive and less self-disclosive than women. Tannen was one of many scholars interested in mapping the different rhetorical styles of the sexes. That was the 90s. Now, nearly two decades later, gender has never been a more fluid idea. Moreover, early research on male behavior patterns tended to take myriad exceptions off the table. Even so, she was surely right to note that there is a masculine style of assertion and opinion-giving that remains a relatively durable norm. Sample any of the men hosting cable news shows these days and you will see the opinion-giving mode in full bloom. True to his family’s tradition, CNN’s Chris Cuomo takes no prisoners. Ditto for MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. On the political right there seem to be even more assertion-giving machines unencumbered by the burdens of accuracy.
Even a lunch with my male colleagues can lead to a round of firm and forceful opinions laid out for others at the table to take or leave. We throw them around like players in the infield warming up before a game. The style is more or less the opposite of the listening and questioning that Tannen described as a norm for a feminine style.
These old formulations came to mind when I was recently watching Morgan Neville’s documentary about Fred Rogers, Won’t You be My Neighbor (2018). It features a lot of footage of Rogers with children, of course, but also with a number of parents and admirers as well. In our current polarized climate it clearly shows a different kind of man. The film which has just migrated to cable and public television outlets features the children’s television pioneer as a patient slow-talker with a natural curiosity. Rogers was a good match for the kids that Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood was intended to reach.
It was even more interesting to see Rogers testifying before Congress in 1969, trying to secure permanent funding for the shaky new medium of public television. In contrast to the crusty chair of the Senate Sub-Committee on Communications, Rogers seemed like a totally different kind of advocate: patient, a bit tentative, and more indirect than assertive. The Presbyterian minister who turned to children’s television in order to save it seemed more pastoral than insistent. Was he ahead of his time?
Probably not. Other-oriented men have always been around as role models in work and family life. These kinds of men have also been on display in a wide-range of films featuring characters like Clark Kent, Atticus Finch, or any number of figures played by Tom Hanks.
Even so, the subject of masculine ways of coping has never been more top-of-mind. The wider release of the Rogers documentary coincided with the high visibility of a set of ads sponsored by the Gillette brand of Procter and Gamble. “We Believe: the Best Men Can Be” is a series of spots cut to different lengths, all showing a kind of macho-masculinity that is still easily recognized: matching threats with threats, groping women, and thoughtless fathers raising boys to be more tough than compassionate.
With the #MeToo Movement and “rape culture” as topic number one on most American university campuses there has perhaps never been a cultural moment when the idea of masculine bravado looked more out of place. Of course how ‘out of place’ depends where one is. But we are clearly at the beginning of a period when bluster and opinion-giving (“mansplaining” in one of the current feminist formulations) look like they’ve had their day. Among other signs, never has the shameless mendaciousness of our President looked more tired and shopworn.
Persuasion is less a single skill than a range of capacities available in a specific circumstance.
A recent study conducted by the social media site LinkedIn ranked skills “in demand” by a broad sampling of employers. They included certain “hard skills” like knowledge of computer language, as well as more people-oriented “soft skills.” As reported by CNBC, the two most sought of the latter type were “creativity” and “persuasion.” LinkedIn recommended that job seekers would benefit from a course in persuasion or “becoming a thought leader.” They also recommended a course in consumer behavior: one of a large group of university courses focusing on marketing, advertising and public relations.
As a long-time student of persuasion, I’m grateful for the acknowledgement. And most students get it. Courses in persuasion and advocacy are rarely seen by them as a waste of time. Even so, one-word rankings of traits can easily fall prey to our common habit of asking a term to do too much. As an idea, “persuasion” actually represents a thick onion with layers of ideas, strategies, unanticipated responses, and complicated effects. Hence, its less a “skill” than a microcosm for many of the vagaries of human interaction.
To cite just one dimension, a lot of influence-making depends on attributes ofcharacter that audiences see in particular sources. The Greeks were the first to note that a persuader’s reputation is a huge wildcard. The possible permutations begin to multiply rather quickly when we query the nature of character.
It’s useful to remember that figures like Aristotle and the Sophists–itinerant teachers of rhetoric (circa 335 b.c.)–considered the ability to make a compelling case for one’s own honesty was the essential pathway to power within the various city-states where they resided. Aristotle asserted that a person’s “ethos” is probably their best persuasive tool. He noted that “who you are sometimes speaks louder than what you say.” In the preferred term of the times, the virtue of an advocate mattered as much as anything else.
It simply won’t do to reduce persuasion to a set of strategies, if the perceived virtue of an advocate matters as much as anything else.
In terms of this kind of classical analysis, the President may be able to ‘tweet’ with the rancor of a practiced bully. But who can school him on becoming a better human being? We are always somewhat skeptical about the motives of politicians. But Trump’s credibility has fallen so low that, as recent polls reveal, many voters and most women no longer believe him.
Source credibility is just one area of many areas that make up the study of persuasion. It is one thin layer of the onion. It helps to illustrate the larger point that persuasion is less a skill than a context-specific capacity shared jointly by advocates and their audiences. If this plea for complexity sound like the familiar gambit of academics who want to enhance their subject’s importance, I suppose that’s true. Even so, none of this precludes making a case for a given advocate. But we must also ask to whom, on what subject, and in what circumstances? When we begin to focus on the particulars of any single example, naming the positive qualities of a source and their persuasibility is tricky. In effect, it asks us to not just look at the layers of one onion, but layers in a virtual bushel as well.
