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.
Imagine what would happen to a dithering figure like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell if he was required to show up every week to answer questions from members of the Senate.
The long shutdown of portions of the American government shares some features with the Brexit impasse that has left the U.K. in a catastrophic stalemate. As this is written, neither system seems capable of building coalitions to execute needed changes. But one system has the better odds: a better structure for moving forward.
From a political and communications perspective, the standoff in the United States is much more predictable than the impasse in the United Kingdom. Here’s why. A communications starting point typically emphasizes direct discussion and negotiation as basic tools for moving a lumbering government off dead center. A parliamentary model has the kind of deliberative infrastructure that requires direct communication. Debate in the House of Commons will not allow members to exist only in their own informational bubbles. The system requires public and frequent contact between key ministers and their shadow counterparts literally just a few feet away. Since the key business of the House is debate, members must be prepared to be effective advocates and better listeners.
British parliamentary debate is often riveting, and it is also public. Granted, positions tend to solidify when spoken in public. Any system emphasizing public discussion can turn intellectual fluidity into hardened cement. But debate in the commons is still better than our ‘no debate’ Congress, which emphasizes “statements” issued mostly for the record rather than the ears of other members.
All of this leads one to expect that Brexit would be closer to resolution than it is. Alas, the problem in London is really not structural, but one of basic leadership. The nation has weak leaders in the form of Prime Minister Theresa May and the Labor Party’s Jeremy Corbyn. May is especially risk-averse and inflexible: precisely the opposite of what seems necessary.
What a comparison of the two systems makes clear is how American divided government lacks any systemic requirement for a public airing of competing political claims.
If it’s possible, the American system right now is even more anemic, having just come off a two-year period with a mostly comatose Congress that had been thoroughly rolled by the President. As is obvious, the checks and balances that are ostensibly part of the system have been absent. Compliant Senate and House majorities have shown little interest in challenging a rogue executive.
More misery in the country was only avoided when enough Americans voted last November, resulting in split party majorities in the two houses of Congress. The House of Representatives will now fulfill the oversight function the founders envisioned. But the GOP-dominated Senate and White House are still sufficiently entrenched to make it difficult to build coalitions to solve problems.
What a comparison of the two systems makes clear is how American divided government lacks any systemic requirement for a public airing of competing political claims. Remember that C-SPAN cameras controlled by both bodies of Congress routinely conceal the truth that few are present when the House and Senate are in session. Elected deciders are usually not in the room to hear the comments of those on the other side. The cameras are never allowed to show empty seats. Instead, we depend mostly on journalists to summarize and sometimes create proxy debates on some core issues. And that’s not journalism’s job.
Journalism is not structured to foster direct one-on-one debate. It is almost never in the interests of news organizations to turn over control of a venue to opposing political figures. To be sure, we have many fine journalists working these days. But routine journalistic practices require the interruption of direct debate. Journalistic norms range from the need for heavy editing in the interests of time or space to a compulsion to introject new issues for discussion before old ones have been fleshed out. Television and ‘short-read’ articles make discursive political discussion problematic.
So it seems clear that the Parliamentary system has the edge in resolving a political impasse. If that judgment is not apparent, try to imagine what would happen to a dithering figure like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell if—as in a parliamentary system–he was required to show up every week and answer questions from Democrats and Republicans in the Senate. There’s a big difference between being a party leader in Congress and being an authentic champion of democratic discourse.
Eventually we will hear of a privately negotiated deal to end the shutdown. That’s our de-facto system, put in place not because of any constitutional requirement, but because we have mostly ignored the collective action of a body of legislators working out their differences in public debate.
