Gentle Persuasion

GRAEME LAWSON

June 9, 2008

 

Since the dawn of human society, the art of persuasion has been just that, a subtle and careful art, used by every man for the better of, somewhat selfishly, himself. The art of persuasion is perfected over age until eventually we become better at it. I have always been gifted in this field, but why is a total mystery. Still, it is a great thing to be gifted in.

 

My most memorable moment in the world of persuasive argument involved my high school principal and the introduction of paintball as a club at the school. I sat down with her on a Wednesday morning to talk about the ramifications of such an organization. We sat in this woman’s office for about two hours while she shot arguments opposing mine across the table, which I countered, in my view, admirably.

           

This leads me to my most important point on the topic of persuasion. People often think that persuasion has no boundaries, so “twisting the truth” so to speak is okay. For me, any conversation in which I have to persuade someone takes on its own challenge for me. I see it as an opportunity to test my intellect and perfect my delivery. Simply put, the art of persuasion is not about lying or about twisting facts to suit your argument. It is about anticipating every single rebuttal and every single counter argument that your opponent is going to make. Persuasion happens when you can appeal to a man’s sense of logic behind his sense of conviction. Persuasion is the art of taking a person’s views, and subtly altering them to make him or her question their belief, once you have that questioning, then you must carefully reiterate your argument to the point at which your opposition begins to fully understand and believe what you have to say. This is how persuasion should work.