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Comments: The World Development Movement lambasts

"rhetoric can be defined as "the art or study of using language effectively and persuasively" - Daily Summit wonders why any speaker would want to avoid this sin..."

Seeking to persuade rather than inform is counterproductive. It can help a salesperson sell or a politician get elected but it hinders informed decision making. Informed participants in the summit may go home and do the right thing by applying their new insights to particular situations. Persuaded participants are more likely to go home and persuade someone else, in ever increasingly vague though forceful terms, but are less likely to be able to do useful things.

Persuasion closes minds by weaving a web of false certainty, by artfully overcoming objections and exceptions with clever phrasing designed to make those having good sales resistance feel dull or mean to object.

Far better we should ask excellent questions that free minds to consider issues and consequences than to exert suasion to direct behavior or thought. The intellectually honest approach is to present evidence observed and patterns perceived to others and benefit from their reactions and conclusions. The chances are great that the many will have better understandings and reactions than the few.

Posted by back40 on September 2, 2002 05:27 PM

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