Personally, the reason I find “persuasion” somewhat off-putting is that I don’t want to be persuaded unless I end up with a more accurate or beneficial perspective than before. That said, if two open-minded people are not sure whose perspective is better, I think that there is a place for a non-combative discussion in which arguments are weighed against each other. I’m not sure what word describes that situation better than “discussion,” though.
I agree. There really isn’t a perfect term, unfortunately. It seems to pack together these ideas:
Rightness: “having a good idea worth spreading”
Activism: “trying to persuade”
Compellingness: “trying to be effective in persuasion”
Open-mindedness: “being receptive to persuasion”
Susceptibility: “being easier to persuade”
I think there are two contradictory models of what needs to be done in our society.
One model has it that we have too much persuasion and too much social learning. Most people need to learn how to think for themselves, as individuals, from the ground up. A “culture of persuasion” would be actively destructive. Too few people know how to reason at all. If they got better at persuading others, the effect on net would be to collectively worsen our capacity for reason.
My model has it that we have too little persuasion and social learning. Instead, what we have is a lot of mutually-imposed isolation, which chills individual thought, breeding a sense of futility and close-minded resentment. A “culture of persuasion” would be positive, because it would imply that people are earnestly trying to figure out what would be mutually convincing, rather than what would get other people to give in or shut up. Indeed, too few people know how to reason at all. But if they got better at persuading others, the net effect would be to collectively improve our capacity to reason because they’d have to be making efforts to understand other people, and to make themselves understood.
My guess is that differences of opinion about word choice are just a symptom of this more important difference in how people model the state of our social world and what would be good for it.
I agree, it does have that connotation, and it also has the implication of a peaceful conversation. A “culture of dialog” doesn’t sound bad. I guess that for me, “dialog” just doesn’t get my attention. I think that for an open-ended, evocative phrase to work, it has to be sort of vivid. Maybe that’s why I like “persuasion.”
Personally, the reason I find “persuasion” somewhat off-putting is that I don’t want to be persuaded unless I end up with a more accurate or beneficial perspective than before. That said, if two open-minded people are not sure whose perspective is better, I think that there is a place for a non-combative discussion in which arguments are weighed against each other. I’m not sure what word describes that situation better than “discussion,” though.
I agree. There really isn’t a perfect term, unfortunately. It seems to pack together these ideas:
Rightness: “having a good idea worth spreading”
Activism: “trying to persuade”
Compellingness: “trying to be effective in persuasion”
Open-mindedness: “being receptive to persuasion”
Susceptibility: “being easier to persuade”
I think there are two contradictory models of what needs to be done in our society.
One model has it that we have too much persuasion and too much social learning. Most people need to learn how to think for themselves, as individuals, from the ground up. A “culture of persuasion” would be actively destructive. Too few people know how to reason at all. If they got better at persuading others, the effect on net would be to collectively worsen our capacity for reason.
My model has it that we have too little persuasion and social learning. Instead, what we have is a lot of mutually-imposed isolation, which chills individual thought, breeding a sense of futility and close-minded resentment. A “culture of persuasion” would be positive, because it would imply that people are earnestly trying to figure out what would be mutually convincing, rather than what would get other people to give in or shut up. Indeed, too few people know how to reason at all. But if they got better at persuading others, the net effect would be to collectively improve our capacity to reason because they’d have to be making efforts to understand other people, and to make themselves understood.
My guess is that differences of opinion about word choice are just a symptom of this more important difference in how people model the state of our social world and what would be good for it.
It seems to me the word “dialog” may be appropriate: to me it has the connotation of reaching out to people you may not normally interact with.
I agree, it does have that connotation, and it also has the implication of a peaceful conversation. A “culture of dialog” doesn’t sound bad. I guess that for me, “dialog” just doesn’t get my attention. I think that for an open-ended, evocative phrase to work, it has to be sort of vivid. Maybe that’s why I like “persuasion.”