Persuasion

Matt Miller has an absolutely ridiculous view on persuasion. In his passage “Is Persuasion Dead?” he has the notion that the swaying of someone’s opinion through a well thought out, logical argument is a dead art, and that any such examples that may exist in the modern world are those done solely for the purpose to win. My problem with this is that the entire basis of persuasion is founded on the goal of winning. Of course people want to win, that’s how manipulation was first invented. And I don’t see how it can even be called dead in the first place. The vast majority of people will use persuasion multiple times a day in their everyday lives for an assortment of things. Whether it be to get someone to pass them the chips, or as important as a business proposal. Persuasion comes in a wide variety of ways and is put into effect by everything from body language to how sentences are formed. To say that it is dead is borderline blasphemy.
But if Mr. Miller is in fact referring to the issue of the only form of persuasion left in society is “not to persuade but to win,” then this is equally ridiculous. What other purpose would an ability like changing how a person views something other than to convert them to a certain belief. What sense would it make to defer people from your viewpoints? Of course persuasion is about winning, because that is what life is about. People have only come this far because of coming out on top; survival of the fittest. It all comes down to the fact that if one doesn’t play to win, one will lose.
As for Kathleen Parker and her “Seeking Balance in an Either-Or World,” I think that she might be on to something. While I am in absolute full support of a person being completely aware in what their beliefs are and why they believe them, I do not see why that can’t be somewhere in the middle of two extremes. That is exactly why they are called extremes in the first place, because they are too strong on one side to base beliefs off of. She brings up a great point in the fact that people in this day and age will condemn anyone that falls within the middle of two sides of an argument. Each side of a party will refuse any sort of compromise because it makes them look wrong in their beliefs. The problem with this is that people will join a side, be it in politics, religion, or even war, and not know why they are in that position or even the reason they joined in the first place. People can get caught up in the moment of an idea and never actually determine what they really believe in. I find it hard to believe that we can have so many people adamant to the death about their extreme view on politics. It would be insane to think that so many people were seriously that extreme. I think it should become more socially acceptable to believe in different parts of two sides, at which point everyone might do it. Compromise might just be the answer to so many of the problems the world has.