A persuasive occasion has four trenches.

Known as "status theory," they're key to any argument over dishwasher loading.

The other morning, my wife and I held one of our arguments over the dishwasher. Among committed couples, the dishwasher—specifically, loading the damn thing—ranks among the key topics for debate. This makes me wonder what people talked about before the invention of that machine. Germ theory? The transmigration of souls?

This time, my wife had violated one of our most sacred household norms: She had loaded the dishwasher herself. What’s more, she got angry with me. I found the injustice hard to bear.

While in most respects Dorothy is more practical than I am—she’s the one who can explain to workmen our 1810 farmhouse’s idiosyncrasies—I happen to be a master of dishwasher loading. A properly loaded dishwasher saves energy as well as time. (If I have to explain why, then frankly you should not be permitted that responsibility.) To me, it’s also a matter of esthetics, and even moral righteousness. When everything is in its place, the world is set aright. So what was there to argue about?

The evening before, I had gone to bed without loading the final dishes, leaving a few on the kitchen counter. I find it more efficient to let dishes accumulate somewhat. She, on the other hand, passionately believes in an empty counter.

Next morning, spotting the offending dishes, Dorothy put them—or likely threw them—into the dishwasher. Later, she saw me taking the dishes out and reloading them properly. I may have sighed, and possibly said some things…I don’t remember.

Then she attacked. “You left a mess last night!” And she possibly said some other things that I won’t share since she subscribes to this post.

Let the rhetoric begin. I immediately engaged a set of tools called “status theory,” invented by an ancient Greek rhetorician named Hermagoras.

While status theory has traditionally been used as a form of defense, it’s also a great way to assess any persuasion situation—the “rhetorical occasion,” as we say in the persuasion biz. Whenever you want to know what to say in a confrontation or essay, or even in a lawsuit, you need to assess the occasion: Who’s the audience and what do they believe? What’s the frame—what’s the issue really about? What’s the status of the issue?

The best way to think about status theory is to see it in terms of trenches.

First trench: Fact. If the facts work for you, and your audience believes those facts, then center your argument on the facts. In the case of the Dishes Incident, the facts were not in my favor. The dishes had been left behind, and I was clearly responsible. So, in order to stay in the battle, I had to fall back to the next trench.

Second trench: Definition. If the facts don’t work—the evidence is against you, or the audience fails to agree with your notion of reality—then redefine the terms.

Dorothy: You left a mess last night!

Me: How do you define “mess”? A few harmless dishes? That’s your idea of chaos?

Unfortunately, Dorothy blew right past my trench, informing me that no dish should ever be left over night for potential ants and mice. I had to retreat again.

Third trench: Quality. How bad or good is the situation? A courtroom lawyer will use the Quality defense when facts and definition aren’t on the defendant’s side. “Yes, my client gave that small bag of marijuana to a classmate. And, yes, he received money in exchange. But it was a harmless amount of cannabis, and worth only five dollars.” I employed the Quality trench in a similar fashion.

Me: Oh, come on! Those dishes hardly even counted as dirty. A glass or two. A few dishes with so little dirt that a mouse would starve.

Dorothy: Dishes should not be left on the counter overnight!

There was nothing for it but to fall back to the final trench.

Fourth trench: Relevance. In legal terms, “relevance” gets translated as “standing.” A lawsuit gets dismissed if the litigants can’t prove they were personally harmed. For the rest of us, I like to think of Relevance in terms of priority. How relevant is this case to our actual lives? How important is it?

Me: We have a critical election in two weeks. The Middle East is exploding. We’re seeing ticks in the Fall—in the Fall, Dorothy, for the first time ever, a clear sign of global climate disaster. And here we are nattering about a few dishes. We should feel ashamed of ourselves.

No, of course I didn’t win that argument. Since then, I’ve been careful to load the dishwasher before going to bed. Still, I find Status Theory useful in any kind of rhetorical situation, whether in politics or philosophical conversation or in my writing.

Even before constructing an outline, anyone planning to write a paper, deliver a talk, or present a proposal should check off the status elements—or trenches—of an occasion: Fact, Definition, Quality, Relevance. Get the facts and sources straight. Make sure you’ve used the proper terms and defined them in ways the aid your argument. If appropriate, assess the moral quality of the issue. And convince the audience of that issue’s paramount importance. Not necessarily in that order. You still need to do an outline, unless you’re in an argument with a significant other; in which case we’re talking trench warfare.

So, yeah, I lost. I had been defeated but left the field with dignity and—no mean feat—with our marriage intact.