Well, that's humbling. I thought the whole point of learning to manipulate others was all about me taking control of my audience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUBbpCX57Uw
Is it fair to think of this as a variant on "the customer is always right," where the audience is my customer?
Or another angle: In business negotiations, we teach/learn that second only to knowing your own walk-away position, the next most important key to success is seeking to understand not the stated positions of the other party, which are useless beyond the insight into who you're dealing with, but the underlying interests of your negotiating partner (and yes, think of them as a partner, rather than an opponent). Knowing what matters to your negotiating partner and sharing what matters to you allows you to build trust and together strive to craft a solution that best addresses both your most important interests and theirs by dropping the pieces that don't matter. If you ever wish to deal with that person again or anyone that person may talk with about you, this also bolsters your reputation for future deals. This doesn't help a lot when price is the only variable (haggling), but for more interesting deals, there are usually dozens of possible variables, and that's where creativity comes in. (The role of rhetoric is left out of this particular negotiation lesson.)
From that perspective, to the extent persuasion is a negotiation with your audience over ideas, taking their listening interests into account would make good sense. You're meeting them on their turf, serving their core interest in listening by using language that appeals to them. Is that a fair interpretation, or does that miss the point?
Well, that's humbling. I thought the whole point of learning to manipulate others was all about me taking control of my audience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUBbpCX57Uw
Is it fair to think of this as a variant on "the customer is always right," where the audience is my customer?
Or another angle: In business negotiations, we teach/learn that second only to knowing your own walk-away position, the next most important key to success is seeking to understand not the stated positions of the other party, which are useless beyond the insight into who you're dealing with, but the underlying interests of your negotiating partner (and yes, think of them as a partner, rather than an opponent). Knowing what matters to your negotiating partner and sharing what matters to you allows you to build trust and together strive to craft a solution that best addresses both your most important interests and theirs by dropping the pieces that don't matter. If you ever wish to deal with that person again or anyone that person may talk with about you, this also bolsters your reputation for future deals. This doesn't help a lot when price is the only variable (haggling), but for more interesting deals, there are usually dozens of possible variables, and that's where creativity comes in. (The role of rhetoric is left out of this particular negotiation lesson.)
From that perspective, to the extent persuasion is a negotiation with your audience over ideas, taking their listening interests into account would make good sense. You're meeting them on their turf, serving their core interest in listening by using language that appeals to them. Is that a fair interpretation, or does that miss the point?