FauxItAlls. Eating the menu. ‘Pataphysicians. Tooth Fairies. And now a new one! A NYT book reviewer comments on the weakly regarded, Bringing Up Bebe, a book that badly exclaims French mothers are better than American mothers at raising children.

But it’s as if being a parent in another culture had made everything the mamans say sound revelatory to Ms. Druckerman. It’s the linguistic equivalent of wearing beer goggles.

I like “beer goggles” plus a modifier since it more strongly implies a temporary derangement rather than the Fundamental Attribution Error (the actor, not the situation) in terms like ‘Pataphysician or FauxItAll which imply a trait of the person.

P.S. The author of Bringing Up Bebe is a WSJ loyalist while the castigating review appears in the NYT. Both sources use their platform to sell books – see Malcolm Gladwell as the poster boy for this. This is like the real old good old days of newspapers when they functioned as political rags and fought each other over elections and government. Now, newspapers are reduced to mocking each other’s pop books. Isn’t it terrible when technology reveals your reality: No, you aren’t pretty, smart, or sexy; you just had a technology monopoly that is gone with the newsprint.

Take me to the river
Drop me in the water
Take me to the river
Dip me in the water
Wash me down, wash me down
Wash me down, wash me down

Everyone knows the need and the feeling. Please, take me to the river and wash it all away, the failure, the confusion, the pain. Al Green wrote it, but the Talking Heads (YouTube) sang it best. Begin.

I don’t know why I love you like I do
All the changes you put me through
Take my money, my cigarettes
I haven’t seen the worst of it yet
I wanna know, can you tell me
I’d really like to stay

I love you which means I take you for who you are and in return how do you love me? You change me. And the change is not natural, a change that arises from love, but rather is a change that you put me through, like wet clothes through a wringer. Then, you take my money. You take my cigarettes. My cigarettes! And, I know worse will follow.

I don’t know why you treat me so bad
Think of all the things that we could have had
Love is an ocean I can’t forget
my sweet sixteen I will never regret
I wanna know, can you tell me
I’d really like to stay

My love for you is an ocean, warm, flowing, eternal, and you treat me so bad, taking away by what you give. Yet, I’ll never regret, still I’d like to know, I really want to stay . . . take me to the river.

Now. What is The River?

When she’s taking your cigarettes and you still love her without regrets . . . that’s the result of dissonance arousal and following dissonance reduction. And here we see that The River is a metaphor for this persuasion process. The boy loves her with the ocean, but she takes his money and his cigarettes with worse on the list yet unsung. The boy sings

I wanna know, can you tell me
I’d really like to stay . . .

Take me to the river.

That three line sequence reveals it all. After cataloging the aversive consequences, freely and continually chosen, the boy feels the pain of disconfirmation and rejection. To endure, he needs The River.

Drop me in the water
Take me to the river
Dip me in the water
Wash me down, wash me down
Wash me down, wash me down

When you freely chose among options, a path that leads to pain and suffering you will experience dissonance. Dissonance arousal provides the impetus for its own resolution. Change the path, and those aversive consequences, or stay on the path but with a new state of mind. And that new state of mind can only arise from dissonance reduction.

Take me to the river, drop me in the water, wash me down and out emerges a new boy ready to see the worst of it still.

The Girl In The Red Kimono, by George Hendrik Breitner, Kodak photo (left) and painting (right). Persuasion in pictures.

People acclaim George Clooney as a fabulously attractive man.

And looking at Clooney’s surface, you obtain a surface understanding of his persuasion source: Physical Attractiveness! As a Cue a guy like Clooney can’t be beat; If The Source Is Good Looking, Do What He Says.

Yet, if you scan the Primer and the CLARCCS Cues chapter, you don’t find Physical Attractiveness as one of those primary tools. Comparison, Liking, Authority, Reciprocity, Commitment/Consistency, and Scarcity glide past good looks with nary a glance.

How can something as obvious as this not have its own persuasion chapter?

Because good looks only persuade through positive affect. If you aren’t likeable, your good looks won’t close the deal.

Certainly pretty boys and girls can get your attention, but attention is not the final TACT, only an upstream precursor and not the downstream goal you seek. You realize that in large part Clooney succeeds with his fabulous good looks because he is fabulously likeable. He plays well with others, boys and girls, being both a Man’s Man and a Woman’s Man, too, with no tension in between. Clooney’s a guy anyone would want as a friend under any circumstances with his fabulous good looks as a fabulous side effect.

Realize another persuasion lesson with Clooney: Function. You can use good looks in the Cascade at that Reception and Exposure stage. Good looks arrest attention and start the Cascade. Now realize that those good looks alone cannot sustain the rest of the Cascade, especially with the behavior change you seek, unless those good looks also carry good feelings with them. Thus, you can use the Beautiful Jerk on a billboard, but friendly and optionally attractive sales associates on the floor with the product.

Neil Young wrote it and sang it with Buffalo Springfield  (YouTube).  The opening lyric exactly expresses the act of persuasion.

Oh hello, Mr. Soul, I dropped by to pick up a reason.
For the thought that I’d caught in my head is the event of the season.
Why in crowds just a trace of my face should seem so pleasin’.
I’ll cop to the change but a stranger is putting the tease on.

“A stranger is putting the tease on” nicely sings the Rule:

All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere.

P.S.  Hey, kids.  Neil Young, the artist, is a stranger putting the tease on.  Consider that.

P.P.S. Guitar players know why the song riff sounds like a couple of Rolling Stones songs (Satisfaction, Let’s Spend the Night Together), plus other near hits. It’s in E with a movement from B to C# to D, a classic blues boogie line. You can show newbies that trick and within a couple of minutes they sound like a blues man. It’s hard to get good on guitar (just listen to me play!), but it’s easy to get okay which explains why you see so many guitars in people’s houses.