Get your swing ding-a-ling on . . .

. . . Machiavelli adheres forever with persuasion as both description and prescription.  To persuade is to be like Mach and to persuade well is to make Machiavelli proud.  Machs exhibit no ideological commitments, possess a cynical take on human nature, follow a heartless calculation toward other people, and display a marked disregard for conventional morality.  “Git ‘er done, baby” could be the popular homespun saying, properly twisted.

Academic studies of Machiavellianism paint a dark and dangerous portrait.  Those infected with Mach qualities find themselves classified as pathological and can read detailed descriptions of themselves in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the bible of deviance for clinicians and insurance companies.  And, those who elude capture, but range free in the world like Hannibal Lector between incarcerations, can find themselves quantified in journal reports with Normal Machs who reveal their dark side in Prisoner’s Dilemmas, the Ten Dollar Game, and blasts of white noise.

Of course, it also helps when you invent a Machiavelli that does not exist.  If you read the original Mach IV scale that measures the contemporary meaning of Machiavellianism then compare it to to what Machiavelli wrote, you wonder whether the scale authors were academics or poets.  The Prince is much more subtle than hammers on the thumb like,

“One should take action only when sure it is morally right,”

“Most people are basically good and kind,”

“Honesty is the best policy in all cases,”

“There is no excuse for lying to someone else.”

Certainly anyone who scores High Bad on statements like this is someone to examine carefully for either poison or a bad sense of humor.  They might even be crazy.  But, persuasive?  Manipulative, even?

And while it is good to despise pathology – but, isn’t that a tautology – it is free riding to savage those who save the city from predators.  Machiavelli should not be acknowledged as a bastard, but our bastard, but as a deep thinker on the means of survival, success, and succor for all, including those who would carp, criticize, and cavil all the way to a death camp.

Consider from the Dark Source itself, The Prince, with Machiavelli describing the case of the notorious tyrant, Agathocles:

Yet it cannot be called talent to slay fellow-citizens, to deceive friends, to be without faith, without mercy, without religion; such methods may gain empire, but not glory. . .  Nevertheless, his barbarous cruelty and inhumanity with infinite wickednesses do not permit him to be celebrated among the most excellent men. What he achieved cannot be attributed either to fortune or to genius.

And, now, a different source, but still Machiavelli’s thought:

“All cities that ever, at any time, have been ruled by an absolute prince, by aristocrats, or by the people, have had for their protection force combined with prudence, because the latter is not enough alone, and the first either does not produce things, or when they are produced, does not maintain them.  Force and prudence, then, are the might of all the governments that ever have been or will be in the world.”

from “Words to be Spoken on the Law for Appropriating Money”, in Chief Works and Others [of Machiavelli], trans. Allan H. Gilbert, 3 vols. (Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, 1965), v. III, 1439.

Prudence operationalizes itself through power and persuasion.  This is pathology?  This is dangerous?  Even Jesus admonished the Disciples to spread the Gospel, but wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove . . .

. . . or blues out with Mr. Armstrong . . .

President Obama is selectively releasing his email, both personal and professional, to the press and hence the world at large.  You can read a sampling at the British newspaper website, the Guardian.  First, all the caveats that this is only a sampling and it’s selected and you don’t know the context, yada-yada.  But consider this reply to Secretary of Defense Gates on the issue of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the military.

To: Robert Gates <secretary@defense.mil>
Subject: Re: New CBS poll on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell etc

Wait, wait, what? A much larger proportion of Americans support “gay men and lesbians” serving openly in the military than “homosexuals” serving openly in the military? That’s ridiculous. Sometimes I think half the people in this country need to check their homes for low-level carbon monoxide leakages. So do you think we could push this through with 100% Republican support if we said it was about “confirmed bachelors” and “ladies with close female companions”? Jeez. BHO

I am surprised at the President’s reaction and that he would allow this out in the open.  It betrays a tone deafness to persuasion.  Can you imagine Bill Clinton releasing this?  Or even George W. Bush?  Consider the Rules.

It’s about the Other Guy, Stupid.

If the Other Guy feels one way about Gays ‘n Lesbians and another way about Homosexuals, go with it.  You’re not selling your soul to the Devil with this kind of wording preference.  You might recall a recent post where NPR and some of their audiences got touched off because the new Census form included the term, “Negro,” in its survey.  Words matter to the Other Guy and if you want to persuade them (which the Census bureau does not want to do with NPR, but what Mr. Obama does want to do with the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy) then use the words the Other Guy gets.

All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere.

Gee, it appears that President Obama has a low opinion of the intelligence of people who disagree with him over word preference.  How sincere.  How authentic.  How losing.  Where’s any kind of persuasion skill in this?

If You Can’t Succeed, Don’t Try.

My best guess is that the American public would largely support a change in DoD policy on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”  We’re a different country today than in 1993 when the policy first arose.  But, if the Persuader-in-Chief is going to blunder around like this, he might jam defeat into the jaws of victory.

This is a great example of awful persuasion.  It certainly does nothing to polish Obama’s image as a great persuader.

If you haven’t yet, please read TRADOC Pamphlet 525-3-0, The Army Capstone Concept (through Small Wars Journal here).  If you are a civilian with an interest in persuasion, consider it as a learning opportunity to understand how the world’s largest and most powerful organization thinks and plans.  If you are military, you need to read the pamphlet for both what it contains and what it seeks.  In this post, I want to work from a close analysis of General Martin Dempsey’s Foreword to the Pamphlet.

Ideas matter.  Emerging from specific human, historical, and technological contexts, ideas affect understanding and influence behavior.  Ideas can serve as the driving force behind significant institutional change.  Because the need for change will always be with us, the exchange of ideas and conceptual development must be among our top priorities.

This paragraph argues that if you can change ideas, you can change people in directions you desire.  But, how do you change behavior?  Persuasion uses communication to change how freely choosing people think, feel, and act.

The purpose of TRADOC Pam 525-3-0, The Army Capstone Concept Operational Adaptability—Operating Under Conditions of Uncertainty and Complexity in an Era of Persistent Conflict, is to describe the broad capabilities the Army will require in 2016-2028. It provides a guide to how the Army will apply available resources to overcome adaptive enemies and accomplish challenging missions. TRADOC Pam 525-3-0 articulates how to think about future armed conflict within an uncertain and complex environment. It provides a foundation for a campaign of learning and analysis that will evaluate and refine the concept’s major ideas and required capabilities. Ultimately, prioritized capabilities that emerge from this concept and subordinate, more detailed concepts will guide changes in doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leader development and programs related to the human dimension for our Army.

As part of the “Campaign of Learning and Analysis” I’d like to suggest the principles, concepts, and skills of persuasion as an organized, coherent, and tested body of knowledge.  Persuasion is not a brand name, but rather an extremely old and well studied area of inquiry.  It explains and reveals human nature whether that human nature operates in a marketplace or a theater.

The aim of Army operations is to set conditions that achieve or facilitate the achievement of policy goals and objectives. Future enemies will constantly adapt and seek ways to overcome Army strengths and capitalize on what they perceive as our vulnerabilities. We operate where our enemies, indigenous populations, culture, politics, and religion intersect and where the fog and friction of war persists. The U.S. Army must maintain its core competency of conducting effective combined arms operations in close combat to employ defeat and stability mechanisms against a variety of threats. The U.S. Army must also hone its ability to integrate joint and interagency assets, develop the situation through action, and adjust rapidly to changing situations to achieve what this concept defines as operational adaptability.

“Under Conditions of Uncertainty and Complexity” is the key idea of this paragraph.  While war always involves uncertainty and complexity, we are clearly transitioning from more familiar forms of war (World War I and II) into something less familiar.  Stated another way, uncertainty and complexity in war is even more uncertain and complex in this transition as we discover what the rest of the world is going to do in relation to the overwhelming US power.  Persuasion is the prime form of human thought and action under conditions of uncertainty and complexity.  If you are certain, you don’t persuade; you inform or you power.  If you have simplicity, you don’t persuade; you unload on schedule.  Persuasion is how you make your way through the fog and friction “Under Conditions of Uncertainty and Complexity.”  You use persuasion principles to plan, to generate support, and to coordinate partners, resources, and action.  You use persuasion to test, manipulate, and shape uncertainty and complexity to make the problem before you less uncertain and more simple.

Operational adaptability requires a mindset based on flexibility of thought calling for leaders at all levels who are comfortable with collaborative planning and decentralized execution, have a tolerance for ambiguity, and possess the ability and willingness to make rapid adjustments according to the situation. Operational adaptability is essential to developing situational understanding and seizing, retaining, and exploiting the initiative under a broad range of conditions. Operational adaptability is also critical to developing the coercive and persuasive skills the Army will need to assist friends, reassure and protect populations, and to identify, isolate, and defeat enemies.

The essence of “Operational Adaptability and Flexibility” is expressed in three persuasion Rules:  It’s about the Other Guy, Stupid; All Persuasion Is Local; and All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere.  If you live with uncertainty and complexity AND you have to solve problems with and through other people, you can learn how to adapt and flex through persuasion principles and skills.  Indeed, the essence of effective practical persuasion is Adaptation and Flexibility in the face of Uncertainty and Complexity.  Stated another way, if you can persuade, you are adaptable and flexible.

Although the Army must continue to develop technology to meet future challenges, we must emphasize the integration of technology into capable formations commanded by innovative leaders who are comfortable operating under conditions of ambiguity and uncertainty. To maximize the potential of technological developments, we must conscientiously evolve and adapt capabilities based on changes in threat capabilities and the operational environment.

We now add the challenges of Technology to our previous issues of Uncertainty and Complexity.  Does persuasion have anything to offer here?  Persuasion shows you how to master and innovate with technology within existing and proven persuasion principles and skills.  Realize that no one any longer talks about Marshall McLuhan and the Medium Is the Message, as if a new technological device is a new form of human nature.  New technologies bundle old elements of human nature into different combinations, but the new technologies do not change those elements of human nature.  Technology is beautiful when you understand that is a new way of combining old things.

We must be prepared to decentralize operations to adapt to complex and rapidly changing situations. Yet, organizational or physical decentralization alone may be insufficient to meet the challenges of the future. Leaders throughout our future force must have both the authority as well as the judgment to make decisions and develop the situation through action. Critical thinking by Soldiers and their leaders will be essential to achieve the trust and wisdom implicit in such authority. The training and education of our entire force must aim to develop the mindset and requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities required to operate effectively under conditions of uncertainty and complexity.

This paragraph implies that we are each that advertised Army of One.  One person in one moment doing the one thing can be decisive.  What training helps make the Army of One we seek?  Persuasion.

To achieve clarity in thinking about future armed conflict, it is critical that our Army evaluate and discuss the implications of the ideas presented in this concept. Our language must be clear and our logic must be precise. While TRADOC Pam 525-3-0 lays the conceptual foundation for Army modernization, it is only a beginning of an ongoing campaign of learning.

Much of TRADOC Pam 525-3-0 will strike experienced readers as old wine in new skins or perhaps as a discernible new adaptation in the evolution of the Army.  Where do you direct your personal campaign of learning about Uncertainty, Complexity, Technology, the “Army of One,” and the rest?  Please consider persuasion.

Finally, recall this post’s title:  Capstones without Persuasion are like Good Strategy with Bad Tactics.  Persuasion is not a Magic Bullet, never has been, and never will be.  It is a specific set of ideas and practices aimed at one important element of human nature:  People can change solely through planned words.  Persuasion understands why and how people change through communication, but is deaf, dumb, and mute when it comes to determining what should be changed.  Persuasion is a tool of strategy, but it is not a strategy in itself.  Do not read this post as Snake Oil from a civilian in a blue suit.  Although, I’ve got a book for sale and I do train for hire . . . but so do a lot of other persuasion folks.

Every citizen of the US should read the Quadrennial Defense Review.  It describes in clear, general, and surprisingly open language how Defense sees its job and how to do it.

As I read the QDR I am once again struck at the explicit and implicit need for persuasion skill in military administration, planning, and operations and I’m not talking about promotion through the ranks, wrangling a project through Congress, or the revolving door with contractors.  DoD is moving away from the Cold War posture of massive destruction based in a large, centralized force to a Small War posture based in a small, decentralized force.  Smaller groups of highly trained men and women equipped with state of the art technology will now operate in close contact with .  .  . civilian populations to handle threats.  Defense will always confront the enemy in close combat, but the functions of that confrontation are different.

One big functional difference is social communication.  Warriors are and will spend a lot more time talking with the Other Guys and Bad Guys about soccer, garbage removal, juvenile delinquents, market prices, and on and on, the eternal conversation on the street, over the fence, or standing in the shade on a hot day.  Yes, warriors will still carry weapons during those conversations and sometimes they will use them, but most of the time, no.

So, what do you do with all that time, all that talk, all that standing in the shade on a hot day?

Recall the Rule:  You Can Get Farther with a Kind Word and a Gun than with Either Alone.  In civilian company the Gun is a metaphor for some power beyond words:  Promotion, pay raise, budget, access, status, and on and on.  In military company, the Kind Word is a metaphor for persuasion:  Using communication to change a freely choosing Other Guy.  As I read the QDR, I see Defense moving closer to Kind Words and Guns and away from Guns alone.

With Guns, the prime consideration is always the initiative.  Get it, keep it, and ride it.  With Kind Words, the prime consideration is also the initiative and you get it with persuasion.  Persuasion is operationalized strategy, the sharp end of the stick struck forward by an intentional act.  Persuasion imposes your will upon the Other Guy just as surely as a bullet, bomb, or bayonet.

Defense can revise oncoming field manuals, regulations, and policies to include the overt use of persuasion.  Sure, you can call me, but I’m not selling my idea, I’m pushing the field of persuasion and it contains many excellent people.  A small combined team of persuasion and military personnel could generate the pathways of persuasion consistent with the effective application of the Rule:

You Can Get Farther with a Kind Word and a Gun than with Either Alone.

Dry Vodka Martini

• 1 shot, journalism
• 1 dash, persuasion
  
• 1 ice filled shaker
• stir in shaker, pour, then enjoy!

Lady Gaga’s Great and Insincere Persuasion

I lost my manufactured pop culture street cred when I stopped teaching my large lecture Mass Media course in 1998.  Til then I had a relentless focus on the hipster world because it connected my students to the course and functioned as a hook to grab their Reception, then as a WATTage switch to get them to Process communication theory and research.  Just as a man will do anything if he thinks it’s foreplay, students will listen to anything if they think it’s groovy, gear, and fab.

Now, as an aging FauxHipster, even I can see the pop success of Lady Gaga when the Wall Street Journal (!!!) gives her the star treatment.  If you want a great demonstration of the truth behind All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere, now hear this:  At the Simon Cowell standard of cruel honesty, Lady Gaga cannot sing, cannot dance, and cannot pose, but she can persuade the world to think her a Icon which means there’s nothing sincere about her.

She’s great!

But, will she last as long as the last one with Blonde Ambition who showed such Great Insincerity?

Mojo Times?

The Sunday New York Times today is one of the best editions of that paper since Pinch Sulzburger took over and nearly destroyed it.  The paper is readable from <p> to </p> for every page.  Perhaps they’ve recovered from their Bush Derangement?  Once nothing but Biased Processing and Sincere Persuasion, the Grey Lady is gorgeous.

Today.

Auteurism at Apple:  Sincerity?

Great feature on Steve Jobs at Apple and the Auteur of Innovation.  Here’s the key persuasion point:

Apple represents the “auteur model of innovation,” observes John Kao, a consultant to corporations and governments on innovation. In the auteur model, he said, there is a tight connection between the personality of the project leader and what is created. Movies created by powerful directors, he says, are clear examples, from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” to James Cameron’s “Avatar.”

I’m uncertain how to understand Apple.  Apple and Jobs attracts admiration from the Cool Table, but the Cool Table is rarely persuasive.  Magnetic, yes.  It attracts those who are attracted to it which is not nearly the same thing as persuasive which means you change the Other Guy rather than draw Other Guys who are Just Like You.

You see this in Apple’s market share.  They get the Sophisticate Slice, but nothing like the Microsoft Masses.  For example, if I wanted to win an election or a war, I wouldn’t ask Steve Jobs for advice (unless, of course, the election or the war only involved the Cool Table).  I would ask Bill Gates.  Look at Mr. Gates work with vaccine production and distribution.  This is a guy who really thinks big and important.

Apple and Jobs reek with Sincerity.  Granted they are cool, hip, beautiful, sleek, graceful, innovative, and on and on.  But sincere.

Obama’s Persuasion Crisis

The Chinese ideograph for Crisis contains both Danger and Opportunity and the NYT offers a great perspective piece that embraces the dynamic tension Obama faces here.

Mr. Obama rode into office on one of the most elegant narratives in recent campaign history: that he was the embodiment of hope and change. It caught the national mood, yet remained vague enough to mean pretty much whatever a voter wanted it to mean.

The Times writer then notes various challenges to this Image. Reverse Bush, but Surge Afghanistan; help the people, but bailout the banks; and so on.  The writer then unhelpfully quotes a White House perspective.

The White House largely dismisses the warnings. “The president has had a consistent political narrative since the day he stepped on the national stage in 2004,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director. “The interpretation of it is cyclical.”

I noted that Mr. Obama lost his way on the Persuasion Path last summer and think he remains lost.

Forever Green, Forget the Price

You can recharge your cell phone with a solar panel device that uses Ms. Sunshine instead of Mr. Coal.  It only costs $99, but it comes with a bag so you can tote and charge on sunny days.  Pouty lipped model not included, although this technology may be a Chick Magnet.  Solar is sooo hot with Pouty Lipped women, isn’t it?

It costs about a penny to recharge the bad way (look it up).  That’s 9900 solar charges which equals over 27 years of coal charges.  Purple faced advocates:  Yes, this is too simple.  Yes, you are complex.  You are smart.  Yes, you are right.  But, of course, It’s about the Other Guy, so who cares about you?

Go long on Green when you can put it in a box and make profit for yourself.

Money, Politics, and Attitudes

Fun report on an interesting money study.  Researchers looked at how people handled their investments depending upon whether their political party was in or out of power.  You invest differently if Your Team is running things compared to when the Other Team is running things.

One of the primary findings concerned the relationship between investors’ political optimism and their propensity to hold domestic stocks. When their preferred political party came to power, investors tended to become much more upbeat about the economy and the domestic stock market.

Now, of course, there’s no good economic reason to do this.  It’s a matter of your political power perception making you feel differently about the stock market.

For Patrick

My nephew, Patrick, is a talented musician who plays the sax and wants to pursue a career in music.  We often discuss the paucity of sax pieces in the classical music repertoire.  Well, Patrick, here’s a nice Times story about Prism and how they’ve handled the problem.

Keep on moving, folks.  No persuasion here.  Just sax, but no violins.

Race and Persuasion

“I KNOW there is nothing a white person can say to a black person about race which is not both incorrect and offensive,” James Spader’s hard-driving lawyer says in the new David Mamet play, “Race.” “I know that. Race is the most incendiary topic in our history. And the moment it comes out, you cannot close the lid on that box. That may change. But not for a long long while.”

Makes it tough to write a review which, of course, is an exercise in applied persuasion.

Osama ‘Bama Wanna-be

Omar Hammami had every right to flash his magnetic smile. He had just been elected president of his sophomore class. He was dating a luminous blonde, one of the most sought-after girls in school. He was a star in the gifted-student program, with visions of becoming a surgeon. For a 15-year-old, he had remarkable charisma.

Great personality profile on an American boy, Alabama boy to boot, who’s now in Somalia leading Al Qaeda boys in jihad.

632,500

Read all about it.

Remember the Clinton Triangulation Persuasion Tactic?

Clinton would pick an issue and a position on that issue that tended to drive key audiences away from their normal allies and toward Mr. Clinton.  School uniforms to instill discipline in students, for example, is an outstanding example of Triangulation Persuasion.  The idea sounds kind of conservative, but only in a symbolic way; however, if you’re not thinking too carefully, the idea appeals to a conservative.  They move closer to Mr. Clinton and farther away from Republicans.  Triangulation.  (It’s based on Balance Theory by Fritz Heider and someday I’ll explain that.)

Now, what’s the Persuasion Triangulation here?

Bin Laden Rebukes U.S. on Climate Change

By JACK HEALY
Published: January 29, 2010

Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, blamed the United States and developed countries for not halting climate change and said that the global economy should immediately abandon its reliance on the American dollar, according to an audiotape released Friday by the broadcaster Al Jazeera.

1.  He’s running for office as the One World Green Party candidate.

2. He’s no longer receiving Oil Money for his financing and is now free to criticize the former hand that fed?

3. He’s never heard of China?

4. He’s holding Gold Stocks and expects a return to the Gold Standard?  (Is he in combination with arbitrage traders like George Soros?)

5. He’s trying to make President Obama look like President Bush?

I can’t decide whether this is smart or the desperate play of someone living too long in caves.

Dry Vodka Martini

• 1 shot, journalism
• 1 dash, persuasion,
  
• 1 ice filled shaker
• stir in shaker, pour, then enjoy!

Low WATT Is Dangerous for your Health

People prefer stories to numbers, so no wonder no one believes me about WATTage, your Willingness and Ability to Think, the prime persuasion variable, because I tell the story with numbers in a feeble and worried attempt to prove the credibility of persuasion research, and perhaps my own.  Sigh.  Here’s the story on Low WATT:

SAN FRANCISCO — On the day of the collision last month, visibility was good. The sidewalk was not under repair. As she walked, Tiffany Briggs, 25, was talking to her grandmother on her cellphone, lost in conversation.

Very lost.

“I ran into a truck,” Ms. Briggs said.

It was parked in a driveway.

The NYT story then skillfully weaves numbers into the drama.

Slightly more than 1,000 pedestrians visited emergency rooms in 2008 because they got distracted and tripped, fell or ran into something while using a cellphone to talk or text. That was twice the number from 2007, which had nearly doubled from 2006, according to a study conducted by Ohio State University, which says it is the first to estimate such accidents.

The trick here is that even conversation requires some cognitive work and unfortunately people have limited capacity or, less politely, you’re dumber than you think.  And, cell phone accidents prove you’re a pudding head.

About my only complaint with this otherwise excellent piece of journalism is this:

Cognitive psychologists, neurologists and other researchers are beginning to study the impact of constant multitasking, whether behind a desk or the wheel or on foot.

Beginning?  Just little ole me has published research on WATTage (broadly understood) beginning with 1982 and believe me, I was not the first arrival at this party.  The dual process models of cognition took off in the 1970s and one could make a good case that the human problem solver theories of Herbert Simon from the 1950s focused on this problem.  And, if you don’t mind pulling on a concept as if it were silly putty, then even august Aristotle glanced on the effects of Low WATTage in his disdainful comments on the “audience” with its sorry state of reasoning in his persuasion primer, Rhetoric.

Of course, none of these works contains a pretty picture from an fMRI machine, therefore the ideas must be voodoo, theological, and certainly PrePostmodern!

Scripts Can Save Your Life

The Washington Post has a nice review of The Checklist Manifesto, a searing examination of medical failures caused by physician errors.  Atul Gawande wonders why these failures occur, then compares the practice of medicine to other high risk activities like flying, design and construction of skyscrapers, and high stakes investment management.  In talking with these folks, Gawande observed they typically used some kind of checklist to manage their process and thought it would be good for medicine, too.

This touches persuasion with WATTage, again, and with scripts.  Physicians are pretty smart people yet they simply cannot grasp the difference between intelligence – of which they’ve got more than the average bear – and WATTage – of which they are just an average bear.  The complexity of modern medical treatment merely overwhelms their WATTage in much the same way cell phone conversation while walking on a busy city street overwhelms one’s WATTage.

And a checklist is just a simpler form of a script which is a routine sequence of dialog and action for persuasion.  It keeps you on task with focus allowing you to save WATTage for more important things as they pop up.

But, of course, everyone who has any talent or brains hates scripts or checklists because a list is for the little people.

Dying Gasps from the Dying Beast

Alan Wolfe torches the dead wood called, Game Change:  Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime written by dying beastmasters, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.  You’ve probably been riding the political media gossip waves from this book with its disclosures of Harry Reid’s artless, crude, but accurate handicapping of that light skinned Negro who manages dialect with ease, Barack Obama . . . and more recently that shrew Elizabeth Edwards . . . Bill Clinton’s continuing “woman problem” and on and on with the salacious rumor mongering made possible by that most excellent Cool Table persuasion ploy:  the Unnamed, but Highly Placed, Anonymous Source, as if source credibility resides in the writers assertion – a useful conceit.

Of course, there’s more than rumors and gossip in a 448 page book, but as Wolfe details, nothing more than a common reader of the news already knows.  That seems to be the specialty of Mark Halperin.  He’s a beautiful and beautifully connected member of the Village or the media Cool Table, who succeeds like Jay Gatsby’s son would:  Charm, smarm, and guile.

I gave up on Halperin after his 2008 deception called The Way to Win:  Taking the White House in 2008 which was alleged to be an insider look at the Clinton and Bush election machines.  He coauthored that book, too, with another print guy.  Maybe Halperin can’t write?  He’s most famous as a smug TV news political consultant where he speaks for one minute.  Such practice cannot be good for one’s book writing skills.  But, if you can always partner with someone else who think he is a writer, then it all works out.

Here’s Alan Wolfe’s close on his review.

I read the bloggers and, while I admire their energy and commitment, I often find their near-hysteria off-putting. When they write about the Villagers, I detect, if not jealousy, then smugness, as if they believe they could do a better job than the journalists who take home the big bucks. As someone who grew up reading great political reporting, even the kind that produced the classic campaign books of previous years, I wish that all those who scoff about insular and un-self-critical Villagers would be proven wrong. It is too bad that Heilemann and Halperin have proved them, by and large, right.

Bang.

Propaganda, Posters, and Self Disclosure

The NYT has a good little story with a great graphics slide show on the contemporary uses of poster propaganda.  Check it out more for the pictures than the commentary.  All of them are non-American and display that unmistakable European feel similar to the great work from the 1930s in Germany, Russia, and Italy.

But see if you can spot the self disclosure the story inadvertently makes with its selection of posters!  I didn’t realize that All Contemporary Propaganda Is Reactionary!

“Priceless,” but still Persuasion

A good WSJ review of the book, Priceless, makes me interested in reading it for myself.  What compels me most in the review is how it appears that the book is nominally about economics, yet seems to be about persuasion.  Priceless describes the psychology behind . . . given the title you’d expect and be correct, sir! . . . prices, noting various ploys that revolve around ancient and modern persuasion principles.

And people wonder why I’m bitter, paranoid, and relentless!  All these really good books that hit the best seller lists from Malcolm Gladwell to the latest one all turn on persuasion yet never know the field even exists.  Of course, I want you to buy my book and make me rich and famous and hey, while that happens you can also learn about really smart guys like Rich Petty, Shelly Chaiken, Carl Hovland, Leon Festinger, Robert Cialdini, and on and on.  Persuasion and attitude research is the great undiscovered and unknown treasure mine of human nature.

Whew.  Feel better now.   Back to the opera.

Priceless sounds like a great book and I apologize if my ranting detracts any attention or appreciation of it.  Check it out.