On Fri, 5 Feb 2010, Carrol Cox wrote:
> On the contrary. It is only by influencing people that the left gets
> anywhere. But people are only fundamentally influenced in so far as they
> find themselves acting in ways in conflict with their prior convictions.
Well there we are in total agreement. That is in fact the whole purpose of my thought on political rhetoric: to identify the cracks to which leverage can be applied and to speak in a way that best applies leverage.
And those cracks are always there. Because there are always several contradictions among our fundamental convictions. We don't get those ultimate convictions from rationality, and rationalization can never make them all fadge.
My main point is your argument in a different form: that to influence someone, you have to phrase your argument as a contradiction between a conviction you share with the person you are trying to persuade, and something else you are against. Then you have a chance to persuade them they should be against too, precisely because it contradicts something they deeply believe in. A feeling you understand because you sincerely share it -- and which you can make even more unsettling to them because you do.
Michael