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xiphiasAs a lot of you know, I was a rhetoric student in college for a couple semesters. I flunked out, but the stuff I learned was some of the most interesting and useful things I've ever learned in a classroom setting.
One of the most powerful rhetorical techniques is the "story" or "narrative." If you tell people a story, it makes your points much clearer and more persuasive.
But there is an even MORE powerful technique, which is when you get your audience to tell THEMSELVES the story for you.
This can happen deliberately, or accidentally. And it can be done accurately or inaccurately.
The idea is that you lay out a series of points, and you let the audience write a story that includes those points. If the resultant story is reasonably close to reality, you're using this technique responsibly. But the technique works just as well when the story isn't.
The resultant story must have points of congruence with reality. If the technique is being used responsibly, the lines drawn between those points will also be more-or-less close to reality. But those lines need not be -- and it's an amazingly powerful technique when they aren't.
This is the technique, I believe, that Karl Rove is most skilled at. So we can see that the technique has its limitations, and I'll go on to that in a minute. But let's look at how it works.
Let's look at the Gore/Bush campaign. Rove created a narrative -- "Gore Makes Things Up". He took a few points that happened -- Gore mentions being Tommy Lee Jones's college roommate, Gore notes that his leadership helped get funding for that which became the Internet. He twists them slightly, and then draws a line between them: Gore Makes Incredible Claims. At that point, THAT becomes the narrative, and it takes off -- everyone looking at the narrative will find their own points of congruence with reality, things that have happened that could be consistent with that story.
And, if the rhetorician who created the narrative is challenged with it, they don't have to defend anything -- "I never said Gore makes stuff up. That was all you. . . "
It's tough to defend against, because it's not even really THERE.
The far more significant usage of that technique, though, was the justification for the invasion of Iraq. Point: terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center. Point: the terrorists were Muslims. Point: Saddam Hussein is some sort of Muslim. Point: terrorists are bad people. Point: Saddam Hussein is a bad person. Point: terrorists are dangerous people who are a threat to people. Point: Saddam Hussein is a dangerous person.
The Bush administration never connected those dots. Never. And that made it impossible to defend against.
We could say, "Saddam Hussein had no connection to 9/11", and we did say that. But so what? The Bush administration never claimed he did. They just laid out facts in an order and presentation which suggested a narrative, and let everyone else fill in that narrative.
So, what does all this have to do with my earlier post on private parties poster'ed publicly?
I believe that, in this case, nobody is deliberately telling a false story. The stories that we are telling ourselves all have points of congruence with reality, and are consistent and reasonable ways to connect those points.
But that doesn't make them right.
Let me lay out a series of points:
1) There's a party.
2) There are posters advertising it; it's called "Skanks in Space"
3) There is a velvet rope controlling who gets in or not.
4) Sexy women throughout the day or days previous have been handed invitations to this party.
5) At the velvet rope, people dressed sexily are being let in, and other people aren't.
All of these points are true, and they suggest a narrative. A bunch of pathetic horndogs are trying to get sexy women to their room.
Let me lay out another series of points:
1) There is a group of people who have been working on a party for MONTHS.
2) They wish to have a party with a certain atmosphere.
3) They wish to have guests who are in costume, or at least are willing to make SOME kind of effort to be an asset to the party, rather than a drag
4) They wish to make sure that they're not blocking traffic outside their party.
5) They are excited about and proud of their party.
6) They wish to ensure a decent experience for their guests, by ensuring that people who are going to be a problem don't come in.
This suggests a very DIFFERENT narrative.
Now let me add another three points.
A) A couple people walk up to the party, ask to get in, and are turned away and told to come back in costume.
B) They post to their livejournals comments about the situation.
C) Those comments are linked to in a community that discusses the convention that the party was at.
If you add those three points onto the FIRST narrative, you end up with a very different story than if you add them onto the SECOND narrative.
Are these people attempting to make a better experience for the con in general by protecting the con against a really sleazy group of people, or are they pathetic whining losers who are pissy about not being good enough to get in?
EACH narrative is entirely congruent with reality in each point checked.
Which narrative is true?
They're both false. As more information comes out in the discussion, points are brought out which show that the first narrative is false. Which means that the assumptions that the people who took actions A, B, and C were wrong, and they are NOT protecting the con against sleazy people who are likely to damage the con, but nor are they the people that are in narrative 2.
Note that neither side was DELIBERATELY creating narratives as a rhetorical tool -- it's just something that happens. And it's very powerful.
One of the most powerful rhetorical techniques is the "story" or "narrative." If you tell people a story, it makes your points much clearer and more persuasive.
But there is an even MORE powerful technique, which is when you get your audience to tell THEMSELVES the story for you.
This can happen deliberately, or accidentally. And it can be done accurately or inaccurately.
The idea is that you lay out a series of points, and you let the audience write a story that includes those points. If the resultant story is reasonably close to reality, you're using this technique responsibly. But the technique works just as well when the story isn't.
The resultant story must have points of congruence with reality. If the technique is being used responsibly, the lines drawn between those points will also be more-or-less close to reality. But those lines need not be -- and it's an amazingly powerful technique when they aren't.
This is the technique, I believe, that Karl Rove is most skilled at. So we can see that the technique has its limitations, and I'll go on to that in a minute. But let's look at how it works.
Let's look at the Gore/Bush campaign. Rove created a narrative -- "Gore Makes Things Up". He took a few points that happened -- Gore mentions being Tommy Lee Jones's college roommate, Gore notes that his leadership helped get funding for that which became the Internet. He twists them slightly, and then draws a line between them: Gore Makes Incredible Claims. At that point, THAT becomes the narrative, and it takes off -- everyone looking at the narrative will find their own points of congruence with reality, things that have happened that could be consistent with that story.
And, if the rhetorician who created the narrative is challenged with it, they don't have to defend anything -- "I never said Gore makes stuff up. That was all you. . . "
It's tough to defend against, because it's not even really THERE.
The far more significant usage of that technique, though, was the justification for the invasion of Iraq. Point: terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center. Point: the terrorists were Muslims. Point: Saddam Hussein is some sort of Muslim. Point: terrorists are bad people. Point: Saddam Hussein is a bad person. Point: terrorists are dangerous people who are a threat to people. Point: Saddam Hussein is a dangerous person.
The Bush administration never connected those dots. Never. And that made it impossible to defend against.
We could say, "Saddam Hussein had no connection to 9/11", and we did say that. But so what? The Bush administration never claimed he did. They just laid out facts in an order and presentation which suggested a narrative, and let everyone else fill in that narrative.
So, what does all this have to do with my earlier post on private parties poster'ed publicly?
I believe that, in this case, nobody is deliberately telling a false story. The stories that we are telling ourselves all have points of congruence with reality, and are consistent and reasonable ways to connect those points.
But that doesn't make them right.
Let me lay out a series of points:
1) There's a party.
2) There are posters advertising it; it's called "Skanks in Space"
3) There is a velvet rope controlling who gets in or not.
4) Sexy women throughout the day or days previous have been handed invitations to this party.
5) At the velvet rope, people dressed sexily are being let in, and other people aren't.
All of these points are true, and they suggest a narrative. A bunch of pathetic horndogs are trying to get sexy women to their room.
Let me lay out another series of points:
1) There is a group of people who have been working on a party for MONTHS.
2) They wish to have a party with a certain atmosphere.
3) They wish to have guests who are in costume, or at least are willing to make SOME kind of effort to be an asset to the party, rather than a drag
4) They wish to make sure that they're not blocking traffic outside their party.
5) They are excited about and proud of their party.
6) They wish to ensure a decent experience for their guests, by ensuring that people who are going to be a problem don't come in.
This suggests a very DIFFERENT narrative.
Now let me add another three points.
A) A couple people walk up to the party, ask to get in, and are turned away and told to come back in costume.
B) They post to their livejournals comments about the situation.
C) Those comments are linked to in a community that discusses the convention that the party was at.
If you add those three points onto the FIRST narrative, you end up with a very different story than if you add them onto the SECOND narrative.
Are these people attempting to make a better experience for the con in general by protecting the con against a really sleazy group of people, or are they pathetic whining losers who are pissy about not being good enough to get in?
EACH narrative is entirely congruent with reality in each point checked.
Which narrative is true?
They're both false. As more information comes out in the discussion, points are brought out which show that the first narrative is false. Which means that the assumptions that the people who took actions A, B, and C were wrong, and they are NOT protecting the con against sleazy people who are likely to damage the con, but nor are they the people that are in narrative 2.
Note that neither side was DELIBERATELY creating narratives as a rhetorical tool -- it's just something that happens. And it's very powerful.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-16 09:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-16 10:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-16 10:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-16 10:49 pm (UTC)I believe they actually did make this claim. But since I wasn't following it extremely closely, I can't be sure.
All of these points are true, and they suggest a narrative. A bunch of pathetic horndogs are trying to get sexy women to their room.
They only suggest that narrative to those who believe the underlying assumption that most guys (especially most guys at cons) are a bunch of pathetic horndogs.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-16 10:51 pm (UTC)Karl Rove is a fantastic political strategist. That doesn't mean I agree with him, but he was capable of getting a very marginal candidate elected, twice. I honestly think that he put a lot of effort into getting whatshisname nominated that second time around, he couldn't have won against a better candidate. I encountered Mr Rove professionally once. I was a security guard, and was in a position to ask for his identification. He had his flunky interact with the help.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-17 01:21 am (UTC)What they would do was do a very close headfake.
"On 9/11, the world changed. So we have to bring Saddam Hussein to justice."
Any reasonable person would think that they were drawing a connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. Yet they STILL had the deniability -- "I never said Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11 -- I said we had to bring him to justice, for other things. And that the reason that we had to was because of how the world had changed."
That's what they were doing, and I was watching everything they said, waiting for ANY time they slipped up and made a statement that they couldn't have wriggled out that way. They never slipped up.
If you didn't have any other information about the situation -- and, of course, you do and did, so this is hard to do -- what narrative conclusion would you have drawn from the first set of points I listed? It's a hard question to answer, because your information was, and is, not limited to those points, but can you imagine what it would have been if it was?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-17 01:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-17 01:50 am (UTC)I do remember hearing something about, "Those who perpetrated 9/11 are working with Saddam to help him spread his WMDs." But, as I said, I can't be sure. I do know the claims about "knowing where the WMDs are" were pretty unequivocal (and false).
I do think I understand how the technique works and I do believe that a lot of people would fall for it. I think I see parts of it in the Hygiene Ninja post; the fact that the "target" was homeless at one time isn't relevant to their issue but it helps with the story line.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-17 01:51 am (UTC)#
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-17 01:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-17 02:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-17 02:05 am (UTC)I'll bet they were smoking in the boy's room together too, those evildoers! :-)
Yes, once you can get others passing your message along for you, you've accomplished 95% of your goal; whatever it is is becoming "common knowledge."
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-17 02:10 am (UTC)But more to the point, most of the people in that thread don't know that anything happened; the person posting in outrage didn't even understand what happened until later. Then, and only then, do they get upset and post the story. At no point is it made clear that the "victim" was upset or otherwise put out by the attention, either. All this was just assumed because, well, the person posting it was upset.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-17 03:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-17 03:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-17 03:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-17 03:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-18 04:45 pm (UTC)Gonzales says judges generally should defer to the will of the president and Congress when deciding national security cases. He also raps jurists who “apply an activist philosophy that stretches the law to suit policy preferences.”
Then, further along in the article:
Gonzales did not cite any specific activist jurists, or give examples of national security cases, in his prepared text.
Sound familiar?