SWA #2

Matt Miller’s article “Is Persuasion Dead?” explains how the art of persuasion seems to have vanished and that it seems almost impossible to convince someone of something they do not already believe. Miller starts off by asking if persuasion is dead and if it is, does it even matter. He gives the example of politics and how when speeches are given, they are not given to persuade any more but to win people and that number one selling books are there to back up what people who bought them already believed to begin with. Both of the examples show that he believes there is no longer an ability to persuade someone with a standpoint, to believe something else. He suggests that to be able to govern successfully in politics, it requires the influencing of how people think, therefore, since the habits of persuasion have been lost, the ability to be a leader is faltering as well. Miller’s article mainly contends that politicians have killed the art of persuasion and that people, who have a common belief or standpoint, tend to stay together and are not open to change but only to honor the other side’s opinion. Also, open-mindedness could be a way to get people to listen again and be persuaded by other, even though it could have been a big reason to the reason why people cannot be persuaded.
Miller’s entire article is about how persuasion needs to arise again and people need to be more open-minded. His statements in some cases are accurate. For instance in the election when the speeches are made, most people have their minds made up which side they take no matter what the candidates have to say. The speeches only push people more over on the side they are already on. However, Miller contradicts his paper in entirety when he starts being close-minded on George Bush’s Social Security plan. It could be taken in this part of the article that he is saying if something has many odds stacked against it, something should not be put into action or used to persuade people into something. He states, “And why, even if George Bush’s Social Security plan had been well conceived, the odds were always stacked against ambitious reform. I’m not the only one amid this mess wonders if he shouldn’t be looking for another line of work.” In doing this he becomes like the people he as so readily judged the whole paper by being on a side and holding his point of view, not wanting to change. He is being close-minded and not looking into what is done. If someone were to apply this to other things in elections, it could have some bad effects. For example, if it was looked into and there were more Democrats than Republicans then someone might say, “Well the odds are against the Republicans, why have an election at all?” People may have been persuaded into standing behind Bush’s plan when they heard what it was for or had experienced its benefits. Basically it boils down to if something does not look likely to succeed, why try? And that is not supportive to his paper.
In my experience, I would have to somewhat agree with his point of persuasion in politics. While growing up, I constantly heard adults speak their opinion on the president and political leaders pertaining to what the leaders were doing with their authority. Whenever the opposing side would give its speech, the adults I heard views from, would never consider any of the opposing team’s ideas but only somehow make it all look bad. They had their views and were sticking to them. However, the speeches were never really given to persuade anyone, who was not already of that party, to switch over but to simply further draw in the ones with that particular point of view already. So, maybe it is not necessarily the peoples fault for not being persuaded but maybe the ones who are trying to persuade.