> It’s crucial to understand that persuasion itself is inherently difficult.
I think it may also be important to consider whether persuasiveness is a stable trait of persuaders or if it varies by subject-matter. It may not be reasonable to extrapolate from some agent's ability to persuade on a politically-contested topic (which have basically been pre-screened to have plausible arguments on both sides) to them being persuasive on any topic.
For sure. The article is implicitly focusing on persuasion in contexts that are politically contested, where people often have strongly held attitudes.
I imagine that there's a range of how strongly attitudes are held. For the set of currently-contested political topics the most visible and politically active people tend to project an image of strongly held attitudes, but aren't most people in a mushier middle where they can more easily shift one way or the other?
A very persuasive post :) surely the author has not missed the self-reference loops here. Thanks for the clear thinking and the delightful writing.
Thanks!
> It’s crucial to understand that persuasion itself is inherently difficult.
I think it may also be important to consider whether persuasiveness is a stable trait of persuaders or if it varies by subject-matter. It may not be reasonable to extrapolate from some agent's ability to persuade on a politically-contested topic (which have basically been pre-screened to have plausible arguments on both sides) to them being persuasive on any topic.
For sure. The article is implicitly focusing on persuasion in contexts that are politically contested, where people often have strongly held attitudes.
I imagine that there's a range of how strongly attitudes are held. For the set of currently-contested political topics the most visible and politically active people tend to project an image of strongly held attitudes, but aren't most people in a mushier middle where they can more easily shift one way or the other?