In this course, we’ve spent a good deal of time talking about the positive effects of persuasion and how we can use them to benefit us. But what happens when persuasion is abused?
The recent tragedies at NIU not only shocked an entire community, but also sparked an enormous controversy that is dripping with rhetoric and unfortunate persuasion. As if the situation isn’t heinous enough, considering the amount of grief and shock that has deafened a college campus, a third party has chosen to involve themselves. The Westboro Baptist Church, a congregation of roughly 100 members located in Topeka, Kansas, consider themselves a fundamental religious organization. While its members identify themselves as Baptists, the church is an independent church not affiliated with any known Baptist conventions or associations, nor does any Baptist institution recognize the church as a Bible-believing fellowship. The church bases its work around their well-known slogan of “God Hates Fags,” and preaches against homosexuality and other “sins.” They are well known for their picketing, in which they visit funerals of homosexuals, AIDS victims, or other hate-crime related deaths to protest that the death of the individual was “sent from an angry God.” The members of the Westboro Baptist Church believe that events such as 9/11, the Virginia Tech shootings, and the spread of HIV/AIDS are directly sent from an angry God, and those people deserved to die.
Unfortunately their persuasion, though perverse and wrong in my opinion, is effective to those who are weak in mind and judgment. They play heavily on each of the pathos, ethos and logos of an audience. This congregation is incredibly passionate about their cause, and their goal is to persuade and “win over” they people they witness too. They do this by playing on the emotions regarding sin and persuade their audiences (whoever will listen) that unless they think and behave exactly the way they do, God will be angry with them. They play the emotion card so well that people stop thinking about logic, at least, in my opinion. Aristotle himself even said that “emotion trumps logic,” and I think he proves himself right when that phrase is applied to this situation. How else would people begin to believe that God sent AIDS has a punishment, or that the students of NIU deserved to die because God was angry with them? People who have let persuaders and cunning rhetoricians get the best of their emotions, and lost all senses of logical thinking.
This reason this aggravates me so much, beyond the blatant ignorance of this community, is that the Westboro Baptist Church traveled to St. Charles, Illinois on March 17th to protest the death of Ryanne Mace, a student from my high school who lost her life at NIU. I was shocked enough to read that one of my classmates was killed, let alone to research this “church” and see that they’d be standing outside her funeral, saying she deserved to die.
Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, but I’d be surprised to come across someone who disagrees with me. Do you? Regardless of whether you think this church is “right” or “wrong,” what do you think of their rhetoric?
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Rhetorically Working the Non-Profit Industry
Rhetoric exists in all facets of life whether or not we choose to recognize it. It was not until this course that I realized the extent that I use rhetoric on a daily basis.
The best example I can draw on is from my experience working in the non-profit industry. Non-profit is an entirely different sector of the work force; not only in the sense that what we do directly benefits a certain audience or cause, but because non-profits have to create and fund their own budgets. Whether this is done through fund raising, grants or other endowments, a non-profit organization is constantly searching and scrapping for ways to maintain or increase the funds that come into their organization. Without these money-generating techniques, a non-profit organization would collapse and cease to exist.
The organization that I work for is a national non-profit dedicated to improving the lives of youth impacted by HIV/AIDS and other life challenges. My current focus right now is successfully generating $40,000 worth of auction items for our annual fund raiser. This $40,000, along with the other funds raised, will help run our summer camps and other advocacy programs for our kids.
When I first started working on this task, I didn’t realize that rhetoric and persuasion would play such a vital role in acquiring over $40,000. But over the course of two months and after entering this course, I realized a few different ways of how I could incorporate the basic principles of persuasion into getting what I wanted.
First, I learned to play on our donor’s emotions. As manipulative as it sounds, I began to feel morally okay with the concept as I paged through Aristotle and Heinrichs and realized that manipulation is just another form of persuasion. A majority of the funds that I acquire are through cold-calling. By putting together a brief script detailing what a donor’s funds do for our children and capturing my donor’s attention right away, I can easily play on their emotions. A donor is much more willing to donate money when I tell them how their donation will help send a child infected with HIV/AIDS to a summer camp where he or she can experience freedom from judgment. In addition, playing on a donor’s emotion is as simple as pulling from past experience. I used the 2007 spreadsheet to contact previous donors, and simply let them know how appreciative I was of their past donation, and how I hoped they’d be willing to be that generous again. Not only was I complimenting them, but I was persuading them to donate again. I equated this to Mr. Abignale’s speech to the Rotary Club in Catch Me If You Can. Just like he made the audience feel all warm and fuzzy, so did I in order to capture the emotion and persuade my audience.
The art of persuasion can easily go unnoticed to the untrained eye, but is an important technique to master if one chooses to enter the competitive work-field. By tweaking a few of my habits regarding persuasion, I’ve been successful in pulling in over half of our donation goal in the last month. Hopefully I’ll continue to master these rhetorical techniques so I can acquire the rest of the funds and keep my job!
The best example I can draw on is from my experience working in the non-profit industry. Non-profit is an entirely different sector of the work force; not only in the sense that what we do directly benefits a certain audience or cause, but because non-profits have to create and fund their own budgets. Whether this is done through fund raising, grants or other endowments, a non-profit organization is constantly searching and scrapping for ways to maintain or increase the funds that come into their organization. Without these money-generating techniques, a non-profit organization would collapse and cease to exist.
The organization that I work for is a national non-profit dedicated to improving the lives of youth impacted by HIV/AIDS and other life challenges. My current focus right now is successfully generating $40,000 worth of auction items for our annual fund raiser. This $40,000, along with the other funds raised, will help run our summer camps and other advocacy programs for our kids.
When I first started working on this task, I didn’t realize that rhetoric and persuasion would play such a vital role in acquiring over $40,000. But over the course of two months and after entering this course, I realized a few different ways of how I could incorporate the basic principles of persuasion into getting what I wanted.
First, I learned to play on our donor’s emotions. As manipulative as it sounds, I began to feel morally okay with the concept as I paged through Aristotle and Heinrichs and realized that manipulation is just another form of persuasion. A majority of the funds that I acquire are through cold-calling. By putting together a brief script detailing what a donor’s funds do for our children and capturing my donor’s attention right away, I can easily play on their emotions. A donor is much more willing to donate money when I tell them how their donation will help send a child infected with HIV/AIDS to a summer camp where he or she can experience freedom from judgment. In addition, playing on a donor’s emotion is as simple as pulling from past experience. I used the 2007 spreadsheet to contact previous donors, and simply let them know how appreciative I was of their past donation, and how I hoped they’d be willing to be that generous again. Not only was I complimenting them, but I was persuading them to donate again. I equated this to Mr. Abignale’s speech to the Rotary Club in Catch Me If You Can. Just like he made the audience feel all warm and fuzzy, so did I in order to capture the emotion and persuade my audience.
The art of persuasion can easily go unnoticed to the untrained eye, but is an important technique to master if one chooses to enter the competitive work-field. By tweaking a few of my habits regarding persuasion, I’ve been successful in pulling in over half of our donation goal in the last month. Hopefully I’ll continue to master these rhetorical techniques so I can acquire the rest of the funds and keep my job!
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