[ExI] Changing the Subject Line

[David Lubkin]

Lee wrote:

>So it's a choice between being effective and being truthful.
>
>We all have to make our choices, I guess. Is it more important to 
>generate a reply, or more important to state exactly what you 
>believe the truth to be?

and he wrote earlier:

>An interesting question to me has always been "how effective in 
>changing the world can one be by
>remaining purely in truth mode?".

According to my father, but not to my mother, my grandfather was 
pathologically honest.

"Do you like this dress?" "No."
"Do you think she's pretty?" "Yes."
"Is she prettier than I am?" "Yes."

At some point, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth 
is counter-productive.

Also, as we all know but I certainly forget, only a fraction of a 
message is carried by the words per se. The above questions are about 
meta-issues, like "Do you love me?" and to answer the question as 
written is to answer "No, I don't."

Also, "propaganda", "marketing", and "spin" have pejorative 
connotations. But your speech acts serve not just to convey 
information but to evoke a response -- directions to the restaurant, 
a job offer, changing someone's opinion.

Frank Luntz and George Lakoff are right -- the words used to describe 
your and opposing positions can dramatically influence the outcome.

Cryonics is denigrated and ridiculed. Its opponents refer to 
"cheating death" and depict you as selfish; Jay Leno makes jokes 
about Ted Williams.

On the other hand is the brilliant analogy -- I forget whose it was: 
An ambulance is a technology that takes a patient to a place with 
better medical facilities for treatment. Think of cryonics as an 
ambulance, taking a patient to a time with better medical facilities 
for treatment.

Whether either framing is in partisan mode or truth mode depends on 
facts not in evidence.

Is there a truth-mode way to discuss abortion? "Pro-life" and 
"pro-choice" are brilliant frames, that do each capture an essential 
truth, but also only convey a slice of the full issue.

And are deceitful in their own right, even within the confines of 
abortion. ("Pro-life" ignores the anti-life aspect of involuntary 
servitude in requiring a pregnant woman to carry a child to term; 
"pro-choice" ignores the anti-choice aspect of giving no say to the 
father or the potential child.)

Also, does truth mode imply dispassionate? Does partisan mode imply emotional?


-- David.