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The Art of Persuasion – Arguing for Obamacare
The Supreme Court ruling made Obamacare constitutional but it didn’t make it popular. What can rhetoric — the classic art of persuasion — tell us about crafting an argument for (or against) the Affordable Care Act (ACA)? In this post, I’ll sketch out a persuasive argument for Obamacare. In my next post, I’ll sketch out an argument against it.
A general rule of persuasion is that the simpler argument usually wins the debate. So, if President Obama called me to ask for help crafting the argument for the ACA, I’d say two things: 1) Simplify through analogy, 2) reframe to responsibility. (I’d also tell him to make me Ambassador to Ecuador — that’s what I really want).
Simplify through analogy — the simplest analogy is car insurance. We used to allow people to drive without insurance. To cover the damage caused by uninsured drivers, we set up large uninsured motorist funds supported by taxpayers. Ultimately, we got tired of paying for the carnage caused by uninsured drivers — also known as “free riders”, “deadbeats” and “jerks” — and passed mandate requiring drivers to have some insurance in order to drive. The result? Total costs to “responsible” drivers went down because we had to pay only for our own insurance and not also for uninsured motorists.
Reframe to responsibility — opponents of the ACA have positioned it as an infringement on liberty. Supporters should reframe this to personal responsibility. Everyone should take responsibility for the cost of their own healthcare. If you don’t, you’re a free rider – you pass your costs on to other, more responsible citizens. Those who pay for health insurance are also paying the cost for caring for deadbeats and free riders. Sounds a lot like socialized medicine.
What about the dreaded word, “tax”? The Supremes have labeled the mandate a tax, which is precisely why they’ve said that it’s legal. If supporters of Obamacare try to argue that it’s not a tax, they’ll simply appear to be dissembling which will reduce their persuasiveness. So they need to embrace the word, more or less like this, “Yes, it’s a tax. It’s a tax on irresponsibility. If you choose not to act responsibly, then we’re going to ask you to pay into a kitty that will help defray the costs of your care. It’s your choice. Act responsibly and pay no tax. Or act irresponsibly and pay a small tax. By the way, you’re already paying a tax — you’re paying for everyone who doesn’t have insurance but needs health care. Hospitals can’t turn them away, so they send the bill to you.”
Will it work? Well, look at the next post in this series to see the opposite argument.
Would you refuse free money? Hope for the euro.
Let’s say that you work in a department of four people. I’m your manager. Our group has done an especially good job on a major project. As a result, my boss has awarded me $10,000 to give bonuses to each of my employees. She says to me, “Distribute it however you think is fair.”
Not wanting to make a real decision, I simply divide the pot into four equal parts and give each of you $2,500. That seems “fair”, doesn’t it? Well, not to you. You think you did much more work and contributed much more value to the project than your three colleagues. You believe you deserve more (perhaps much more) than $2,500.
This can be a real motivational issue and a major team-building problem. But, bottom line, would you turn down the $2,500 because you thought I was being unfair? If you’re like most people, you’d still take the money – it enhances your situation even if you feel badly about it. It’s just practical.
What does this have to do with the euro? The argument – at least from Germany’s perspective – is between practicality and fairness. Many Germans believe that the south European countries have been irresponsible – they’ve avoided taxes, broken promises, and spent without thought for the future. (Whether this view is “fair” or not will be debated for many years). Since the south Europeans have behaved irresponsibly, it’s “unfair” to force Germany to bail them out.
Putting fairness aside for a moment, the practical reality is that it will cost Germany more (perhaps a whole lot more) to not bail out their southern friends. In fact, there’s a good chance that a breakup would turn into a runaway catastrophe.
So, what does Germany do? My guess is that they’ll demand concessions – to avoid the moral hazard of bailing out unreformed economies – but will ultimately steer toward a practical solution. In other words, they’ll pay up because it’s in their best interest to do so — even if they feel badly about it. It’s practical.
Plagiarism or Homage?
Jonah Lehrer, author of the bestselling book, Imagine: How Creativity Works, was recently exposed as a plagiarist — of himself. Some of the material in his blog on The New Yorker had previously appeared in articles he wrote for the Wall Street Journal. Similarly, sections of Imagine had appeared in Lehrer’s articles and columns. The literati and the blogosphere lashed Lehrer harshly. Lehrer even lashed himself, saying, “It was an incredibly stupid thing to do and incredibly lazy and absolutely wrong.” The editor of The New Yorker‘s web site said simply, “This is wrong. … It’s not going to happen again.”
At virtually the same time, however, The New Yorker published Richard Brody’s review of Woody Allen’s new movie, To Rome With Love, with Penelope Cruz. As Brody notes, the movie includes many “allusions” to Allen’s earlier works, including Scoop, Annie Hall, and Stardust Memories. Brody also notes (approvingly) that To Rome with Love even repeats a joke from Midnight in Paris. Brody doesn’t seem to be at all bothered by these allusions and homages. Other news outlets panned To Rome With Love — the L.A. Times called it “meandering” and Policy Mic called it a “thinly spread mess of clunky story telling”. But Brody calls it one of Allen’s “most coherent and deepest” works to come along in recent years.
So, when does self-homage become self-plagiarism? The New Yorker muddles the point.
Full disclosure – I often make essentially the same point in different media, including this blog, my course lectures, speeches, and seminars. Does that make me a plagiarist?
Can you teach empathy?
In my last post, I asked about how one would go about teaching wisdom. It seems that we focus our attention on teaching skills and practical arts rather than wisdom or persuasion or (heaven forbid) the liberal arts. After posting my thoughts, I soon stumbled across an article in the New York Times titled “Can Doctors Learn Empathy?”
It turns out that even doctors can learn to be empathetic (OMG!) and can do so with as little as one hour of training. Empathy is certainly a significant component of wisdom, so perhaps we’re already on the road to teaching wisdom and, therefore, effective leadership.
Wisdom and Leadership
I just re-read a terrific 1998 Harvard Business Review article by Daniel Goleman titled, “What Makes a Leader?” Goleman argues that, while experience and IQ are important, it’s emotional intelligence that makes the crucial difference. Managers without emotional intelligence tend to maximize only their own performance. Managers with EI tend to maximize their performance and their followers’ performance.
What struck me about the article was that the five components of EI are very similar to the five components of wisdom that we discussed back in April. Here’s how Goleman defines the components of EI:
- Self-awareness — knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses and their impact on others.
- Self-regulation – controlling or redirecting disruptive emotions
- Motivation – being driven to achieve for the sake of achievement, a passion for work and challenges
- Empathy – considering others’ feelings, especially when making decisions
- Social skill – managing relationships to move people in desired directions, persuasiveness, expertise in building teams
And here’s what we said about wisdom:
- Willingness to resolve conflicts;
- Willingness to compromise;
- Recognition of the limits of personal knowledge;
- Awareness that a given problem may legitimately be seen from different perspectives;
- Understanding that things may get worse before they get better.
There’s not a complete overlap but the two lists are very similar. My conclusion: it takes a lot of wisdom to be a good leader. Now, the question I’d really like to understand is, how do we teach wisdom?
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