Making people care is more important than convincing them

There is this thing I call, inside my own head, "Iran-Contra-gate syndrome."

Back in the 80s, I simply couldn't understand why the American people didn't rise up in the streets protesting the illegal and immoral conduct of its government in violating an embargo by selling arms to Iran in exchange for freeing hostages held by Hezbollah, and using the proceeds to fund anti-communist rebels known as "the Contras" in Nicaragua -- again,  in direct violation of a law passed by Congress prohibiting the U.S. government from funding the Contras.

It seemed to me then, and still does, to be one of the most blatant and egregious examples of the government holding itself entirely outside the law, and as such, incomprehensibly dangerous to everything America stands for.

So, I was young then, and I found myself constantly sputtering and trying to explain to people why they should care about this, and why it was so important. And I kept telling them more and more facts, and trying to phrase it differently, because I was sure, absolutely sure, that if I just found the right words they'd see it the way I did, and be as angry as I was.

Later, during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, I saw the same thing happen again, only this time it was politically reversed: The Republicans in Washington DC were completely incensed by the whole thing, but most Americans just did not care. I didn't care, either. I thought it was really between Bill and Hillary Clinton and not something I wanted on the news, nor something I wanted my government wasting its time investigating.

And being older then, and more politically savvy, I realized that's what had happened during Iran-Contra; most people in America really didn't care if the government sold arms to get hostages back -- in fact, some of them thought it was just fine -- and they also didn't care what we did in Latin America (still mostly true, alas).

Those are the specific things I learned, but this post is really about the general one, which extends beyond politics and into just about everything, from sweatshops in the developing world to pollution generated by China to global warming to how people treat their dogs to how charities raise money to... well, everything: You mostly can't make people care about things they really don't care about, and if you do manage it, it won't be because you convinced them with the facts.

I've learned over the decades since Iran-Contra and the Lewinsky scandal to read the signs that the people I'm speaking to just don't have an investment in what I'm talking about. I've also learned to dig deep into every subject I care about and find the nuggets that do touch people who otherwise don't care. I've become, actually, very good at figuring out how to get those people to give a damn about what I give a damn about, although it often takes me a few false starts before I hit on it.

I watched a friend this week wax wrathful over something to do with the disaster in Japan, and saw him continue to load on the facts and evidence until there was a mountain of it, all in support of his view. And I felt for him, I really did, because even in the face of all that, while I agreed with him, I still didn't care. (I very much care about what's happening in Japan; it was this one specific issue that just didn't rise up out of the background and grab my attention or imagination.)

And the more evidence he piled up, the more lengthy and convoluted his argument became, the less I felt inclined to care, because he was starting to annoy me. Not because he wouldn't let it go, but because he was wasting his time on a failed strategy.

Piling on the evidence and attempting to motivate people with the factual rightness of your cause only works in the echo chamber. I mean, sometimes I write blog posts that seem so completely powerful and convincing to me, but they either fall like a stone in a pond, or they get a lot of play, but only with the people who already agree with me.

LGBT equality, the awesomeness of Glee, the rights of working people to organize and collectively bargain, ending the use of killing as a tool of animal population control -- it doesn't matter what the topic is, the process is the same.

So if you have a ten-page blog post on a topic about which you feel incredibly passionate, don't expect that post to convince a bunch of people to see things the way you see them. I mean, publish it, by all means; you should see the things I've worked out for myself right here on this blog, or other places I blog.

But don't expect that post to convince people; it won't. You then need to write one that will make them care. Do that, and honestly? Most of them won't need the facts. Just look at all the people who care passionately about things not only in the absence of facts but in direction contradiction of all known reality.

How you identify what makes people care is simple. You keep trying different things until the people you're targeting respond the way you want them to. This is easier, at least for me, to do in person. I test out messages all the time in casual conversation with people I meet at the dog park or in line at the market. If their eyes glaze over, I know my message sucks. If they ask me questions and their eyes light up, I've got a winner.

The other tool is to put yourself in someone else's shoes. This requires that you turn off your rational mind and really imagine what it's like to see the world the way someone else does, to be them as much as you possibly can, and think about what your argument would sound like if you were hearing it with their ears.

Not sure what I mean? That's why you don't understand why saying, "Don't believe in same sex marriage? Don't get one" or "Don't believe in abortion? Don't get one" are not messages that will ever change someone's mind about marriage equality or a woman's right to choose. They are based on a factual premise that the other person simply doesn't share; to you, they are gray area moral issues that each person needs to decide for themselves. To them, other people doing those things causes active harm, and they have a moral obligation to stop it.

But not all issues are ideological in that way. Certainly many, many issues are non-partisan and don't involve religious dogma, either, and the only barrier to someone caring is that they don't, in fact, care.

Those are the ones you can influence and reach if you use the right approach. And hence my free advice to those of you who care about something and can't understand why your friends, family, blog readers, Facebook followers, or co-workers -- or, you know, the majority of the population of the United States of America -- don't care as much as you do, or in the same way.

Find your tiny little core message and work it around until you find the words, the frame, that touches people, that makes their eyes light up, that gets them to ask you about it. Link to your mountain of data, cite it (sparingly), let it be the foundation of your argument, but don't expect facts to get people to care as deeply as you care about an issue (or, even harder, actually change their minds about it).

Comments

[hornblower]

I think you've nailed why so much of advertising (whether political or for strict commerce) is about emotions. Facts are secondary.

There was a fascinating (though disturbing) article recently in the Boston Globe about how facts can have the opposite effect : entrench people in an opinion which is based on faulty data. It's an interesting read.

How Facts Backfire:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/

[TheWeyrd1]

This makes me think of three things: "People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care" (not sure who that's a quote from, but I hear it a lot) and "You have to ask your way to the point" (my own quote) because "If you say it, it's a lie, but if they say it, it's the truth" (another quote of unknown origin).