English 2150 Blog

Where can we draw the line between persuasion and manipulation? When in an artifact — whether an ad, a book, a show, whatever — ceasing to persuade and beginning to lie? What’s the connection between lies and fallacies?

I think persuasion and manipulation go together in many ways. Manipulation is the act of fooling and controlling the other person to believe or do something. Persuasion is the idea to get somebody to do or think a certain way. I don’t think you necessarily have to manipulate to persuade somebody, because you can give factual information and still get somebody to do something. You don’t have to fool or control the person to persuade them. Though there may be some areas of persuasion where you might have to manipulate to make the persuasion stronger. Lying and fallacies are also very similar in a way that they don’t say the truth and they’re both done to benefit the person doing the lying or fallacy. Fallacies aren’t as clear or direct that a person maybe lying especially when the fallacy helps persuade the other person to think or do something.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS