Is there a time and place for an emotional argument?
Janet Kagan wrote a Star Trek novel some few decades ago called Uhura’s Song. When I got rid of all 200 of my Star Trek novels, I kept two. This is one of them. It’s an excellent book for many, many reasons. But the one that comes to mind now is about Spock.
In the story, two characters are frozen with fear and surrounded by hostile wildlife. Spock slips and falls to the ground. The two characters snap out of their fear and coming running to save Spock when the hostile wildlife attacks him. Once they arrive to help, he climbs to his feet and helps repel the attack.
Kirk later asks if Spock had used an emotional argument to get the two motivated. Spock replies, not emotional, rather… tactical. They could not overcome their fear, but both felt more strongly about saving a life in danger than their own fear.
Elsewhere in the book, one of the two characters starts yelling at Kirk. When Kirk accepts her argument, Spock asks why she yelled. She replies, I used an emotional argument to get my point across. I felt that the Captain would respond better. To you, Spock, I would have used a logical argument.
In these two cases (in, I admit, a science fiction novel), we see conditions where an emotional argument is more effective IN GETTING THE POINT ACROSS. In both cases, the argumentor knew that a reasoned argument could be made just as well as an emotional one, but because of the audience, chose an emotional argument instead.
Many, perhaps most, people that I know and have met (even casually on the internet) are not interested in logical, well-reasoned argument with supporting evidence. I can cite statistic after statistic. I show them holes in their argument you could drive an aircraft carrier through. But none of that makes any difference to their position.
But if you create an emotional argument, (and I’ve seen this happen) sometimes you can break through their mental blocks and actually connect with them. Once you have them believing that you have a case emotionally, then you can support that emotional argument with logic and evidence.
It’s like dealing with creationists. Some are intelligent, just ignorant. If you correct the ignorance, then they leave creationism. Some are intelligent, just committed to a belief system. If you break the belief system, you can begin to correct their ignorance and then they leave creationism. Some are just morons and nothing will ever get through to them. Especially if they have an interest in maintaining their beliefs (“Buy my book!”). The same is true of the religious.
Ask the formerly religious why they are now atheists and you will get many stories. Some logical and rational, some emotional.
Another way is get someone emotionally invested in a concept without them realizing it. “Hey, that guy from work you’ve been hanging out with, going to lunch, getting some beers on weekends, that guy. Yeah, he’s gay and has been in a committed homosexual relationship for years.”
Some people have lost friends this way. But some, possibly more, begin to think about homosexuality differently after seeing them as not this nebulous mass of rainbow colored people who dress nice, but as actual people they can relate to.
I like to think that I’ve made similar progress on atheism with at least one person.
I think using an emotional argument can be valuable, provided that’s not the only argument you have. Maybe not, emotional… but rather… tactical.
Aside: I wonder how many hits will come from Star Trek fans… experiment time!
