My Relentless Appeal to the Head

Thoughts on McCloskey, persuasion, and discovery

Aaron Powell recently interviewed Deirdre McCloskey for The Unpopulist, and my name came up.

Deirdre: I think we need to appeal to the heart as well as the head. Maybe you can come up with his name, this notorious and in some ways wonderful professor at George Mason, whose name's escaping me just now, who is actually very willing to debate with people about atheism, and he's the one who talked about the irrational voter.

Aaron: Bryan Caplan.

Deirdre: Yes, Bryan Caplan is who I'm thinking of. I'm not against Bryan Caplan, but I am against Bryan Caplan, if you see what I mean. Not personally against him, but against his relentless appeal to the head instead of the heart. The left and indeed the right, the nationalist right, and the socialist left, both appeal to the heart.

My honest reaction is, “What an incredible compliment. Thanks, Deirdre.” Though I fear I occasionally fail to “relentlessly appeal to the head,” that is my aspiration. Even when I’m obviously partly appealing to emotions - like when I’m writing a graphic novel - my ultimate goal is to persuade readers to set emotions aside and think rationally so they reach objective truth.

Is this not a quixotic goal? Yes, if my plan were to change all or even most minds. My actual plan, however, is to focus on the subset of people open to rational persuasion, and let other thinkers persuade everyone else. Why do I so specialize? Comparative (and absolute!) advantage. Some people are great at making highly emotional appeals, but I’m not. As Dirty Harry teaches, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”*

But specialization isn’t my whole story. While there’s (probably) nothing wrong with appealing to the heart to persuade people to accept true positions, we can’t actually discover true positions with our emotions. Pretending otherwise is the root of most of the absurd beliefs that plague our world. The right approach to the world of ideas is this two-step program:

Step 1: Set all emotion aside so you can figure out the truth of the matter.

Step 2: Figure out the best way to sell that truth, which - per Deirdre - probably involves a mix of head and heart tailored to your audience.

The upshot is that even if the approach that I exemplify is terrible at actually changing minds, it is still indispensable. You might have to relentlessly appeal to the heart to win, but you must relentlessly appeal to the head to deserve to win.

* That said, I’ve thought long and hard about how to be a more persuasive version of myself. Rather than directly appeal to emotions, I mostly try to be very friendly. See my book club on Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. And while several factors motivate my embrace of the graphic novel format, the desire to be much more persuasive is key. Cold logic is great, but cold logic plus cool visuals is better.