The Power of Persuasion Through Repetition

If you're a politician, a business person, or even a parent, pay attention -- I'm going to pass along a very important tidbit that could change your life. No, The Speechwriter isn't going "Oprah" on you, but there is a potent propaganda principle which I want to share with you, and if you read on, you'll see how it can bring change -- "Yes we can!" (I'll come back to this statement later).

And, yes, you read it correctly. I used the word, "propaganda." But let me tell you, my friends, it's not a bad thing -- all things in life are propaganda! Politicians use propaganda to sucker us into supporting their programs. Businesses use propaganda to sucker us into purchasing products. And parents use propaganda to sucker their kids into picking up after themselves. It's everywhere, and we should learn to respect, rather than fear, the word.

Let's begin with a little background. It became a dirty little word in the 1930s when a weird little man in Germany named Joseph Goebbels became the master of propaganda. What the masses attribute to the twisted genius of Hitler, speechwriters and rhetoricians give due-credit to Goebbels. It was Goebbels who took the propaganda banner and ran full-force with it . Unfortunately, he ran the wrong way and turned what was once a noble art into a despised concept. However, under Goebbels, Hitler was able to stir Germany into a frothing, fevered, frenzy, hypnotically forcing its citizens to be willing participants in his evil plans.

Prior to the Nazi's, however, before the club-footed Goebbels wrote his very first speech, propaganda wasn't such a bad word.

Propaganda is essentially the method of moving masses to a particular point of view. Perhaps it's just another word for rhetoric (although I take umbrage with that simplification), and the overriding goal is to persuade people using multiple manipulative methods. For instance, a good propaganda campaign would saturate the senses through television, radio, and print, all with one simple purpose: get you to believe what you hear.

It really isn't very complicated, and it's a lot of fun to do if you are so inclined. You see, true power rests not with the leaders of a country, but with those who manipulate the country for the leaders. Ask Putin. He'll tell you. Hitler too, if he weren't busy burning in hell. And, believe it or not, President Bush also benefited from savvy staff who set the stage for him post-9/11. I would also make the same case for President-Elect Obama's campaign.

There are so many elements to effective propaganda and persuasion. None of it happens by chance, mind you, and everything you hear out of any capital these days is crafted by those propaganda artists. We are no exception here in the United States either. I know there are those who would like to believe our democracy is free from psychological manipulation, and there are even more people who believe they are immune to it due to their vast intelligence. The facts, however, prove the opposite, and the only way to combat influence over our minds is to understand it and its historical role in shaping the world for good or bad.

The key issue, at least for the purposes of what I'm talking about, are the words "good" or "bad." You see, propaganda is a neutral concept. Leaders can use it to do very bad things. Nazi Germany, for example, was fueled by Goebbels' mastery of it. On the other hand, switch sides to the "good" guys, and you'll still see that propaganda drives the best intentions of honorable people. For example, Hillary Clinton used propaganda in her attempt to seek support for health-care reform. Al Gore used propaganda to push for ecological responsibility. George Bush used propaganda to strengthen our nation's defense after 9/11. And recently, Barrack Obama used propaganda to promote change.

At its core, effective propaganda, no matter what its purpose, shares one thing, and I have to return to Goebbels for the best definition of it:

The truth is that which most people believe. And they believe that which is repeated most often.

Aha! Now you know the secret! Rhetoricians always return to this one core principle whenever they have something they really need you to believe in. Repetition is the most powerful tool in their toolbox. It comes before anything else in a well-crafted speech, and it is the overriding component in all things persuasive. The person who has the ability to focus upon the one important issue and the patience to deliver that same message over and over will succeed in their objective!

Once again, if you've read my posts before, you'll know that I have stated that all rhetoric and all speech writing goes back to Gorgias and his Trillema. And here we are again with Goebbels essentially quoting Gorgias. Truth, as a whole, just does not exists. Perception of truth does, and that perception is molded by propaganda through repetition!

We only have to look back a few weeks ago to see repetitive propaganda in action. Obama's campaign ran on the platform of change. How many times did we hear the word "change" come from Obama's mouth? How many of his posters, emails, text messages, and advertisements promoted change? Before it was said and done, he had convinced a large majority of the world that HE WAS CHANGE, and he won the election based upon that promise. Again, there's nothing wrong with his use of propaganda in this matter. Nonetheless, it was crafted to produce the results that he wanted -- deep, emotional belief in him as an agent of change.

Bush did the same thing after 2001. In order to engage the population to support his war in Iraq, his administration went on a media blitz promoting the "weapons of mass destruction" concept. WMD became the buzzword of 2001 and 2002, and through his campaign, he was granted authority to go to war with the support of the American people.

Let's look at the private sector now. Business leaders, do you want to sell more product? Then discover the concept that drives your product and repeat it until you're blue in the face! Advertisers know about repetition. Toyota, for example, has launched a massive repetitive campaign that has kept their sales up during a slow economic time. How? With their "Saved by Zero" ad program. Those three words are combined with a tune, and they preach to the hearts of those worried about the credit crunch. Toyota is basically saying, "We're here to save you. We are not stopping our credit. We are going to give you credit for free." And people are remembering, and people are buying. That's the power of repetition in propaganda!

Now, let's take it into our homes. Parents, do you want to teach you children core values and habits? We've all heard that it's about consistency. Break "consistency" down, and what you really have is repetition. If you want to teach children to keep their room clean, for example, consistent repetition of the concept will do the trick over time. Your unfailing guidance will become habit to them which will become belief. Before long, you will no longer have to remind them to do it. They will want to do it because it has been ingrained in their mentality and their very nature to be just what you've told them to be their entire lives.

There is so much to be learned from repetition and propaganda. From a socially-responsible perspective, I believe the only way to avoid tyranny is to understand the forces that lead to it. All tyranny begins with propaganda. And all propaganda uses repetition. If you understand how to recognize it, you can extract the message before being lured into being a soldier of the messenger.

The other side of understanding propaganda and repetition is when you are the messenger. Understand how to use it effectively, and it can make positive things happen for you. Simply put, it is your ticket to getting what you want from anyone who will listen to you.

As for me, the speechwriter, it's all about the message, the messenger, and the audience. What do I have to do to get my messenger's truth accepted as Truth by the masses? That is my only concern, and you, the masses, have to be on-guard that my messenger has your best interest in heart because I will be effective with my art.

A Little on Gorgias...And My Philosophy as a Speechwriter

Yes, I know this is a speechwriting blog, and you have got to be wondering why in the world I would be writing about some guy named Gorgias. I just cannot help myself, though, because I am actually one of those writers who think that writing is more than typing words on my laptop. For me, it is an extension of who I am which directly affects the way I write and how I approach the art. So, to share with you my art, I feel the urge to get into my pulpit and preach the ways of Gorgias.

You cannot talk about Rhetoric without starting with Gorgias. 2,400 years ago, Gorgias was considered a rock star in Greece because he was the greatest speechwriter and orator anyone had ever heard. Stadiums were filled just to hear him speak, and people lined up to have him teach their children this very new art called Rhetoric. He was the man, and everyone knew his name. Even all the politicians begged him to write their speeches for them because they knew his speeches shaped public opinion. His words, it was said, changed the course of Greek history!

What made him so popular? Well, prior to his arrival in Athens, most speeches were dull, drab, and dignified. And long; like eight hours long. Gorgias had fresh ideas. He was not Greek, and he brought with him a tradition of storytelling that translated well to the stump. Instead of vomiting word after word of aristocratic garbage, he chose his words for the people, and he filled his speeches with poetic devices such as alliteration, rhyming, descriptive terminology, antithesis, metaphor, and cadence. People listened to what he said, and he used that to take them down a path of persuasive reasoning that wowed them. His audiences became enchanted, and they believed what he said and were moved to follow him.

There is no question why Gorgias likened speech to the virtues of medicine and love. To him, speech was as important as those two things, and maybe even more so since one speech can heal thousands of people of their ills at one time while medicine and love had to work one person at a time.

But confine Gorgias to only being a popular orator, and he would just be another flash in the pan that our history books would soon leave out. It was not his speeches that made him famous. It was his philosophy of speech and language that defined him through the ages. And it is this philosophy that I hang my hat on today, and is what drives my approach to writing, especially when I write a speech.

In his On Being, Gorgias described what we now call his Trillema. Basically, it states:

Nothing Exists;
If Existence Existed, We Could Not Know It;
If Existence Existed, and We Knew It, We Could Not Communicate It To Others.

Do not think about it too much, or it will blow your mind away. He was not getting wacky with this because you have to look at it from a speechmaker’s perspective. He was not saying that we do not physically exist. I mean, that would be bizarre, and I would not be a disciple of the man if that were the case! What he was driving home, though, is that the public is a fickle bunch of folks. We are. You have to admit that. And fickle as we are, we can be persuaded to change our minds about anything.

Say it ain’t so, Joe!

But it is true. The idea, Nothing exists, means that there is nothing that we hold dear to ourselves that is a tall T Truth. The fact that you may believe the Republicans speak the truth does not mean they do. Your neighbor may think the Democrats speak the truth. Therefore, there is no tall T truth to be had. It is all perception. Your perception and my perception! Perception (and all things) is defined by our minds, and being that we all have different minds, we all have different truths. They should be called small t truths.

Different truths mean that we are not set firmly in our belief system: meaning that we can be persuaded to see things differently, meaning that we can be encouraged to throw away one belief to accept another belief, meaning that we may believe one thing today and, if new information emerges, believe something different tomorrow.

This thought-process was AND is radical, and it fostered a host of philosophical theories such as Post-Modernism, Humanism, and even the belief system of Nietzsche. In fact, Gorgias’ philosophy is the basis for the acceptance of regional dialects and colloquialism in the United States’ English curriculum. What a guy, this Gorgias! In explaining why his speeches worked so well, he hit on something very big about our psyche. He defined his audience, and it gave him freedom and flexibility to experiment with new ways of preaching his message.

To him, the best way to bring someone from one opinion to another was to capture their heart and wow them with beautiful words and well-focused arguments. Engage them to listen to what he said, and to say things powerfully without having to spend four hours making the point. Images and poetics, in his opinion, made people see his argument much better than logical discourse. Hmm…. do we not have a politician today who bears the Gorgianic banner? I think so.

Eloquence was more important than grounded authority. An eloquent speaker could move the masses, while the authority could barely get a few experts to gather around. An eloquent speaker could punish the opponent with kindness while brutally beating him down without his knowing. And an eloquent speaker could speak on all things with authority without being the authority. Delivery and crafted poetics were the forces behind mass appeal, and the masses, he found, thirsted for his words and gulped them down while accepting his small t truths as their own.

So, as a speechwriter and speech enthusiast, I tip my hat to Gorgias. His teachings have been embraced by the greatest orators in history, and it is my goal to emulate his style in every speech that I write because I know his way is the best way to move the masses!