When the end is getting people to do what you want them to do

"'While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being, because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.'"

So speaks the unjust judge in the parable. But so does not speak everyone on the receiving end of mail campaigns conducted by indignant Catholics.

How can this be?

My theory is that most people on the receiving end of mail campaigns conducted by indignant Catholics are, not chancery rats or weaklings who yield before all stronger forces or even unjust judges who neither fear God nor respect any human being, but people.

If the end you seek is getting people to do what you want them to do, you're in the happy situation of having a choice of means. With machines, you don't have a choice: you have to use force to get them to do what you want them to do. But with people, you can use force, or you can use persuasion. (While with cats and teenagers, to complete the possible cases, there are no effective means.)

To use force as the means to get people to do what you want them to do, however, you need leverage of some sort. Note, though, that you aren't simply applying a force to the people, you are applying a directed force. The ability to swamp someone's mailroom with letters is not necessarily leverage, since it doesn't necessarily direct them to agree to do what you want them to do.

To use persuasion as the means to get people to do what you want them to do requires, I'm afraid, that bugaboo of Internet forums, an ad hominem argument. If you are genuinely acting for the end of getting people to do what you want them to do (instead of, say, feeling good about your righteousness), then you have to give them an argument they will find persuasive. You aren't (we assume) trying to persuade yourself they should do something, or to persuade some neutral party or the court of public opinion.

How do you know what arguments people will find persuasive? Well, it certainly helps if you know the people you're trying to persuade. If you don't know the people you're trying to persuade, I suppose you have a choice: you can guess what might persuade them, or you can decide you're unlikely to guess correctly.

If you want to guess, you might first guess what sort of people they are. Are they just like you? Are they just like all the other drooling idiots who drive you nuts? Are they easily categorized?

If you decide you're unlikely to guess correctly, what do you do? You might run through a risk management exercise: If I go with the most plausibly persuasive argument, what are the chances I'll make things worse, and how much worse would I make them? And you just might conclude trying to persuade someone you don't know using an argument they aren't likely to find persuasive is, in this instance, an ill-considered disproportionate means to the end of getting them to do what you want them to do.

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