Little Yeses
“Dad, can I have a new car?” is a good way to get a quick No.
“Dad, you want me to come home safe, right?” might not be the most obvious strategy for getting rid of that rusted heap with the cracked windshield and bad brakes you’re embarrassed to be seen driving.
But, if deployed by a talented arguer, that opening gambit might actually result in—if not a brand-new convertible—the acquisition of a safer, late-model used car you’ll feel sexier driving.
The trick to the Bobblehead Strategy is to get your audience (in this case, Dad), to unwittingly start nodding in agreement to a series of small and innocuous-sounding premises (call them proposal claims) until the habit of agreeing to your every premise leads to the big Yes.
Your audience might not appreciate being persuaded (you could say, trapped) into agreement by your strategy, but he will find it difficult to take back all the small consensus points you earned on the way to the ultimate approval of your proposal.
The Mandatory Therapy Example
Let’s examine the illustrative case of a student who wishes to defend a bold and innovative thesis that young people whose mental illness makes them a danger to others and themselves should be forced to undergo therapy whether they want it or not.
THE BIG PROPOSAL
Therapy should be mandated for every youth who requires it.
That’s a big ask for a 3,000-word college essay. Just imagine the big objections it risks. What kind of therapy are you talking about? Doesn’t that violate the civil liberties of people who resist therapy? Don’t you have to prove that therapy is effective before you mandate it? Who are you putting in charge of deciding who “requires” it?
How do we avoid the “mob mentality” reaction of those opposed to your Big Proposal? First, we get our audience to agree to smaller propositions that don’t raise those big objections. Some suggestions:
- Society functions best when everybody is healthy enough to contribute.
- Physical and mental health both contribute to the overall well-being of our communities.
- The mentally ill are constrained from being their most productive selves.
- People suffering from depression are not as functional as their healthy peers.
- Depressed youth are statistically more prone to substance abuse, violence, and self-harm, even suicide.
If our presentation is persuasive, we should be seeing some head-bobbing. We haven’t said anything to raise serious objections, and we certainly haven’t said out loud that we want to force anybody into therapy.
So, we’ve prepped our audience for bigger propositions based on getting agreement on sound principles. Toulmin might say we’ve gotten assent for the warrants for our argument. Rogers might say we’ve identified common goals.
Now, to further reduce the danger of opposition, we narrow the scope of our proposal by getting a “buy-in” on the safe and more general position.
THE GENERAL PROPOSAL
Therapy should be AVAILABLE for every youth who DESIRES it.
If we can gain approval of this premise, our more narrow and less obvious proposal stands a much better chance of being approved.
Several categories of youth can be considered, and we can help our audience recognize how easily they agree to the general proposal for all but a VERY FEW individuals.
- Many depressed youth ALREADY RECEIVE AND BENEFIT FROM the therapy they know they need and desire.
- Many depressed youth ARE UNABLE TO GET the therapy they know they need and desire.
- Many depressed youth DO NOT KNOW they could benefit from therapy.
- A few depressed youth KNOW THEY NEED THERAPY but resist it.
1. We should have no trouble getting our audience to agree that Number 1 is the ideal situation. If they agree to that, they should also agree that therapy for all who need it would be the best outcome for all.
2. They should also agree that 2 is sad for the youth who can’t get treatment and will probably agree that a program to help them receive therapy would benefit both the youth and society in general.
3. Saddest of all, maybe, would be youth who are suffering from mental illness and don’t recognize their need for treatment. Here we can lightly suggest that early caregivers (pediatricians, preschool teachers, counselors, foster care workers, etc.) are in a good position to recognize early symptoms of trouble.
4. If we have gained incremental approval for the benefit of therapy, maybe even our responsibility to provide it where needed, suggesting that EVEN THOSE YOUTH WHO DO NOT ELECT THERAPY should be compelled to receive it . . . is no longer SUCH A BIG ASK.
As a benefit to the patient and his/her community, an exploratory course of therapy, at no cost to the patient, should be mandated for every youth who is diagnosed to require it.
Once they realize what they’ve agreed to, our audience might have “buyer’s remorse” and want to retreat on the agreement.
NOW, and not before they’ve agreed, we can bring out the logical analogies they might have recognized as setups if we had introduced them too early. For example:
- When we know someone has a life-threatening illness that can only be treated in a hospital, we refuse to let them check out even if they don’t want to stay.
- If a person is a clear threat to others, for example, because she has a deadly contagious disease, we feel justified quarantining her until she’s cured or no longer a threat.
- The same goes for people who deliberately or uncontrollably represent a threat to the safety and well-being of the general community.
Those arguments, saved for last, can nail down a strong Conclusion with fresh material designed to keep our new converts from rescinding their approval for our fresh proposal.
Your Response?
Reply below if you can think of a way to ease into your argument by first building consensus around a series of little yeses before drawing the inevitable, if counterintuitive at first, conclusion your reader will have to admit at least doesn’t sound crazy any more.
The Gamer 2.0
SleepyCat
Coffee Lover 03
doglover7025
Snowman10
excellentstudent27
Gymrat
hockeyfan
holistic25
ilovebeesss
ilovemydog
The Gamer
Naturechild101
BreakingBad45
ravensfan8
temporal111
thatpersonoverthere
toetio
username1132005
Calm&Patient
webbwrestler135
Counterintuitive Spring 2024 
I can first define what art or therapy is and how working traditionally can help to feel the sensation of art making feel like an extension of yourself.
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Little Yeses in your case don’t have to be about making art per se, TPOT. Get your readers to agree that they know the special feeling of accomplishment and gratification that comes from doing any tiny physical thing. Making sweet contact with a baseball or golf ball feels like making art and immediately improves mood. Gardeners get deep satisfaction from edging their plots with perfectly neat lines, or planting in a row, or arranging the colors to showcase all of them against the others. Singers who drop the perfect harmony into a Christmas carol. Anything that feels like art can be momentarily therapeutic. Are you nodding YES yet?
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you could start by stating something that you know the reader will agree with because it related to them. state a fact that will make the reader start thinking in the direction you are thinking
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That’s too general for me to know how to helpfully respond, Gymrat. When ThatPersonOverThere (above) named the therapeutic value of art, I was able to help. When Temporal (below) named the conflict between curse words and the “elite,” I was able to help. Can you give me some guidance here?
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every day we judge ourselves on our own. Whether it is good or bad it occurs daily from the moment we wake up till we go to bed. throughout the day with endlessly scrolling it starts to also make us compare ourselves to others. Social media gets us to compare ourselves to others and makes us think we are never enough constantly seeking an imaginary look that can never be succeeded; leaving people with social interaction problems.
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Thanks for playing the “Little Yeses” game, Gymrat. 🙂
You’re very bold.
—That is a VERY TOUGH opening claim that will create serious resistance.
—It’s undoubtedly true for most of us, but we don’t want to admit it before we know whether you like us or not. 🙂
—Could you start with a more benign observation that will comfort us a little? Maybe:
Then we can move more comfortably into your second observation feeling special instead of judged:
—The “it” is vague, so:
—Are you nodding Yes yet?
—Right?
With that approach, all you’ve done is introduce the clearly obvious claim that for some of us (most of us) self-awareness is a burden, an invitation to compare ourselves to the rest of humanity.
Everybody will nod Yes to that claim. And once they do, you’re off and running. I hope that helps.
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The way that I can get people to have little yeses to my argument is by using examples of artists who have used their platforms and some who haven’t and show the difference between the two.
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For the sake on onlookers, let me clarify that by “artists” you’re referring here to “rock (and/or) roll” performers. 🙂
Examples are a good way to get little Yeses provided you choose only really obvious acts. The Clash and Rage Against the Machine are strong candidates as bands. Neil Young might qualify, too, but you’d be more likely to get a universal nod by using “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World” than by just naming him personally. This tactic is also a good way to persuade your readers to start subconsciously buying into your Categorical claim that Rock can be defined as music that uses the platform to promote social agendas.
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I can think of a way to ease into my argument.
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That’s too general for me to know how to helpfully respond, EaglesFan. When ThatPersonOverThere (above) named the therapeutic value of art, I was able to help. When Temporal (below) named the conflict between curse words and the “elite,” I was able to help. When Holistic (below) named the toxicity of mattresses, I was able to help. Can you give me some guidance here?
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Admittedly, my hypothesis is causal. Mattresses cause sickness. It’s not the easiest thing to grasp until I implement consensus around smaller claims. Are chemicals bad? Yes. Do some chemicals cause cancer? Yes. Would you optionally consume chemicals? No. Do you consume chemicals/toxins through your skin in addition to your mouth? Yes. These are smaller questions leading up to my big claim.
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Aren’t medicines chemicals? Aren’t nutrients chemicals? Isn’t the benefit of natural compost its chemical richness?
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I meant to use the term petrochemicals.
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A crucial categorical distinction. 🙂
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Username
I can state the benefits dogs bring people, and the way that they can create social interaction. Then the reader will start thinking about dogs and what they bring to their lives if they own one.
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I don’t know how far you have strayed from our original conversation about who benefits more from the domestication of dogs, Username, but wherever you are on the spectrum of mutual benefit / mutual cost, I can’t help but hope you’ll find a very brief clip of a human/dog reunion to illustrate your point and get an immediate “buy-in” from your readers by tapping into their emotions.
I went looking for the shortest one I could find and, by luck, I came across 20 seconds that demonstrate without doubt how much the reunion means to the boy. (It also raises the nagging notion that he might be benefitting more emotionally than the dog does.) See what you think:
https://www.nbcnews.com/video/boy-has-emotional-reunion-with-dog-lost-for-eight-months-966531651811
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what art or therapy means and how traditional methods can help people feel deeply connected to their creative work. Then, I’ll show examples of artists who effectively talk to their audience, compared to those who don’t. This will help us understand why good communication in art is important.
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You have really got me confused, Snowman. Isn’t your Research project an exploration of the rapidly increasing efficiency of solar panels? I hope you understand you’ll be writing 3 short arguments about solar panels and putting them together into a 3000-word argument about solar panels. Where did the art therapy topic come from?
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Sorry
I thought i have to write it on the one with you have provided i will change it and provide a new one for me .
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I get it now. That first example wasn’t mine. It was a Reply from your classmate ThatPersonOverThere.
If you add a new Reply of your own, I can delete this whole conversation. 🙂
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A way I can get little yeses out of the reader is to start off by stating facts that will already create a space for the reader to feel okay to hear me out. If they are already agreeing with the facts you present, they will be more inclined to ride it out.
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That’s too general for me to know how to helpfully respond, EaglesFan. When ThatPersonOverThere (above) named the therapeutic value of art, I was able to help. When Temporal (below) named the conflict between curse words and the “elite,” I was able to help. When Holistic (above) named the toxicity of mattresses, I was able to help. Can you give me some guidance here?
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I can start by stating that curse words obviously exist, and then ease into why they exist to explain the elitist structure of language.
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It might help to get affirmation for small undeniable facts about venue and class. Curse words that might seem completely inoffensive at the corner sports bar don’t fly as well at the hotel brunch table, even if everyone at the brunch uses the same language in their personal lives. Readers will readily agree that those who know when to censor based on location will judge those who don’t to be uncouth. It’s not the words; it’s knowing when to use them that signals a class difference: elite vs common. How does that example work for you?
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pretty good concept, that people know when to censor, and then I can point out the pattern in those environments
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Figure out who does the censoring and you’ll find your elite. Even the corner sports bar has one.
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I can start getting little yeses for my argument by stating that everyone at some point in life has cried at least once.
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Yes, you could. But you’ll need something more to get an “argument” started, even with Yeses. Maybe something more provocative, and much more specific, that can get you a more meaningful Yes than just “Yes. I have cried.”
The first that come to mind:
1. Not everyone cries at a funeral, but then, not everybody feels the same way about the deceased.
2. Not everyone cries at a wedding, but then, not everybody is as happy, or as sad, about the marriage. And not every type of tear is the same.
It didn’t take long to get to “types of crying,” did it?
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Do you like having something comfortable to wear?
Do you prefer a shoe that has a great design and also has great quality?
Do you like wearing shoes that are worth what you pay for?
Then do you think that New Balance are the best shoes on the market because they provide all these and more?
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-The Gamer2.0
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Good start, TheGamer.
Clearly you were paying attention to my example of the car salesman using simple questions to get “buy-in” before the big “Let’s go get the paperwork started” question.
However. You probably haven’t heard me object to Rhetorical Questions yet. If you stick around awhile, you’ll hear it often. Avoid them, please. They invite resistance as much as they invite affirmation and therefore should be handled only by licensed professionals. 🙂
So, let’s tweak. Instead of:
—We’ve all been disappointed by shoes that seemed good in theory but always pinched, or raised a blister.
—We all know the disappointment of a beautiful new shoe that we couldn’t wait to kick off as soon as we got home.
—There may be no better feeling than stepping into shoes that feel custom-fitted for our own feet.
I could ask you a Rhetorical Question now: See why this is better?
Or I could make a bold claim instead: I’m sure you see why the statements are more likely to get the reader to start “feeling” that shoe.
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I can start getting little yeses by asking “Can social media be negative?”, “Have you ever seen hate on social media?” or “Would social media be a better place without hate?” These are questions that the reader can agree on.
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You clearly get the idea, DogLover, that getting early affirmation from our readers is essential to guiding them down the path to a conclusion they might not have ever come to without our help.
However.
Rhetorical Questions are not the best tactic. My reaction to yours is:
In other words, you’ve gone too far toward the obvious, and readers will bail if they think you don’t have something new for them to consider.
What’s the alternative? First, don’t actually ASK questions.
MAKE CLAIMS that elicit that head nod, unconsciously. Be a little bit subtle. Guide your readers. Questions put them in charge. Stay in charge yourself by getting them to assent without quite knowing what you’re up to.
That’s really blunt. And I may have gone too far already, but I hope you see what I mean about getting readers to agree to something that ISN’T OBVIOUSLY ABOUT social media before you APPLY THE YES to social media.
I hope that’s obvious. NOBODY could say NO to either of those claims.
As soon as you get affirmation for those claims, one small step will get you to:
Your reactions?
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HockeyFan: I would try to achieve little yeses by asking people characteristics about life or people
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That’s too general for me to know how to helpfully respond, HockeyFan. When ThatPersonOverThere (above) named the therapeutic value of art, I was able to help. When Temporal (above) named the conflict between curse words and the “elite,” I was able to help. When Holistic (above) named the toxicity of mattresses, I was able to help. By now I’ve provided feedback for many more as well (all above). Can you give me some guidance here?
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