And you know, on days that I'm willing to accept the responsibilty that such a thought entails, I think that the most persuasive thing a person can do is to engage in a version of the ethical appeal. If I think about all the times I have been deeply persuaded, the logic and overall tightness of the person's argument played a role, sure, but the thing that first plants that seed of openness to persuasion more often to not has nothing to do with the argument at hand. My buddy Mike's writings converted me from politically apathetic to liberal/leftist years ago, and while he's a brilliant writer, part of what had me so open to his writings was the fact that he seemed like such an vigilant, aware, and deeply caring person - and part of me wanted to be like that. I mean, that has nothing to do with what he was arguing, no? I can barely remeber the substance of most of the articles - but I had seen him act out of a place of extreme love and vigilance before, and this added something to the words.

I see it too in some of my favorite writers. William Vollmann has written things that normally I wouldn't think twice about, or even care at all about. But I've read his novels and I know the weird things he does in them - he's shown himself to be a writer of inordinate thoughtfulness and follow-through, perhaps even to the point of near-lunacy. And because of that I feel safe enough to trust him, lower my standard cynical defenses.

This is uncomfortable though because it means that if I expect people to be open to what I say or think or write, I have to "earn it" in a way that implies a lot of hard work, in the sense that acting attentively and humanely can be hard work . . . and so sometimes I just accept I'm probably a hack and zone out to some crappy CBS sitcoms. . . or whatever. . . because really, who am i kidding