leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) (12/18/85)
THE ART OF DECEPTION by Nicholas Capaldi
Prometheus Books.
A book review by Mark R. Leeper
A while back I reviewed THE GENTLE ART OF VERBAL SELF-DEFENSE by
Suzette Haden Elgin. This was a book that is almost--but not entirely--
useless in the art of surviving the verbal conflicts we all face. For the
sake of comparison I read the deceptively titled THE ART OF DECEPTION. This
is really much like Strunk's ELEMENTS OF STYLE in its simplicity and it
could better be called THE ELEMENTS OF HOW ARGUMENTS ARE WON. That is not
necessarily the same thing as how to win an argument. Some of the
techniques occasionally backfire but often do not. Hence it really gives
strategies in argument that have worked rather than fool-proof strategies.
The book will suggest a technique. A few pages later it will say if this
technique is used against you, here is how to counter it.
As the title suggest, Capaldi makes no distinction whatsoever about
which techniques are clean and which are dirty. His concern is to teach the
reader how to analyze a situation and have a number of techniques--clean and
dirty--in his gadget bag for getting him out of the situation. In this
sense the book is much like GENTLE ART, but the effectiveness of the gadget
bag is different. Elgin's gadget bag will help out its user in about 5% of
all arguments. Capaldi's will help in about 75% with it being really useful
about 40% of the time. In a general book about argument, it is unlikely you
will find much that is more effective than that. Obviously there are limits
to the efficacy of an argument based on the actual content of the argument.
To convince someone that two plus two is five, Capaldi's approaches are
simply too weak. As an extreme example, if you could use O'Brien's
techniques in Orwell's 1984 you could be more convincing, but obviously with
techniques falling short of that there is are strong constraints that
content will place on how an argument must be presented and Capaldi ignores
them.
THE ART OF DECEPTION is broken into sections on:
1. presenting your case
2. attacking your opponent's argument
3. defending your case
4. political propaganda
5. cause and effect reasoning
6. formal analysis of arguments
The first three sections obviously are basic. Section 4 is interesting
and short, but can be skipped on first reading. The last two sections are
more on what Capaldi himself says is too easy to find in this society,
material on formal logic. It is the sections on informal logic that are
useful.
There are levels of basic books that everyone should have. First comes
a good dictionary and thesaurus. The next level includes an encyclopedia
and a Bible for reference (perhaps also a copy of Maltin's TV MOVIES, though
that might be just my prejudice). On the next level with Strunk's ELEMENTS
OF STYLE comes Capaldi's ART OF DECEPTION--at least until a better book on
informal argument comes along.
Mark R. Leeper
...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper