The art of persuasion rarely succeeds without a leap of imaginative sympathy. Identification tends to precede assent: to embrace any worldview, any philosophical position, one must first imagine oneself as the kind of person who could become a Christian or an atheist, a Marxist or a libertarian.
Thus autobiography is often the most compelling form of argument, and few polemics are quite so potent as a well-told conversion story. Whereas lesser writers merely hector the unconverted, the intellectual convert identifies with them, and inspires identification in return. As you are, I once was, he reminds the readerâ??a reassurance that makes it infinitely easier to proceed with the argument that As I am, you should become.
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