Han Fei Tzu vs. Cicero

I have to admit, I wasn’t a big fan of Cicero. He had some interesting ideas, but the way he presented them was not the most effective. It was kind of an interesting concept, in the way that he would talk about something he thought was good or bad, and then he would basically describe it in a scenario situation. He would say that if a person did this, then others would respond in this way, and if a person did this other thing, then others would respond in a different way. It seemed as if he is kind of a negative person, as the scenarios he described almost always ended in a bad way. He doesn’t seem to be a positive person, but I did like his ideas, just not the way they are presented.

However, Han Fei Tzu had some ideas that I thought were very interesting. When I read his second sentence, his idea really hit home with me. He says, “On the whole, the difficult thing about persuasion is to know the mind of the person one is trying to persuade and to be able to fit one’s words to it” (558). This is so true. It does not matter at all, what you say, if it isn’t what the person wants to hear, then they won’t listen. Once you are able to quickly decide what will make a person listen and properly orate it, you will become a very successful speaker. I think this could be tied into my third essay, which I have decided will be utilizing the television show Family Guy. It is relevant in the fact that I think Family Guy is a terrible show and a waste of one’s time, yet, because of the way that the characters are depicted and the way they say things, the show grabs the attention of many people. I definitely think that Tzu will be a good source to use to help me argue my thesis, which will be something like Family Guy is a terrible show that pushes the envelope only to see how far it can go, under the cover that it is comedy. The only reason that people watch it is because the characters know what to say initially to get people to listen, and then they go beyond what is appropriate way too often.