OBJECTION, YOUR HONOUR!

“You may say I'm a dreamer, 

but I'm not the only one. 

I hope someday you'll join us. 

And the world will live as one.”

(John Lennon, from "Imagine ”)

Every time we propose our ideas, in any context, it can happen that somebody may disagree with what we are saying. A good way to deal with them is by anticipating the objections we think our listeners may have in their mind and tell them before they will. In sales we call it inoculation against objections.
 
It's fascinating to see how great writers and songwriters are using it as well and creatively so.

Pessoa, a flâneur in the street of
Lisbon. (Wikipedia)

Fernando Pessoa in The Tobacco Shop may have felt that his metaphysical reflections may have led the reader too far and so he himself states in the poem:
  
“And an awareness that metaphysics is a consequence of not feeling very well”.

By taking the objection on himself he integrates it and neutralize it.


Cesare Pavese in the introduction to the first edition of  “Dialogues with Leucò” in 1947 writes of himself:

“Cesare Pavese, who many insist on considering a stubborn realist narrator, specialized in rural and suburban America-Piedmont, in these dialogues reveals a new aspect of his character. There is no authentic writer, who doesn't have moods, whims, a hidden muse, that suddenly cause him to become a hermit.”

(My Translation from the original Italian)

(Wikipedia)

In High Fidelity, Nick Hornby uses this technique not at the beginning but in media res while writing about some of the protagonist behaviour that affected Laura and that may cause a adverse reaction of the reader. So, before we could judge him negatively, or immediately after the reader may have formed his idea, uses the technique to inoculate against objections in a very creative way:

“I do not know what, precisely, Laura said, but she would have revealed at least two, maybe even all four, of the following pieces of information:

1. That I slept with somebody else while she was pregnant.
2. That my affair contributed directly to her terminating the pregnancy.
3. That, after her abortion, I borrowed a large sum of money from her and have not yet repaid any of it.
4. That, shortly before she left, I told her I was unhappy in the relationship, and I was kind of sort of maybe looking around for someone else.

Did I do and say these things? Yes, I did. Are there any mitigating circumstances? Not really, unless any circumstances can be regarded as mitigating. And before you judge, although you have probably already done so, go away and write down the four worst things that you have done to your partner, even if—especially if—your partner doesn’t know about them. Don’t dress these things up, or try to explain them; just write them down, in a list, in the plainest language possible. Finished? OK, so who’s the arsehole now?”

Single by John Lennon 
from the album Imagine 
(Wikipedia)

You may also have noticed how John Lennon in the initial quote of this post, taken from the song that has been considered by millions as the most beautiful and most representative song of the 20th century, does not only inoculates against the objection but uses is to lead the listeners to a shared vision of a peaceful world.

Imagine, you can. :-)
Adriano


driadema@gmail.com


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