Day 234: Disparage critics as being opponents of progress and productivity.

You have a new idea or new information to share with your readers. You want to propose a new plan, program, or process. You want to change how things are done now. You will receive criticism. That’s life.

How do you deal with criticism and increase the potential that your readers will agree with you and not your critics? One strategy, which I have already discussed, is to predict and counter those arguments.

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Another way is simply to disparage, or criticize, your critics. Your criticism doesn’t even have to be true; it only has to be true from your perspective. (Note: This is a common strategy employed by politicians.) Let me give you a recent example of this.

The president wants to change the government’s role in health care, and he is encountering a great deal of resistance. He has a new way to do things, and other people don’t agree. Sound familiar?

Instead of using the first strategy we discussed (i.e., countering those arguments and discussing the advantages of his plan and the faults with their ideas), he is disparaging their criticism. Instead of saying “My plan is better because…” and “Their ideas are wrong because…” he is saying, “They are opponents of reform.”

To state this in more aggressive terms, when your ideas are under attack, counterattack by stating that your opponents are against something good (e.g., reform). By putting the focus on your critics, you take the focus away from the idea. By claiming that your opponents oppose progress or productivity, you demonstrate that you are for these positive things and have, therefore, the superior claim— without having to prove the merits of your claim.

Most people want to be for something good, so when they see the argument not from the basis of facts and logic but as a choice between being on the side of good versus being on the side of bad, they are more likely to agree with you.