Jay Heinrichs - How to Argue With A Cat: A Human’s Guide to the Art of Persuasion

Jay Heinrichs is the bestselling author of Thank You for Arguing. He has written for dozens of publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Vice and the Huffington Post, and won numerous journalism awards. He has taught persuasion to college and university editors at Ivy League universities, NASA and the Pentagon. He runs the acclaimed blog Figarospeech.com, as well as the rhetoric site ArgueLab.com.

Jay Heinrichs

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HOW TO ARGUE WITH A CAT

A Humans Guide to the Art of Persuasion

Illustrated by Natalie Palmer-Sutton

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Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

Copyright Jay Heinrichs, 2018

Illustrations copyright Natalie Palmer-Sutton

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover illustration: Natalie Palmer-Sutton

ISBN: 978-1-846-14958-0

For Charlie, Maturin and Killick, and in memory of dear Aubrey and Percy

Dear cat, your ears are flipped inside out, so I know youre not listening to a word Im not saying.

Jarod Kintz

Theyre exactly like us minus our useless mental power and thumbs.

Bob Tarte

When people asked me for a beginners guide to the art of persuasion, I thought, Cats. Then I thought, Terrible idea. Persuading people is hard. Persuading cats? Much, much harder, because they rank among the worlds top negotiators. They are masters in the dark art of persuasion.

Being a lover of cats myself, I have personal experience of arguing with them. Although I have written a bestselling book on persuasion, I still lose most of the arguments I have with my two cats, Maturin and Killick.

Then something happened that made me change my mind. I was giving a persuasion workshop at an advertising agency in London. During a break to check my emails I borrowed the office of the art director, Natalie Palmer-Sutton. Her walls were covered with brilliant cat art. The pictures looked as if Natalie had peered right past her cats pretty faces and into their devious little souls. If she could do that, I thought, I just might be up to the challenge. Maybe I could uncover their cunning tricks to charm and convince. It would be worth the effort. If you could learn to persuade a cat, then any human friend, loved one, boss, even a teenager for crying out loud would bow to your magic.

I begged Natalie to team up with me. We would try to make people laugh while teaching them the best secrets for persuading anyone. Including a cat. This book is the result.

Wait, says a non-cat person. Cats dont talk.

Sure they do. They purr. They meow. We know one who makes weird happy grunting noises when he eats. Admittedly, half the time you dont know exactly what cats are talking about. But whose fault is that? Besides, half the time we dont know what humans are talking about. Cats and people alike frequently talk nonsense. Both often behave illogically. But if you know a few tricks, you can get along with even the most stubborn and senseless cat or human.

This is the theory behind rhetoric, the art of persuasion. Invented almost three thousand years ago by ingenious Greeks, rhetoric was studied by such luminaries as the philosopher Aristotle. He wrote the classic book on the subject after he finished his famous one on logic. Aristotle realized that, while logic is excellent and noble, and a first-rate way to make a friend look like a drooling idiot, a perfectly logical argument fails to persuade most of the time. Aristotle and the rhetoricians who came after him discovered that other factors persuade people better than logic: namely our emotions, our identities and the people we hang around with. This book, based on many years of studying rhetoric and of observing cats, those masters of the art will show you how to use these factors to persuade humans (and cats).

Just keep in mind that cats are not quite the suckers you and I are. Being more cautious and sceptical, they tend to be wiser than humans, especially when it comes to interspecies relations. Still, cats are no more logical than humans. The same rhetorical tricks can work for both. Learning to argue with cats will not only improve your relationships with cats, it will help you get along with humans.

Cat persuasion techniques can also protect you against the tricks pulled on you by marketers, politicians and dodgy sorts of all stripes. Like these people, cats are skilled manipulators who can talk you into just about anything with scarcely a word. They can get you to drop whatever youre doing and play with them. They can make you serve their dinner way ahead of schedule. They can get you to sit down right this instant and provide a lap.

On the other hand, try getting a cat to do what you want.

While its hard, persuading a cat is possible. And after that, persuading humans becomes a breeze. You just need to learn the persuasion skills in this book. Well teach you how to:

• Hold an intelligent conversation one of the few things easier to do with a cat than a human.
• Argue logically, even if your opponent is hairy and irrational.
• Cak up a fallacy (the hairball of logic).
• Make your body do the talking. (Cats are very good at this.)
• Master decorum, the art of fitting in with cats, venture capitalists or humans.
• Learn the wisdom of predator timing and pounce at the right moment.
• Get someone to do something, or stop doing it.
• Earn any creatures respect and loyalty.

The tools to accomplish these feats come from Aristotle and the other masters in the art of persuasion. We hope this book makes the art easy to practise. The tools in here are simple, even if cats arent. Once you get comfortable with them, you might consider learning more about rhetoric in Thank You for Arguing.

Meanwhile, relax. An argument doesnt have to lead to spitting and scratching. Remember, an agreeable lap goes a long way. And, as the next chapter shows, resolving a disagreement starts by simply being agreeable.

Jay Heinrichs

Cats rarely change their expression. Thats one reason they look so dignified. It also helps them hide their ploys.

To err is human, to purr is feline.

Robert Byrne

The first thing every cat knows, and you should know too, is that an argument is not a fight. In a fight, you try to