Jay Heinrichs
HOW TO ARGUE WITH A CAT
A Human’s Guide to the Art of Persuasion
Illustrated by Natalie Palmer-Sutton
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India | New Zealand | South Africa
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 you’re not listening to a word I’m not saying.’
Jarod Kintz
Introduction
1. Practise Agreeability: The Brilliant Purr
Turn a disagreement into a beautiful relationship
2. Pounce Like a Predator: The Art of Stalking
Learn persuasion’s timing secret
3. Defuse Anger: The Toilet Argument
Cool things down with a thing called the future
4. Fit in with the Clan: The Box Manoeuvre
Practise perfect decorum
5. Earn Loyalty: The Virtuous Scratch
Wield the tools of character
6. Argue Logically: The Deductive Mousetrap
Get a cat to come
7. Avoid Manipulation: The Magical Bookshelf
Logical fallacies, and why they fool us
8. Talk with Your Body: The Eye Intrigue
Convince with tone and gesture
9. Make Them Heed: The Lure and the Ramp
Practise the greatest tools of persuasion
10. Follow the Steps: The Cat Persuasion Checklist
Make sure you’ve dotted the rhetorical ‘i’s
Epilogue: Cats of Character
And what they’ve taught us
Follow Penguin
‘They’re exactly like us minus our useless mental power and thumbs.’
Bob Tarte
When people asked me for a beginner’s 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 world’s 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 don’t 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 don’t know exactly what cats are talking about. But whose fault is that? Besides, half the time we don’t 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 you’re 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 it’s 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. We’ll teach you how to:
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 aren’t. Once you get comfortable with them, you might consider learning more about rhetoric in Thank You for Arguing.
Meanwhile, relax. An argument doesn’t 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. That’s one reason they look so dignified. It also helps them hide their ploys.
