What are Pathos, Ethos, and Logos, anyway?
The human mind does not store raw data. The human mind collects data and processes it into memories. That processing is what determines whether we consider a particular piece of data to be considered "reality". The mind tends to review data in one of three ways:
Pathos is the Emotion mindset. Pathos is all about internal feelings. Reality is interpreted in terms of what emotional reaction it invokes. Emotion minded people tend to be intuitive, instinctive, energetic, mischievous, and occasionally annoying. They tend to sing praises or broadcast their dejection. Logic is not their forte.
Ethos is the ethical appeal, the Credibility mindset. This mind likes hierarchy and organization. They are the jack-of-all-trades master-of-none people. They are the middle managers of the world. To them, the most credible form of reality comes in the form of an authority and the opinion of the authority.
Logos is the Logical mindset. They like the numbers and the facts. Feelings are tolerated, insofar as they don't interfere with the reality of numbers. They aren't the ones that don't care, but rather, who care too much.
Now, everyone has all three of these mindsets, to a certain extent, but one is always dominant over the others. And not by a little either. Remember that this is how the brain interprets reality. Using an emotional argument on a logical person is going to fail, not because the person lacks emotion, but rather because emotion is a very weak method of persuasion to his particular mindset. Similarly, a father trying to make a logical argument to his song about the merits of a stable job vs being a DJ is going to make little headway focusing on potential income. These two minds are seeing reality differently. To the father, the song is acting in a reckless and illogical manner; the father doesn't see the son's passion as a strength, because his mind doesn't calculate passion as a form of reality. To the son, the father is treating him like a child, not taking him seriously, not seeing the reason why he would succeed, because the son's mind does not see numbers and facts as a form of love, as the concern of a father to their child's future. Neither is wrong; it's just that their minds are seeing the exact same data and interpreting it as two different realities.
Unfortunately, merely understanding this is not likely to be of great use. Most of us have been using our mindsets for 2-3 decades, and some of use twice that. To call it an ingrained habit would be a massive understatement. Even when you completely understand someone's mindset, even when you know exactly what you need to do in order to communicate effectively to that person, the compulsion to remain in your mindset can be overwhelming. It is like using your wrong hand intentionally, at times when you really need the accuracy of your favored hand. To my students, I actually compare it to military training. Even though you do not want to be in that situation, and you do not want to do the things you are doing, you must still do them in order to accomplish your goal. And sometimes, that involved carrying out acts that makes you completely uncomfortable, and doing them with your brain screaming at you the entire way. Even then, it is truly impossible to describe how it feels to act against you natural mindset. It is one of the more alien things you will ever attempt.
I'll go more into Pathos in my next post.
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