I've been thinking a lot about negative space lately.
It doesn't mean I am negative - nor that the space is bitter or unethical or bad in any way.
Negative space has a specific meaning in art where it...
... is the space around and between the subject(s) of an image. Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, and not the subject itself, forms an interesting or artistically relevant shape, and such space is occasionally used to artistic effect as the "real" subject of an image.
But I'm not talking of negative space in art. I am thinking of its role in politics, specifically in the presentation of ideas....because half of shaping perceptions (perhaps more than half) is what is not said... what is left up to the listener to "fill in". In other words, to draw their own conclusions.
More below the break.
Ultimately, the best way to win an argument, to influence another person, is to set them into the situation where they are doing the work of convincing themselves that you
1. are a good person
2. have good points
3. some of which you already agree with
4. agreeing with some or all of the rest is worth doing
5. and, besides, this is a good person
6. and being agreeable with good people is its own unqualified good
It also happens to be how con artists do their thing - social engineering. Setting up a plausible situation where a few facts, as presented, are stitched together in the mark's mind...and once the door is open a crack, the mark (if tractable) basically cons themselves.
Thus, the power of negative space.
Now, it can be a good thing, as well - a tool for good.
And then there is the other aspect of negative space - limiting it, filling it with messages and commitments that are highly resistant to contradictory information - even information of any kind (even that which helps support and enhance pre-existing views).
Open-mindedness is a kind of negative space - a very powerful venue in which to consider new perspectives, to draw inferences, to enrich your life - if you exercise it well.
Now, some might think close-mindedness is a defense against frauds. Oh....bless their hearts... not really. No mind is free of negative space, and even the least bit of it gives an outside person very strong levers that work in very predictable ways. That's why propaganda works so well - and why tens of billions of dollars a year are spent designing ways to fill your thoughts and emotions with levers that, later on, will make money off of you.
So, yes, advertisers and con artists and rhetoricians... yes, even us bloggers... are quarreling over other people's negative space... do we claim it for our own? Take it back from competing voices and influences?
Or do we help people recognize what is so often taken from them without their even knowing they are victims of an especially intimate kind of theft? Because, in not recognizing that negative cognitive space exists...most people do not realize that they cannot even take their own minds (and states of mind) for granted.
So yes. I have been thinking a lot of negative space lately - on how often I'm left to fill in the blanks - my own mind's blanks - on topics such as public policy, public image and making inferences about the facts, motives and objectives of personalities, whether they are in the news or in the meeting or in a phone conversation.
I'm not saying we are all conning each other. I think most people are good, and fill in their own blanks with ideas that other people are generally good (at least good in a self-interested way) and want good things for themselves and others.
The problem is this fundamental generosity is very often abused. For evil to triumph it only necessary for good people to do nothing more than...fill in their own blanks with assumed good intentions.
So, what to do? What is the balance of influencing others' views (after all, we're bloggers, that's the whole point!) and empowering them to make choices that work for them? And how to tell if someone's screwing with you, or working against your self-interest? And how to recognize, oops, I've been had - I would like to not continue being a bag-holder? And help others stop being saps?
I don't have a quick answer to that. Negative space, as the wiki link above indicates, is a tough concept to grasp. Just knowing it's in our heads might be a good start, though.