While reading ‘The Tragedy of Julius Caesar’ in English class, I discovered the power of words. In my opinion, this play was a lot about persuasion and conflicting views; the most remarkable example being the way Antony used words to turn the feelings of an entire city against Brutus’ logic. Some time after reading the play, I found myself in a situation where, like Antony, I attempted to turn the opinion of an entire crowd.
My teacher always wrote down random questions to talk about on the first ten minutes of class. That morning, the question seemed innocent enough: “what club or organization in our school would you get rid of?” The entire class, except me and another girl, had chosen the Gay Straight Alliance. A little astonished at this outcome, I hesitantly raised my hand and declared that I thought GSA was a necessary organization in school. Suddenly, what was supposed to be an English class turned into what seemed like a match of debate- me against everyone else. I pointed out that living in a southern, mostly republican and conservative state, I was well aware of the dislike some people had towards the LGBT community. My point however, was that there was a need for GSA- Just a couple of years before, a girl had committed suicide because of bullying after coming out. I received various types of responses from my classmates; Some argued that a person who is aware they live in such a conservative community should know better than to come out (To this I answered that coming out was their liberty of expression, and that they should feel free and safe to be themselves as long as it does not harm anybody else). Others simply said that LGBT should not exist in the first place.
I managed to change the opinions of six of my classmates before the subject quieted down, but nobody was able to change my mind. I realized how truly skilled someone needs to be in order to persuade a crowd, it really isn’t as simple as Antony made it seem!!
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Victoria Annie Munoz-anderson says
The fact that you were able to change the minds of six people is amazing, especially considering the amount of people who’s minds remained unaltered. Trying to change the mind of an entire crowd of people is near impossible, but if you were able to get at least one person to see your point, then I think that’s a pretty successful argument made.