One
Man's Teaching And Another Man's Practice
In the opening study of his series it was suggested that the
use of the psychological in methods outlined in Dale
Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People,
are not properly applicable to the preaching of the
gospel of Christ. The reasoning was based on the fundamental
differences between the aim of the gospel and the operation
of the Carnegie technique, the latter being based on an
appeal to man's sense of self-importance, whereas the former
aims at developing his humility, his sense of unworthiness.
But, lest someone charge that my presentation of the
contrast between the Carnegie way and the gospel way is
exaggerated and overdrawn, let me hasten to produce the
documentation. All quotations, other than those from the
scriptures, are taken from How to Win Friends and
Influence People, Dale Carnegie: Simon and Shuster, New
York, 1952.
Mr. Carnegie says: "There is one all-important law of human
conduct. . . . The law is this: Always make the other person
feel important" (p. 93).
In laying the foundation for the development of his book, he
says that the big secret of dealing with people is to give
them what they want.
"The only way I can get you to do anything," he says, "is by
giving you what you want" (p. 29). But what is it that most
people want?
"Professor John Dewey, America's most profound philosopher.
. . . says the deepest urge in human nature is 'the desire
to be important.' It is significant. You are going to hear a
lot about it in this book...
"Here is a gnawing and unfaltering human hunger; and the
rare individual who honestly satisfies this heart-hunger
will hold people in the palm of his hand and 'even the
undertaker will be sorry when he dies"' (p. 30).
Mr. Carnegie then discusses some ways in which people strive
for this feeling of importance, including competitive
accomplishments, education, ostentation, crime, invalidism
and insanity. Then he observes:
"If some people are so hungry for a feeling of importance
that they actually go insane to get it, imagine what
miracles you and I can achieve by giving people honest
appreciation this side of insanity" (p. 34).
Hence, the basis for the Carnegie approach.
“Don't Criticize"
"Now, if you're going to flatter a man's ego, you mustn't
censure or criticize him.
"Ninety-nine times out of a hundred," says Mr. Carnegie, "no
man ever criticizes himself for anything, no matter how
wrong he may be.
"Criticism is futile because it puts a man on the defensive,
and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism
is dangerous, because it wounds a man's precious pride,
hurts his sense of importance, and arouses his resentment"
(p. 21). "When dealing with people," he explains on page 27,
"let us remember that we are not dealing with creatures of
logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures
bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.
"And criticism is a dangerous spark —a spark that is liable
to cause an explosion in the powder magazine of pride . . .”
"Avoid the Acute Angle"
In part three of his book, entitled "Twelve Ways to Win
People to Your Way of Thinking," Mr. Carnegie calls his
first chapter: "You Can't Win an Argument."
"Always avoid the acute angle," he advises ". . . I have
come to the conclusion that there is only one way under high
heaven to get the best of an argument— and that is to avoid
it. Avoid it as you would avoid rattle snakes and
earthquakes.
"Nine times out of ten, an argument ends with each of the
contestants being more firmly convinced than ever that he is
absolutely right.
"You can't win an argument. You can't because if you lose
it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it. Why? Well,
suppose you triumph over the other man and shoot his
argument full of holes and prove that he is non compos
mentis. Then what? You will feel fine, But what about
him? You have made him feel inferior. You have hurt his
pride. He will resent your triumph. And —"'A man convinced
against his will is of the same opinion still"' (p. 105).
According to Mr. Carnegie, misunderstandings are never ended
by argument, but "by tact, diplomacy, conciliation, and a
sympathetic desire to see the other person's view point" (p.
108).
"Never Tell a Man He is Wrong"
From this reasoning, Carnegie progresses to his second rule
of winning people's thoughts: Never tell a man he is wrong!
Never! For you have struck a direct blow to his
intelligence, his judgment, his pride, his self-respect.
That will make him want to strike back. But it will never
make him want to change his mind. You may hurl at him all
the logic of a Plato or an Immanuel Kant, but you will not
alter his opinion, for you have hurt his feelings" (p. 110).
"Few people are logical," Carnegie observes. "Most of us are
prejudiced and biased. Most of us are blighted with
preconceived notions, with jealousy, suspicion, fear, envy,
pride. And most citizens don't want to change their minds
about their religion or their hair cut or Communism or Clark
Gable. So, if you are inclined to tell people they are
wrong, please read the following paragraph on your knees
every morning before breakfast. It is from Professor James
Harvey Robinson's enlightening book, The Mind in the Making.
"'We sometimes find ourselves changing our minds without any
resistance or heavy emotion, but if we are told we are
wrong, we resent the imputation and harden our hearts. We
are incredibly heedless in the formation of our beliefs, but
find ourselves filled with an illicit passion for them when
anyone proposes to rob us of their companionship. It is
obviously not the ideas themselves that are dear to us, but
our self-esteem that is threatened . . . The little word
"my" is the most important one in human affairs, and
properly to reckon with it is the beginning of wisdom. It
has the same force whether it is "my" dinner, "my" dog, and
"my" house, or "my" father, “my" country, and "my" God. We
not only resent the imputation that our watch is wrong, or
our car shabby, but that our conception of the canals of
Mars, of the pronunciation of "Epictetus," of the medicinal
value of salicin, or of the date of Sargon I is subject to
revision. . . . We like to continue to believe what we have
been accustomed to accept as true, and the resentment
aroused when doubt is cast upon any of our assumptions leads
us to seek every manner of excuse for clinging to it. The
results is that most of our so-called reasoning consists in
finding arguments for going on believing as we already do'”
(pp. 112, 113).
Among his "Nine Ways to Change People Without Giving Offense
or Arousing Resentment," Mr. Carnegie lists as Rule 2: "Call
attention to people's mistakes indirectly." Rule 4 is: "Ask
questions instead of giving direct orders." Rule 5: "Let the
other man save his face." Rule 8: "Make the fault seem easy
to correct."
Since it is not within the scope of this article to consider
the Carnegie teachings in their entirety, but only those
fundamentals which seem to be out of place when used as a
pattern of preaching the gospel, I recommend that the reader
make a complete study of the book, How to Win Friends and
Influence People, and that its principles be applied in
their proper place whenever it is possible to use them
sincerely. Their workability in the social field is beyond
question.
But back to our subject, the use of this approach in
preaching.
Didn't God Know These Things?
Do you suppose that God, who made man, and Jesus, who "knew
what was in man" (John 2:25) had not discovered these
principles of successfully dealing with human nature at the
time of Christ's earthly ministry and that of the inspired
apostles?
Or do you conclude that Jesus was really trying to make the
Canaanitish woman feel her importance when he answered her
supplication with these famous words of obvious import: "It
is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the
dogs" (Matt. 15:26). Question: Guess who was the dog
in this case?
Or perhaps he felt that he was feeding the self-esteem of
the scribes and Pharisees when he called them an "evil and
adulterous generation" (Matt. 12: 39). Maybe he
really intended to "change without offense" when he
criticized their errors and called them hypocrites (Matt.
15:1-9), but just didn't know enough about human nature
to be able to do it successfully.
Was he trying to make the righteous life appear easy when he
said — "It is easier for a camel to go through a needle's
eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God"
(Matt. 19:24) and "If any man would come after me,
let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me"
(Mk. 8:34).
Was it just a slip of the tongue when he flatly told the
Sadducees they were wrong?—Matt. 22:29—"Ye do err"
and intimated that they were ignorant: "not knowing the
scriptures, nor the power of God." By this episode was he
calculating to "avoid the acute angle" and show that he was
averse to argumentation or debating as he went on to produce
arguments to substantiate the doctrine of a resurrection?
Was it ignorance of the workings of the human mind that
caused Jesus to commit such psychological blunders that the
most religious people of his time became his implacable
enemies, and even many of his own disciples "went back, and
walked no more with him" (John 6:66), and that
finally brought about his death as a result of the seething
resentment aroused by his words? All of these, when by
choosing his words more wisely, being silent in the right
places, and flattering the ego of the right people he might
easily have had the unwavering support of the entire nation!
Is the book of John really inspired, or was the Spirit
merely indulging in an ironical jest when he said through
the apostle that Jesus "needed not that any one should bear
witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man"
(John 2:25) — It would appear from this angle that
Jesus definitely could have used some lessons on the
salesmanship technique as espoused by the latter-day
preaching devotees of Carnegie.
Or was John telling the truth about Jesus' knowledge of man,
leaving us to conclude that the comparative failure of the
Son of God in Winning Friends and Influencing People was due
to some fatal inability to put his knowledge into practice,
perhaps through inadequacy of personality or shortcoming of
oral expression?
It will not ease the difficulty to clamor, as many do, that
Jesus did use a Carnegie-type procedure, and to point
confidently to parts of the Sermon on the Mount, the
multitudes of common people who followed him, and the many
instances of his demonstrated compassion and tenderness as
proof of the assertion. His departures from the system are
too numerous, too flagrant, and too far-reaching in their
effects to be ignored or denied.
The undeniable facts of Jesus' ministry can lead but to
three conceivable conclusions:
1. He had but a meager knowledge of the principles of
successful human relations.
2. He knew the human mind, but was incapable of making a
practical application of his knowledge.
3. He both knew men and knew how to handle them, but
deliberately chose not to employ the means of persuasion
necessary to reach some.
Obviously, either of the first two positions would be
unthinkable to a true believer, but before developing the
third conclusion, let's examine the preaching of the
apostles and other inspired men of the New Testament age.
This we shall have to postpone, because of space
limitations, until next month. (To be Continued)
- Preceptor, May
1954
(To be Continued)
|