The Art of Seduction - Another Post
Aug. 15th, 2008 01:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fiat_knoxI've been asked to present my view on Robert Greene's The Art of Seduction. I've emailed the correspondent already with my reply. Here's the text I submitted.
I actually mentioned my first impression of Robert Greene's book in a post I made in a LJ post on August 12th. I love the book as much as I've grown to love his earlier book, The 48 Laws of Power. I haven't dug into his third book, The 33 Strategies of War, yet: I'll want to look into it along with von Clausewitz' On War and Sun Tzu's The Art of War for that sense of completeness.
As for the amorality of pursuing someone (which requires the chaser to first be pursuable - the closest term I can describe for the man or woman who takes the lessons of The Art of Seduction to heart), is it really amoral to persuade someone to see your point of view with words and attitude alone, with a ready smile and one's full attention, as I am doing now, than by the clumsy brute force means used by the untrained and the insecure?
99 percent of the seduction process, going by what is in this book, is about the seducer finding the seducee more fascinating than his own petty wants and needs. The grand seducer charms, with sweeping gestures and subtle touches, and reveals a generosity of mind and spirit, as well as occasionally of wallet. The star of the show is not the seducer; it is the "victim," the person being tempted.
Like a salesperson making a pitch, the seducer reveals to the seducee that he has just that thing to make the seducee feel whole and complete, if only for this one night; this one engagement. Success, in Robert Greene's book, involves the seducer being able to shape himself or herself into just that missing piece to temporarily complete the seducee.
The seducer gets what he or she wants - sex, company, the votes of an enthralled nation to win an election, or floods of women flocking to the cinema to see him smile on the big screen and believe he's smiling at each of them - and the seducee, in turn, gets to feel complete, wanted, loved, appreciated or whatever he or she is missing in life.
I can't speak for the television show or the Amazon review, but I don't trust biased reporting from possibly insecure people, and I most certainly don't trust the openly biased reporting and editing of television shows - Channel Four shows in particular.
As for having the time to read this book, I'd make the time for Robert Greene's books, even if I was in a demanding 24/7 job. I would read The Art of Seduction cover to cover and let the examples he's selected, from history and fiction, attest most eloquently as to the effectiveness and power of persuasion.
Addendum: I have here Robert Greene's own words on the matter of this book of his, posted back in 2006. You can read his words here.
Give him some thought.
I actually mentioned my first impression of Robert Greene's book in a post I made in a LJ post on August 12th. I love the book as much as I've grown to love his earlier book, The 48 Laws of Power. I haven't dug into his third book, The 33 Strategies of War, yet: I'll want to look into it along with von Clausewitz' On War and Sun Tzu's The Art of War for that sense of completeness.
As for the amorality of pursuing someone (which requires the chaser to first be pursuable - the closest term I can describe for the man or woman who takes the lessons of The Art of Seduction to heart), is it really amoral to persuade someone to see your point of view with words and attitude alone, with a ready smile and one's full attention, as I am doing now, than by the clumsy brute force means used by the untrained and the insecure?
99 percent of the seduction process, going by what is in this book, is about the seducer finding the seducee more fascinating than his own petty wants and needs. The grand seducer charms, with sweeping gestures and subtle touches, and reveals a generosity of mind and spirit, as well as occasionally of wallet. The star of the show is not the seducer; it is the "victim," the person being tempted.
Like a salesperson making a pitch, the seducer reveals to the seducee that he has just that thing to make the seducee feel whole and complete, if only for this one night; this one engagement. Success, in Robert Greene's book, involves the seducer being able to shape himself or herself into just that missing piece to temporarily complete the seducee.
The seducer gets what he or she wants - sex, company, the votes of an enthralled nation to win an election, or floods of women flocking to the cinema to see him smile on the big screen and believe he's smiling at each of them - and the seducee, in turn, gets to feel complete, wanted, loved, appreciated or whatever he or she is missing in life.
I can't speak for the television show or the Amazon review, but I don't trust biased reporting from possibly insecure people, and I most certainly don't trust the openly biased reporting and editing of television shows - Channel Four shows in particular.
As for having the time to read this book, I'd make the time for Robert Greene's books, even if I was in a demanding 24/7 job. I would read The Art of Seduction cover to cover and let the examples he's selected, from history and fiction, attest most eloquently as to the effectiveness and power of persuasion.
Addendum: I have here Robert Greene's own words on the matter of this book of his, posted back in 2006. You can read his words here.
Give him some thought.
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Date: 2008-08-15 01:54 pm (UTC)The books are full of inconsistency and paradox as well as downright idiocy. My favourite is "use someone until they are of no more use" (or words to that effect). Obviously has never seen what happened to the French aristocracy, the Russian Czar, the Kuomintang or the Khmer Rouge.
Do read his sources though. Nothing wrong with a bit of strategic thinking but if you want success and power (whatever that is) there are better books out there. Try Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and The Three Minute Manager.
"Use someone until they are of no more use"
Date: 2008-08-15 02:30 pm (UTC)von Clausewitz' book was written at a time when the Prussian Army was being trashed by Napoelon's forces, who made an art form out of asymmetric warfare. Carl von Clausewitz learned early on that often, in war, the moral side doesn't always equatr with the winning side.
And, on the principle that history is written by the victors, if that history records the superior morality of the winners, who knows whether the losing force might have actually been a morally better team after all were it not for the pen scratchings of the winning military's supporters after the fact.