Audiences crave permission to feel suppressed emotions more than persuasion

Evidence

Finally, Hitler understood the demagogue’s most essential principle: to teach or persuade is far more difficult than to stir emotion. And far less welcome: what the audience most wants is an excuse to experience fully the powerful feelings already lurking within them but which their better selves might lead them to suppress. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 392

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Unexpressed emotion and retained dignity move audiences more than drama does — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on…, 443; Television replaced moral guidance with emotional guidance and redemptive hugs — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 153; People simultaneously dread and crave being listened to by an audience. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2244