From Church Latin proselytus, from Greek proselutos recent arrival, convert. The simplest way to define “proselytism” is the act of conversion someone from one religious faith to another.
The automobile show analogy
In order to give further explanations about what exactly is Proselytism, Lawrence Uzzell gives a concrete situation to introduce that notion. He uses the example of someone going to an automobile show, where hundreds of spotlights are all “shiny brochures in abundance, glitzy photographs everywhere” and many other devices to attract the eyes of a lambda visitor (“Buy me!”). Not only are they setting all those sophisticated multimedia displays to draw foot traffic, they also offer people amenities such as special food (or so they say). Uzzell assumes in that case that human nature is “in the driver’s seat”, which means that only the salesmen present at the show and the whole meeting have a real influence on visitor’s mind.…show more content… Nobody seems to notice , because there is so much crowd elsewhere that you would not pay much interest to that stand-alone dis. But Uzzell decides to go for it, and explains us what happens next: not only the salesman looks alarmed and weary when he is being asked questions, but he also refuses to give further details about the cars he is actually selling by fear of the other displays there (“If you are really interested in buying an automobile, you will probably have to go to one of the other
