After
reading chapters 15 & 16 of Thank You
For Arguing by Jay Heinrichs, what came to my attention the most were, the
7 ways Heinrichs came up with, that break deliberative argument, plus, the
concept of rhetorical virtue and disinterest. To get things straight, there’s
no wrong in rhetoric, since there are no rules. But without the avoidance od
this “deadly sins” as Heinrichs calls them in pg. 170, the dynamics of any
argument will be lost.
So, thing to avoid while argumentation
involve (Pg. 170):
1.
Switching tenses away from the
future.
2.
Inflexible insistence on the
rules (refusing to hear the other side)
3.
Humiliation (argument that sets
out only to debase someone, not to make a choice.)
4.
Innuendo (to insult, simply
reduce opponent and not to persuade.)
5.
Threats (not give a choice.)
6.
Nasty language or signs.
7.
Utter stupidity.
Simply what
Heinrichs is trying to say is, no argument will end up successful for you- or
for your opponent in any matter, if you low yourself into using any of these
“sins”. For example I was once having a rather silly argument with my younger
brother. Even though it sound ridiculous, (probably because it is) mostly
because I am supposed to be the older one and not lower my self to such
situations, we were genuinely fighting about weather we should spend the day at
the mall or at karts. Obviously I was the one that wanted to go to the mall,
after all why would I like to drive sweaty cars with a bunch of little boys.
The
argument could have gone much smother if I hadn’t been so mad at my younger
brother at the time, and probably the day could have gone the way I wanted it
to. But no, I was mad and just wanted him to feel bad, which was my main goal.
That right there, was where the argument flawed, since my final goal wasn’t to
go to the mall, but to make him feel bad. So with the bad techniques I applied,
led the argument to failure, and clearly we ended up not going to the mall.
Firs of all
I just started kind of judging him and his decisions of wanting to go to karts.
Therefore using humiliation, Heinrichs third sin. Afterwards I just started
screaming and wouldn’t let him speak or even argument back. This would be the
third sin. So I wasn’t using one fowl, but two, making this a horrible
deliberative argument. Clearly I ended up losing, since my mom just got pissed
at me and took us to karts. Finally I understood there’s no point in arguing it
you are going to do it the inefficient way.
In this
argument situation we could also apply the concepts of disinterest, talked
about in chapter 16. We already know that ethos starts with what the audience
needs, so if I where to know –which I did- that my brothers final goal was to
ride karts that day I could have switched my supposed “goal” of my argument. In
other words, manipulate my brother through disinterest.
When I watched the video Bill O'Reilly vs. Jon Stewart Over Muslim Terrorism I clearly saw how
ethos, does provide a liar detector. When O’Reilly detected a kind of lie, in
Stuart when he in other words claimed he supported the Middle East. That although Stuart was fair to the Muslims, he didn’t really sustain
his argument when there was conflict.
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