Divine... By Gartenzwerg

For better quality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgRN61e0Azk

Fallacious Video by
Cristina Escallón
Daniela Ríos
Benjamín Sánchez

Bogotá, Crackhead Bogotá

     Reading Stephen Marche's "Toronto's Hot Mess-What Mayor Rob Ford Knows About Toronto" made me reflect on the mess that Bogotá, the Colombian capital city, is. Marche describes a transformation that Toronto is undergoing in parallel to the degradation he sees in Mayor Rob Ford. Is Bogotá "making a spectacle of itself" the way that Marche says Toronto is? No, it is not. Maybe even Toronto is not decaying in such manner, but I have no basis to comment on a city that I know almost nothing about. Instead, I can discuss the trivialities and quintessential events that occur in Bogotá and their intricate relationship to another very curious mayor, Gustavo Petro.

     Before I go on over Petro I will make note about something I saw in Bogotá. When Marche described the absurdity of the citizens of Toronto when many of them left their tickets and change on a subway turnstile that was damaged in order to pay for their tickets I had a flashback of an opposing image. A couple of weeks ago I saw three "Bogotanos" infiltrate into the Transmilenio (huge public buses) station without paying. Instead they crossed the street where the station is located, when they should cross by a bridge, and they opened one of the automatic doors that opens for the bus. Undoubtedly they do not pay for this service. Of course, Toronto is no "hot mess" while Bogotá is. In Marche's eyes Bogotá is very interesting and meanwhile I wonder if Toronto is "starting to get interesting". 

     Going back to Petro there is a lot to talk about. He is currently being impeached and he could be removed from office. Wether or not he will be discharged is up in the air, but his inefficiency was proved when his sanitation policy failed to efficiently dispose of wastes. Another interesting element in his character is that Petro is a demobilized guerrilla fighter. To some this is an aberration, but it is necessary to say that what he did is legal. The part of Petro's story that remind me of Toronto's Rob Ford has nothing to do with his mandate or his political beliefs. Like I said, I can discuss the trivialities that occur in Bogotá. While Petro has not smoked crack, there have been other scandals around him. 

     The last of these scandals was one of marriage, mystery and jealousy. A couple of months ago Leszlie Kalli, a district consultant, was told that she could not get near the mayor's office anymore. Then she was anonymously called and threatened with rape on the same account. Apparently, or at least that is what Daniel Winogard (Petro's personal consultant), Petro's wife was jealous about the threatened consultant and the mayor did not know what to do about it. This may appear like yellow journalism, but their is no doubt that this is relevant to a mayor's conduct. Like smoking crack. What would Stephen Marche say about Bogotá? What transition is this one? 

Rob Ford and Gustavo Petro

Dinkin Flicka

In Thank You for Arguing Heinrichs defines rhetorical figures and explains their accessibility for arguers. One may think that these are not very common in speech, but watching The Office I realized that they are much more common than I thought them to be. More specifically, figures of speech, figures of thought and tropes may make an arguer better to an audience. In The Office there is no direct arguing (or rather debate), but as a viewer one may sympathize more with a character's ethos depending on the figures that each uses. I was not expecting The Office or any show to have that many rhetorical figures since I had usually seen these in literature, but the episode "Casino Night" surprised me with a variety of idioms, clichés and twists. 

The first idiom that I identified was Michael's and Daryl's "dinkin flicka". Michael suggests to Darryl that he may steal company property because he is Black, to which Darryl responds saying "Cause' I'm from the hood" (note another idiom) and there Michael says, "dinkin flicka". Darryl then privately told the cameras that this expression was something "us negroes say". One may interpret it similarly to "C'est la vie" or "that's life". This idiom builds on Michael's reputation as a racist person since he implies that Darryl, a black man, will unavoidably steal. Besides being a totally erroneous stereotype, it does not argue a point and it rather defines Michael's character. To many, he is funny and appealing. I will not deny that I laughed a lot watching this episode.

The most striking figure I encountered was the surprise ending, which is actually new to me. Heinrich explains that to use it one should "concede your opponent's cliché and then mess it up deliberately": exactly what Stan, a disheartened employe, does to Michael, his boss. Michael does a casino night for his employees and as he wishes them luck he invents the idiom "Lady fortune is your boss", to which Stan responds with, "Will lady fortune give me a raise?". Stan's twist surprised both the audience and his opponent (Michael) and he immediately won the argument: Michael's response was "shush". Besides twisting the ending, Stan's response was also a rhetorical question. He suggested there was no fortune that he could get working at Dunder Mifflin. As a viewer I know that Stan is right and he won the argument, but at the same time this (again) builds on Michael's character: his invented idioms and his irresponsibility is quite funny. Apparently figures are everywhere. Besides, seeing them in The Office, my favorite comedy show, makes me realize how present rhetoric is around me. 

Intense Attack

In The Daily Show's argument between Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly about Muslim terrorism there are a various rhetorical fouls. One of them is seen when O'Reilly employs innuendo, a suggestive form of humiliation, to "gain the upper hand" (p.167) on Stewart when he asks Stewart if he is going to the Middle East to set up an exchange program. O'Riley knows that Stewart is not going to set up any program in the Middle East and that he is not involved with any terrorist, but he is suggesting that Stewart is sympathetic with terrorism. The argument then becomes inarguable and in a failed attempt to save it Stewart plays on with O'Reilly's bantering by giving him reason. Proving Heinrich's point, this type of humiliation makes impossible any type of consensus or determination so the argument end's up with O-Reilly shoving his arguments jokes on Stewart and appearing to be stronger and decisive. Needless to say, this technique is not utter stupidity. These were not gratuitous insults, instead they were suggestive comments in a non-stop rhythm.  

In Stewart and O'Reilly's argument rhetorical virtue is also present. O'Reilly loses his virtuosity when he drifts of with the extreme choices he proposes to Stewart. By saying that if Stewart was sincere and cared for the Muslim community he would have a Muslim replace him when he was away, O'Reilly lies in the extreme and not the mean. In Aristotelean virtue it is ideal to propose the extremes and then stick to the in-between, not being too reckless or too careful for example. What O'Reilly proposes to Stewart in order to mock him is extreme right from the beginning. Of course, this is satire, where that lack of virtue is the spotlight. 

There could be a variety of ways for the argument to get serious as Heinrichs would probably want, but that is not the point. Insisting, one could say that more aristotelean arguing could have occurred if instead of bantering O'Reilly had questioned Stewart's absence and then asked what would be of the show without him. There, when he switches to future tense, he would deal with the specific problem or choice. That would be serious arguing. Yet, The Daily Show mocks news with a very ironic and witty humor that builds with great pathos. One that arguers should make note of

Powerful Wit

In my everyday life I should probably use more rhetoric than I do. There is no doubt about its effectiveness, yet one needs to know how and when to use it. I barely use its more sophisticated tools and instead I use humor in conversations with my friends. When I am able to pull off a with joke it is probably best, but usually these are facetious. Situational humor is hard to spot. My lack of rhetorical speaking is undeniable: the most humor I use is a "relatively ineffective form of persuasion" (p. 97). Fortunately I never say jokes while I argue or talk with a special audience. I mostly say these jokes when I am with my friends… Oh, and there is also some bantering when we get too childish.  

I am trying to recall any jokes I have said in the last days, but it is difficult to remember what exactly these were. Probably they were not even funny. The only one I can remember was not wit, facetious, or even bantering. It was actually an urbane joke that a friend pulled off by paying with two totally unrelated words. This was actually a very bad joke that him and I laugh because we have a very childish and immature sense of humor. Unfortunately this is the only joke I can remember right now. When a classmate asked if an assignment had to have fallacious language my friend asked back, "fellatios". The adjective "fallacious", which describes an argument that has fallacies, sounded very similar to the noun "fellatio", which describes a sexual behavior. The (bad) joke was asking back that word. It was a very stupid joke, but I cannot deny that we instantly began laughing. My friend did not even think what he was saying, it simply came out because some perverted part of his brain automatically commented on a mispronunciation. Or maybe it was even pronounced correctly, but he unconsciously made that very bad joke. It was out of context, yet it reminds me of the purpose of rhetoric. 

An arguer should aim to persuade the audience and in this case my friend got me to think he was funny. Still, humor is most important when one must convince an audience that one is better than another arguer. Possibly when one must outwit an opponent.