My...His

Among the Thugs by Bill Buford has turned out to be one of the few books that is interesting from the first phrase. No, from the title it was already interesting. I have always been intrigued by the things people do that put them under a sort of ecstasy. Things I am not attracted to. Buford describes the weird phenomena that is to start liking something that at first seemed unpleasant:

"I SEE NOW ON REFLECTION, NOT UNLIKE ALCOHOL OR TOBACCO: DISGUSTING, AT FIRST; PLEASURABLE, WITH EFFORT; ADDICTIVE, OVER TIME" (P. 21)

His description is much like the behavior I'm so amused by. I can relate to it through soccer and sushi. Sushi is gross the first time one tries it, then you grow accustomed to it. Finally, you fall in love with it.
Soccer was different. If you don't get it, you don't enjoy it. My first time in a Colombian stadium was a year ago. I had heard of "them", the thugs. What I had heard was not good. I was very scared. I went with four of my classmates (I was the only girl there). The dangerous, if I may, where seated in different parts of the stadium than we. I saw their savage jumping and I could hear them chanting. They proceeded to take their shirts off until they became a brownish/yellowish jumping mass.
The worst part was when the match was over and we were trapped inside a herd of humans trying to get out of this place, all at the same time, through a narrow gate. My hand held my Iphone firmly. If somebody had dared to touch it, I think they would have left that stadium without eyeballs. I finally understood that to get out one had to "[resign] to the authority of [the crowd's] shove."

After I got out, I noticed how adrenaline soaked my body. I wanted to do it again. I too was starting, with effort, to like it.

Rhetorical Realms

Rhetorical fouls are just things that will probably turn your argument into a fight. There are 7 fouls that Jay Heinrichs created. The one I found to be the most important one was "Utter stupidity," as Heinrichs puts it.

 To argue with someone that is unwilling to accept his mistakes (a rather stupid person), is to argue with no purpose. You should chose your opponent wisely. We are animals and our instincts merged with powerful rhetorical abilities can help us chose the right battles. 

I fight with my sister over clothe. She steals my shorts and then denies it. I have realized that she is a bad contender. Like Heinrichs puts it, "When you find yourself in the realm of the inarguable, get out of there". 

I don't know if it is because I tried watching Brave the movie before reading but here we go:

This (above) would be the portal to the realms. Imagine yourself here when deciding whether to engage in an argument or not.

If you choose the right battle and arm yourself with rhetorical weapons you will end up in this peaceful realm. (above)

If you chose to fight instead of argue you will end up in this scary realm and you will be doomed. DOOMED.


Choose wisely.

And Is Drinking A Problem?

Stance: Redefine the terms if you are under attack during an argument.

Definition is a powerful tool if the odds are against you. You can twist things up to make it seem as if the argument was irrelevant. But you've got to make take last. Arguing that the argument is irrelevant may be dangerous since you disqualify your opponent or the judge himself. Like Jay Heinrichs said, "The best way to define terms is to redefine them". I am part of the ambassadors program in CNG and I just realized that they have been teaching us "argument jujitsu" as Heinrichs calls it. When someone asks: Do you guys drink a lot?  They taught us to use it against them. We would then reply: Oh, I love getting that question because it allows me to talk about the fantastic programs the school has to prevent substance abuse. 

Smart ambassadors are smart.

Reading Readers

Commonplaces are detonators of familiar topics. They tend to be relevant to social issues or concerns. You can use them to win an argument. They work if you place them right and you make it feel like you have your audience in mind. In the book Thank You For Arguing, Jay Heinrichs describes an argument about politics between two friends. He shows how Annie, the Republican made a mistake when she "argued against [her opponent's commonplace]". What Annie needed to do was to agree and then calmly restate her side. In this video of an IKEA commercial we can witness a commonplace. When we hear something or someone can do two things at once we immediately think about efficiency. Our society is constantly asking for faster technology and IKEA played with our necessity very well.