Essential Tools

According to Heinrichs, “Argument by logic, emotion, and character are the megatools of rhetoric” (45). On this chapter he briefly explains us how logos is argument by logic, ethos is argument by character, and pathos is argument by emotion. As I was reading these brief explanations I realized that it’s not that easy to put into practice these three tools. But then I noticed that we use at least one of the tools everyday, without really noticing it. Every TV commercial uses logos, ethos, and pathos. They have to use them in order to convince the audience to buy their product. We see in most of commercials happy and pretty people having fun, so that you appeal to them and go buy the product. A good example is the Coca Cola commercial for the Olympic games in London.

They make you believe that by drinking Coca Cola you would become a professional athlete. So, we can see that for a businessman it is really important to know how to manipulate the audience. Still you have to know which audience you are manipulating because it’s really different to talk to a seven-year old then to a thirty year old. So on our daily basis it is really simple to put into action these tools because we know exactly whom we are talking to. But for big companies things get more complicated since they have to convince a variety of people. They have to find general ways to get to their audience. I believe here it’s the key point to whether the company is going to sell it’s products or don’t.

Only a few days ago I realized that my mom put into work all of these tools while I was at the hospital. I didn’t notice it at the time, but I constantly agreed to everything she said. The situation of my accident was way worse that what I thought, they never told me how bad it was. My mom, who was around me 24/7, was able to hide her emotions and appeal to mine. After the two first surgeries she would tell me that everything was ok but that I had to go into surgery for one more time. For some reason I didn’t get scared or sad, which would have been my usual reaction, but I instead accepted the fact. I don’t know how she managed to do that, but I guess she used logos, pathos, and ethos.

We can see how the good use of these tools is essential for life. They can help you during difficult times and they can help you lead your company to success. Am really anxious of what the rest of the book is going to talk about, since I’m learning things that I can use on the daily basis.