Setting the Rules

As Daniel Solano said, “While logic tries to prove that something is absolutely right or absolutely wrong, rhetoric is used to provide choices from which the audience can choose and try to make them agree with your proposals.” But when you start mixing them, it is really easy for the argument to turn into a fight. Once you get to this point there is no turning back and it´s very likely you´re never going to reach to an agreement. As Heinrichs states, “In rhetoric, that constitutes the biggest foul of all: to turn an argument into a fight” (155).

As shown in this video we can see how the guardian is using pure logic to make the kid eat the vegetables. His main goal is for him to eat all the food, so he uses pure logic to make his kid feel guilty. Still the kid was able to have a better response, which helped him obtain his goal of not eating the vegetables. I bet his guardian wasn’t expecting such come back.  

According to Heinrichs deliberative argument has only one rule, “Never argue the inarguable” (158). In other words, try not to block the argument. In order to have a fluent and nice argument you have to have some basic rules. As Beatriz Preciado said, “Even if arguments give you the freedom to make your own decisions and sometimes even say what comes to mind, there should in fact be some ground rules in order for the argument to be much better.” Imagine our society without boundaries and limits. It would be a complete disastrous. We have a bunch of rules that help us differentiate between right and wrong, but we still somehow risk breaking the rules. Society has demonstrated that we need certain rules in order to function.

In this video we can see how they started playing basket without having a set of rules. Sooner or later the opposite teams started getting into arguments, because the game wasn’t being played faired.
The same happens with rhetoric that it is better to play “rhetoric´s no-rules game with just a few rules” than to turn everything into a fight.

Also as Gabriela Aldana said, “We use fallacies all the time, and many times we do so unintentionally.” We are never fully aware of when we are using the “seven deathly sins.” Which according to Heinrichs are:

1. “Switching tenses away from the future” (170).
2. “Inflexible insistence on the rules—using the voice of God, sticking to your guns, refusing to hear the other side” (170).
3. “Humiliation—an argument that sets out only to debase someone, not to make a choice” (170).
4. “Innuendo: It completely stops the argument because if your opponent objects to what you said he “can look like a fool” (167).
5. “Threats” is giving no choices, but rather forcing an opinion.
6. “Nasty language or signs, like flipping the coin” (170).
7. Utter stupidity is when the argument is childish and annoying. When both persons are ignorant and just start saying, “Yes!” “No” “Yes”, and so on.

So if you are going to get into an argument, you should have all of these rules clears in order to successfully win over your public without turning everything into a fight.