The Subtleness in Pettiness

Not five minutes ago I made full use of most of the tools presented in Chapter 12 of Thank You for Arguing. I saw myself unnecessarily getting into an argument with a guy from our grade about senior activities. I did it out of pure thirst for fighting I guess. He stated something like “Why can’t we have the same fun senior activities as other senior classes. It’s not fair that we are not allowed to do the same things other classes were permitted.” The second I read that, I feel a squeamish voice in my head that spotted the fallacy, and because I was feeling like Hemingway in the merry-go-round scene of Midnight in Paris, I made him realize, not without being obnoxiously burlesque, how fallacious his argument was and how little it would do to help. He, of course, used my unnecessary  haughtiness against me and I found myself under attack. He focused his argument on my facetious tone and said I wasn’t being helpful, while completely ignoring my premise which was “We should change our argument.”

First I started by changing his terms. I had already dissed his fallacious thinking and stated that we shouldn't retort with extreme protest.Then I redefined his terms. In one of his responses he had said that we deserve better as a grade because we are one of the best classes CNG has ever had and we have too much potential as a grade to be wasting it. I used his same statement, but redefined it by saying that because we are such a great class we should use our potential with intelligence and not waste it on fallactic thinking. Then I went ahead and applied some rhetorical judo by claiming that his argument was irrelevant. That there is an obnoxious person concerned with grammar and logic is no what is important. What matters is to get things done. Then I started using commonplace words such as “battle”, “losing” and “winning” and defined the issue in the broadest context. I said that we are talking about our senior year, the most important year of our life up to this moment, we should take it seriously and by using bad logic and extreme actions we are only going to harm ourselves. Bla bla bla. I ended my argument by offering choices: we either keep doing what we’ve been up to, or change our tactics and get things done.

I don’t think I won because my ethos plays too much against me. I am still the person who gives a flying … about senior activities. Nevertheless, this was a good exercise and a pleasant realization that I’m applying unconsciously the tools taught in Thank You For Arguing.