Local Rhetoric

As I read “Win Their Trust,” a chapter about ethos in Thank You for Arguing, I constantly kept remembering one of those dull MUN debates where all I could think about was how unpersuasive everyone was. Local rhetorics are not famous. Colombians have pretty much failed to have consensus in anything (really), and it can be reflected in most Colombians’ persuasion techniques. Some people have reasonable logos and are quite good at getting at your emotions through pathos, but when winning your trust or building up their ethos, they fail. While I do see great rhetoricians in MUN, all of which believe they’re going to be presidents, many MUNers don’t do what Heinrichs says in chapter eight of his book. 

The first strategy to get people to trust you Heinrichs talks about is to sound as if you were decided on something because the evidence is simply too good. This is one of the most seen rhetorical tools in MUN, as people just say that their country is right because it’s just that way. While they could insist that statistics show that biofuel are terrible for world hunger or that Iran must have nuclear weapons, many people use this strategy as if it was my country is right because it is. I’ve heard, “Legalizing prostitution is bad,” “The US is right about the Middle East,” “GMOs have helped so much that we have to use them!” among many other arguments that could be strengthened a lot. Many MUN delegates try to sound as if they were simply right because it makes sense, which could work if they developed their ideas, but they end just insisting that their country’s side is the only one. 

Chapter eight of Thank You for Arguing also says that acting like you didn’t care much about something helps you persuade others to support it. In the last MUN conference I went, as president of the committee I got a lot of personal complaints from students part of a debate society. More than expecting them not to care about their seating assignments, I expected them to sound reasonable. I decided to separate two people from sitting together because they wouldn’t stop talking. One of them came to me and made a huge deal about it. By making it notable that she cared so much about sitting next to that boy, I decided that they couldn’t be together or they wouldn’t shut up. Telling me that, “Why are you like that? [Ay! ¿por qué eres así?]” or, “I refuse to sit there,” only made her less persuasive. Had she told me she was willing to change seats but that she wanted to discuss something with him at sometime, I would’ve considered not giving her a warning. 

The last strategy for getting people to trust you, according to Heinrichs, is dubitatio. By showing doubt in your rhetorical skill, you build up your ethos and people like you. Many  people in MUN find it more amusing to just act confident and yell at everyone rather than acting as a compromiser. People jump ahead to their arguments assuming that confidence and strength get people to fall for your ideas. The radical Iran delegate often has no supporters by the time delegates must write working papers. Thinking that being extremist will get them an award often excludes them for an activity essential for that. 

MUN is a school activity where people arrive with no rhetorical skill whatsoever and hopefully might learn some by the time they graduate. I shouldn't expect any MUN delegate to be a great rhetorician or to even care about being one, but MUN does show that rhetorics is not Colombia’s strength. People in politics are often obsessed with being correct and try to act so confident that they scare voters away. Candidates that are attacked by the media often win because they’re not intimidating. MUN is not a microcosmos of Colombia but it is a good place to see why Colombian nature, with “such a great country” has not allowed progress. While Colombians don’t try rhetorical tools as acting not to care a lot, conflicts will exist. This blog entry might even be seen as a confident complaint, typical of Colombians. 

The Magnificent Leadership Academy

For people to build up their ethos it is essential to show practical wisdom. Jay Heinrichs explains the importance of leadership and revealing it when being persuasive. One may use other tools like pathos or logos, but without leadership, rhetorics don’ work. Just as the world is once again giving importance to rhetorics or persuasion, leadership education is now part of the world’s most recognized institutions. I can best relate this to my school’s leadership program, designed to make the leaders of Colombia’s future. 

Colombia is one of those places, mostly around the equator, in need of true, tough and efficient leaders. Our geographical disadvantages are a fact, on we must deal with. Colegio Nueva Granada is well aware of this. For this third world garbage to get better, we need leaders, and a leadership programs is just the solution. As shown in Thank You for Arguing, leadership is made up of three elements: showing off your experiences, bending the rules and appearing to take the middle course. The leadership program at the school took it seriously and so the Colombian society awaits the leaders. 

Ubaté: The valley of ethos

Living right between the uncivilized Central American countries and the vast Amazon jungle, Colombians are prone to receive wilderness survival books from people like my aunt. These guides, written by adventurous American expats, intend to be the solution for getting along in lousy South America, yet the words are not merely enough. CNG’s leadership program believes you must learn by doing. The leaders of our school are sent once a year to Ubaté, Cundinamarca camping as they experience the type of things crucial to Colombian lifestyle. As Heinrichs says, showing off experiences is one of the keys to leadership. Young CNGers get to go drive three hours from Bogota to camp in a complex that, guess what, only has four showers per sex. Once the students are accustomed to such harsh living, as they should to prepare for the future, they get to deepen their leadership abilities through life-challenging activities. Beginners face a blinded obstacle course while expert leaders are dared to drink fresh cow milk. The Ubaté retreat exemplifies the exceptional formation leadership students get. Thirty years from now, as I’ll hear my classmates on political debates on TV or follow their instructions as their employee, I’ll think, “Having climbed a mountain, walked on mud and milking a cow made these street-smarts the people to follow.”

Monday

Experience in a bottle

Having gone through such difficult tasks of simulated Colombian life, leadership students are sassy enough to make their own decisions. The movers and shakers of CNG student life know what to do, and they even bend the rules if necessary. When instructed to help in activities such as the seventy fifth anniversary of the school, the leaders have a savvy nature that allows them to do what’s right. That day they were great at painting little kids’ faces. As true leaders, they were able to bend the rules for better. Some even dared to draw things other than an elephant on the children’s cheeks. Leadership skills extend past school boundaries. Some of these students are even part of unsupported student organizations, like the Fashion Show Committee. The activity, shunned by the school authorities, shows the ability leaders have to make decisions. Many of them, as Heinrichs says, demonstrate their leadership skills by going beyond the rules (they make the parties bigger, come up with super crazy themes that no one expected and make it clear that the school will not limit them, you name it).  Perhaps the best example of leadership students’ ability to bend rules is the first aid training. Another activity planned for them to have experience in what you need to survive Colombia, the training forces the leaders to take quick decisions. When simulating the exam that checks whether someone is seriously injured, some students went beyond the instructions and used their Grey’s Anatomy skills to diagnose the fake patients. “This is an easy one, he’s suffering form an idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis. It’s no accident, just like O’Malley and Karev’s case,” some would dare to say.

The final element of leadership, according to Jay Heinrichs, is appearing to take the middle course. Often seen as the good student-bad student strategy, this leadership characteristic is certainly present in leadership students. When asking teachers to sign their prearranged forms of absence, in order to go to their rural getaway, the leaders have it sort out. You can observe as the first student asking permission claims they shouldn’t have to study for the test on Tuesdays while camping. The second student to ask for the signature comes with a balanced, middle-course solution, “We’ll do the test on after school.” Gosh, they’re creative. 

After carefully analyzing CNG’s leadership program and how it fulfills the basics of leadership in rhetoric, it is no mystery why Colombia is moving forward. This program captivates the really need in Colombian society. The nuns and monks were wrong to teach us philosophy, we must experience what Colombian life is. Surely mountain life survival skills are part of the leadership package, but what makes a leader a true one is his or her certificate. Experience is useful for yourself, but for it to be persuasive and build up one’s ethos, one needs a badge. So far i’ve explained how CNG’s leadership program builds character and therefore leadership, but what really makes the difference is the industrial system in which students get certificated as the leaders. They will get into good colleges, get recruited by great companies and, someday, use their lactose tolerance to lead the world of tomorrow. 

Companies Are All Better

Heinrichs in Thank You for Arguing focuses the chapters about ethos in politics, probably the subject where the most persuasion is needed, but almost every aspect of modern life has rhetorics involved. Although business runs partly on the committed demand of consumers, a huge part of selling is made by persuading consumers into buying products. After politics, marketing is probably the subject with the most rhetoric involved. 

Politicians have people willing to listen at what they say and get many hours, especially if they have the self-confidence of Chavez or Castro, to give their speeches. Businesses, however, don't have people desperate to hear what they want to say. Aristotle called humans political animals, showing that naturally we want to get involved in politics. Sadly for business, we're not quite consuming animals, so they need to get people to buy their things. Through rhetorics in marketing, businesses make people into shopaholics and consuming animals.

Businesses use all, logos, pathos and ethos, but what they tend to focus on the most is their ethos or reputation. As the market keeps becoming more competitive, companies must make themselves somehow different and attractive to consumers, so they go for marketing their brands and presenting themselves as better than the others. Companies take advantage of the superficial human mind and make consumers believe that their brands are the best. By their use of rhetorics, businesses are able to make their character more important than their products, and consequently, sell more. 

In Thank You for Arguing the author tackles the issue of lacking an attentive audience in the chapter "Make Them Listen." Heinrichs describes what one should do to get, well, people to listen. The rhetorical tools he covers on the chapter are bragging, getting others to brag for you, revealing a tactical flaw, and changing your position. Marketing follows those steps almost word by word. 

The image above shows and advertisement from BMW in which they basically brag. They use logos in way, as they state as facts the prizes that Audi and BMW won, in order to show the company's reputation. BMW is bragging themselves as they say they were the winners of the World Car of 2006, but since they use someone else's authority, they are also getting someone else to brag for them. They obviously think they're great, but since they got awarded something by who you think might be an unbiased jury, you believe they're great. The company also reveals a tactical flaw in a way. They give some credit to Audi as they BMW didn't win the South Africa prize, but they only do so to further brag. 

Like BMW does, Samsung also focuses on building a reputation through rhetorical tools. The advertisement below compares the iPhone 5 with the Samsung Galaxy SIII, and uses logos and pathos for the final purpose of ethos. Companies do want to use logos and pathos, but since these are instantaneous rhetorical tools, they rather develop a reputation that will last for long. This ad shows Samsung bragging about their great new phone as they hint a tactical flaw. Many consumers are aware of the recent lawsuit Apple won against Samsung, so through the Galaxy's advertisement, Samsung hints that they're "mistake," or coping the iPhone, was actually for good and now it's simply better for consumers. The advertisement doesn't show it but Samsung has also switched side because they basically copied Apple. While they tried to have creative and original phones at first, they gradually started copying what actually sold. Unluckily for them, Apple noticed. 

Heinrichs in Thank You for Arguing so far has explained rhetorics in a political or personal scenario, but persuasion influences many other aspects of life like business. Economics has developed a lot from just supply and demand. Once relatively unbiased consumers are now obsessed with consuming specific brands and products. Marketing uses rhetorics to get to people's minds and, for the most, establish a company's reputation to create a demand. Especially in places like the US, rhetorics has made the economy become all about consuming. 

Show Business

On the thirds presidential debate last monday Barack Obama and Mitt Romney got the world to think they debated about US foreign policy. After only talking about national security and focusing only on the Middle East, the candidates made voters analyze who will lead the country better in the international community. For the world, or Americans at least, it was a debate about the policies each of them would establish if they were elected, but for them it was merely an act. They talked with their advisors and defined strategies to stage an argument that will get those undecided voters to like them. To give them credit, though, they manipulated people by rhetoric, not tamales.
All issues regarding the elections are either relating t decisions of the past, conflicts of the present or choices of the future, so the Obama and Romney, as skilled rhetoricians, used the corresponding verb tenses to argue about a topic.

Both candidates are dying to blame the other in any way they can. If they dream of something at night, it's probably not that they win but that the other loses. Throughout the debate they were constantly blaming each other and telling the audience what the other candidate did wrong in the past, also mentioning occasionally the good things they've each has done. Obama went out of the topic of the debate just to exploit one of Romney's defects. Obama said, "First of all, Governor Romney talks about small businesses, but Governor, when you were in Massachusetts, small businesses' development ranked about 48, I think, out of 50 states." By having the verbs in past tense, uses forensic rhetoric to blame Romney for something. Whose fault is it that small businesses are doing badly? Romney did something wrong. Obama avoids actually responding to questions by simply blaming Romney for something. Later in the debate, Obama said, " When you were asked about reduced class sizes, you said class sizes don't make a difference." As he was discussing the economic problems and the need for improving education, Obama blames Romney for saying something bad. What Romney said could have been out of context and even if it wasn't, it doesn't mean that it's Romney's fault that the US has problems. However, the audience just hears "Romney, education, bad."

Another decisive topic of the campaign is the values of the candidates. People want to know what they do in the present, how they think and how they behave, so the candidates respond by using present tense rhetorics. Obama choses to use present tense, even though he might be talking about the past, to attack his opponent's values. He said, "The policies that you're promoting actually don't help small businesses. And the way you define small businesses include folks at the very top." While referring to Romney's governorship, which ended in 2007, Obama talks in present tense to attack Romney's way of thinking and ethics. The audience might think that Romney is still doing those things and hurting entrepreneurs, but even though he might in the future, he is not actually doing that now. 
In another point of the debate, Obama said, "But, Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s." Ouch, that hurts. Obama attacks Romney's values by saying that his policies are outdated. This example shows that the present tense is necessary to attack values. 

The presidential campaigns are, after all, about the future. The candidates manipulate voters by shifting to the present and past tense, but what mostly matter is the future tense: what will each do if he wins? Talking about the debate on my Macroeconomics class, I heard someone say that he had liked Romney more because he had a plan and stated his policies. I don't think he actually did, Romney just spoke in future tense as he said abstract ideas that relate to improvement, making the viewers believe that he was talking about an actual plan. Romney said, "I will get America working again and see rising take- home pay again. And I'll do it with five simple steps." He later said that America will become energy independent, more trade, better education, a balanced budget and improvement in small businesses. If you vote for Romney you will get these great things, if you don't you might not, or at least that's how some people get it. Had he said, "We need energy independence, more trade, better education, a balanced budget and improvement in small businesses," it would have not sound like a plan. As Romney used the future tense, the audience might believe he has a plan. 

 As Romney and Obama used verb tenses for persuasion, they also used logos, pathos and ethos to reach consensus with the voter (meaning that the voters agree to vote for one of them). Romney says, "First of all, 30,000 people being killed by their government is a humanitarian disaster. Secondly, Syria's an opportunity for us because Syria plays an important role in the Middle East, particularly right now. Syria is Iran's only ally in the Arab world. It's their route to the sea. It's the route for them to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon, which threatens, of course, our ally Israel." As he describes the situation of Syria and Iran, Romney turns opinions and speculations into facts, or logos. He makes things sound like arguments that support his opinion towards the Middle East. Nobody actually knows how many people have died so far in Syria, Iran has other allies, Iran has coasts in two seas, and they don't need Syria to help Hezbollah if they do. With his confidence to make these things sound like facts, Romney gets people to support him.

Pathos is necessary for politicians to get any support from voters. Obama clearly uses pathos to get people to like him when he talks about 911. He says, "You know, after we killed bin Laden, I was at Ground Zero for a memorial and talked to a -- a -- a young woman who was 4 years old when 9/11 happened. And the last conversation she had with her father was him calling from the twin towers, saying, Peyton (sp), I love you, and I will always watch over you. And for the next decade she was haunted by that conversation. And she said to me, you know, by finally getting bin Laden, that brought some closure to me. And when we do things like that, when we bring those who have harmed us to justice, that sends a message to the world, and it tells Peyton (sp) that we did not forget her father." It is a tragic story as part of the event that traumatized many Americans, but it's also a manipulative tool of his persuasion. People get emotional with 911 and Obama knows that. 

As he made people sentimental about 911, Obama also built up his ethos and made the audience see him like a leader or a hero. Referring to the same thing he says, " And -- and I make that point because that's the kind of clarity of leadership -- and those decisions are not always popular." By revealing a tactical flaw, people see him as trustworthy, and having mentioned it, as a leader. 

The third presidential debate, as any other political scenario, was the perfect place to see rhetorics in action. Both candidates have good ideas as well as bad ideas, but what I've like the most about them is the lecture on persuasion they're teaching me. Four years ago I surely didn't try to analyze candidates' strategies because I thought they were speaking from their hearts. This year, however, I've been able to see how their performances get them votes. 

Now see how they can be everything people like (aggressive, confident, nice, charismatic...):

Pathological Liars

Lying as Heinrichs says, "isn't just wrong, it's unpersuasive" (pg. 40). I definitely agree with the author, as even good lies never last, but I'm sure that some lies, before they do fail, are persuasive and make everyone fall like idiots. The small successful part of lying uses rhetorics and gets people to believe the most absurd things.

Politics, as on of the places where rhetorics happens the most, is where manipulating people with emotion and logic means success. As I read Chapter 4 on Thank You for Arguing, I could perfectly what the author says about logos and pathos with the world of elections. Rhetoric could be a way for politicians to reach consensus with people for better, but a lot of times it becomes a tool for demagogues to gain power.

Logos is the tool of rhetoric that uses reason for persuasion. This part of rhetorics uses facts and statistics to form and argument and get people to believe it. All I can say is that 89.485% of statistics are made up. Politicians, in what I've seen, use numbers, often made up, to make people believe things. Voters and political candidates reach consensus by the "truths" that they show us through the media. I've recently started paying attention closer to such things. For example, unemployment under Obama's presidency has decreased substantially, because unemployment does not include people so discouraged that stop looking for a job. He as well has move the country towards a great immigration policy, after being the president that has deported the most people in US history. Colombia, as well, is undergoing huge improvements. After the poverty standards were lowered, poverty decreased!

Politicians all throughout the media bomb people with their logos, but for that to end up being successful, they manipulate the voters' emotions with their pathos in rhetorics. If Obama just said, "I will draft a new law that might eventually make some minor changes in the immigration policy," he wouldn't be as successful. Instead he travels to Florida, the Bronx, Puerto Rico and Arizona and talks about the upcoming transformation to the Latino's lives. Politicians know their people so they always say the perfect thing. Whether it's an emotive speech about fighting Al Qaeda or a thoughtful comment from a world leader, pathos make voters fall for politicians' logos.
Many politicians, for their abusive use of logos and pathos, become pathological liars.

Attack or Negotiate?

When my sister decided to enroll at los Andes instead of going to a university abroad, I only questioned myself on whether I should put an end to her free access to my baked goods. It was a shallow concern, as she was only glad I forced her into a diet. The sister I enjoyed being with and had been able to coexist for a couple of years had, in my eyes, helped me, but it was all actually about her. As she broke my mental agenda in which she would move out at eighteen, my patience was now limited. I expected more but she saw that as a phony or childish complaint. Now that I'm reading Thank You For Arguing by Jay Heinrichs, I can relate my struggle to survive with another human being, with the successes and failures that came along, with rhetoric.

My sister moved up to college where she was free to choose the scheduled she liked. She could've chosen early classes to get them over with but outside a military academy it's normal to want to sleep. Meanwhile my dumb preteen obsession with coffee had messed up my sleep cycle and all I could dream about was getting diagnosed with insomnia to get the appropriate pills. My mom respectfully decided not to laugh at my request and just sent me to bed, where I just stared at the ceiling as our new home theater emitted sound waves, mechanical waves that shook up my eardrum and my sleep. I decided I had to convince somehow my sister to stop watching TV at her new schedule were 11 PM was about the time she would turn to "Gossip Girl."

As Thank You For Arguing's author explained, the least experienced in persuasion often decide to attack. My first strategy was to download and app to my iPod that could control the TV. I went to my bedroom and laid on my bed waiting for my sister to turn the TV on. When I could finally hear, "Last episode Chuck and Blair...Xoxo, Gossip Girl," I opened the app and shut the thing down. My sister turned it on. I turned it off. The thing went on for a while until I lowered the volume, which made her realize it wasn't just shutting off but that someone, most likely her annoying little brother, was controlling it. My parents confiscated my iPod for a week.

My attack failed as I should have wanted to win an argument, not just take her down. Jay Heinrichs suggests first to get to people's emotions, then change their opinions and after that make things happen. My argument against my sister sort of followed what he states and eventually made me see that younger siblings actually can propose something. As a former lawyer, my mom lectured me that just annoying my sister (in other words) was not an argument. If I wanted something I had to convince someone,  not push them towards it. It was the first time I got started to understand how rhetoric works,

I told my parents I wasn't doing well on PE. I was starting to get better at sleeping with noise, but the sleeping quality just wasn't as good. They believed it, mostly because they'll always worry about my inadequacy for sports. Poor me, I'd get rejected for life if I couldn't play soccer. I told them my sister should do sports instead of just watching TV and that did it. We couldn't grow up to be unhealthy bookworms, I'd exercise in PE (sure..) and she'd go to bed earlier to go to the gym. I guess it wasn't that hard to convince her of that. Now I'll never now what happened with Blair and Serena's teenage nightlife in the Big Apple.
I'm definitely not a master of rhetoric but I sure can handle childish disputes like discussing with my sister. Occasions like that made me, gradually, understand that fighting doesn't work. It wasn't only because I couldn't possibly fight, but because there was an option that actually work. For some school elections I was running for, I heard some people say they'd rather vote for someone who would go yell at the HS office until things happened. I'm not a fan of the "Ay Mister!" strategy, so I guess that's why I lost.

The Words for Everyone

Everyone's way of speaking is the perfect and easiest to crush them with satire. Whether it's a man's alternating diction and thus personality, the author's dramatical Shakespearean way of speaking or his Greek grandmother's crappy grammar, David Sedaris focuses all throughout the book on the essence of spoken language, or how our brains spit out who we are. 

"Something for everyone," that's what Dupont, Sedaris' coworker as handymen, meant as he shaped his personality, to please give the best for everyone. For Sedaris, who he spotted as a gay sex maniac, Dupont was a playboy who often shared with him the latest sex adventures with his upper class girlfriend who wanted thrill with a badass black man, a role he adapted to play. With their boss, Uta, the author's coworker was a slave from the nineteenth century, maintaining the language as he sympathized with their common interest in progress. "I don't wanna get me no casah [cancer]... No ma'am, I don't want nothin' preventing' me from achievin' my goals" (pg. 218), "Dat dere bees the exact typo music I listens to at homes" (pg. 218), or "I reckon there will, Miz Uta...I's hoping' I could go to medical school...real soon so maybe I could operate on my mother" (pg. 225) are all examples of Dupont's language as an influence on others. Sedaris is able to show that how we communicate shows who we are, in Dupont's case a psycho.

While some seek to deteriorate their word choice to suit others, Sedaris as a child found his superior diction in Shakespeare's plays. Already a drama aficionado, he decided to change his complete way of speaking in order to "reintroduce" archaic English to Raleigh, NC. "Perchance, fair lady, thou dost think me unduly vexed by the sorrowful state of thine quarters," Sedaris said to his mother. The essay where he talks about this, and overall his general obsession with drama, beneath the humor and self-ridicule, shows that language exhibits our personality. 

Ya Ya, the author's Greek grandmother, complained that her fish "had" a suicide. Sedaris' mom quickly corrected her, but Ya Ya didn't care about what "the girl" said. "The girl go away now," said Ya Ya (pg. 26). In the essay "Get Your Ya-Ya's Out!" Sedaris mocks the cultural clash between his mom and her mother-in-law, examining details ranging from Ya Ya's inability to connect with anyone to her death, showing that diction, again, plays a huge role in satire. The only way the reader gets to know how Ya Ya was, and therefore laugh, is by knowing how she spoke. Although Sedaris' essays have very varied themes, people's vocabulary and phrasing are the base for his ability to crush them with satire. For the readers to be amused by the people he describes, they must know them. It sounds obvious, that words are important for communication, but it's more than that. Each person's diction is what their minds can express, showing how their minds are. By reading Naked, I've understood more the role of diction in rhetoric and communication. 

"Faggoty Faggots"

"I like guys." As Sedaris shows when recalling the time a kid wrote in his (Sedaris') notebook that he like guys, even the most stupid lies and moronic ways of bullying can crush people. "I like guys" is the  most obvious phrase regarding what a homosexual thinks about himself. It's like if Africans wrote down they're black in case they don't remember it. It could get more stereotypical, like an Asian reminding himself that he likes rice. However, there would be no such mockery as Sedaris shows in "I Like Guys," one of his essays, regarding white heterosexual men. "I'm a married man with a savings account," that's no fun. I don't like being a mainstream protester that fights for whatever is in the newspaper, but Sedaris' essay, by his use of truly great satire, shows how minorities can suffer. I know gay marriage and abortion are trendy for debate ever since it became a fun way to win in politics, but it's still worth writing about.
The chapter "I Like Guys" starts with a teacher complaining about the new racial integration program of the school, reminding everyone in the class that, "The thing to remember...is that more than anything in the world, those colored people wish they were white" (pg. 82). She proceeded to make fun of gays right in front of Sedaris' face, reminding him of the insults the PE teacher used to yell out loud, "Look at you!...You're a group of ladies, a pack of tap-dancing queers"(pg. 83). Unresponsive to the humiliation, Sedaris responded by fantasizing with his French tourist girlfriend he would kiss in the sunset once he went to Greece for the summer. As he mocks his world, the author shows that his innate gayness was simply fixed and people's responses just plainly rejecting. The author uses satire to describe human nature and its silliness.
The author had started getting along with his gay summer camp roommate as their common misunderstanding in the insult "faggot" brought them together. They made fun of their counselor telling them not to be faggots that can't make their beds. Sure... They laughed saying phrases like "sticking faggots" or "faggoty faggots," as the author analyzes people's use of that word. They stopped getting along and started humiliating each other in public, getting nowhere other than becoming more insecure.

Sedaris doesn't want to write an essay about society's discrimination and exclusion of homosexuals nor about the psychological effects it has on one. His book is not critiquing American society and the modern world. Instead, he uses the art of satire to show the small things underneath those things. As I've seen through Naked, satire is a way to observe the way we humans are in perhaps a more advanced way than a straight-foward academic paper.