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.