Perhaps the simplest, most successful and most seen commonplace in Colombians' lives is the constant use of the word "peace." There has not been peace in Colombia pretty much since it has humans living on it and some televised negotiations in Cuba or Norway won't do anything about it. They might be very successful in ending a war between the government and a specific terrorist or guerrilla organization, but peace is irrelevant. Heinrichs describes commonplaces as terms people can use to get ideas into others' minds. They make you relate an argument to a basic idea you're familiar with, even though they don't have anything correlation. The proceso de paz or peace process is just a commonplace-wording for dissolving a group if it even happens. The government and FARC are negotiation to see if they stop shooting each other and if FARC transforms into some political body. Unfortunately, neither of them has the superpower of creating peace. They do, however, have the power to get into people's minds. Colombia is all optimistic about the upcoming peace. It helps the government's image, people's confidence and the idea that Colombia is doing so great. Having mentioned "optimistic," political figures use this commonplace to show everyone that something good is happening, although they might not know what that thing is. The media and politicians use this commonplace to convince people that things are better. If an average Colombian read that FARC and the government were going to meet to discuss the possibility of further negotiation to see if by some chance they agree in a solution out of this conflict, the news wouldn't be as popular. I personally am optimistic about the dialogues with FARC and think that using the word "peace" might help get into people's brains for good.
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| If you search for the word "peace" at this page, you get thirty-nine matches. |
Term Changing
Apple went pretty much straight forward with this one. The company was visionary and saw that computers were becoming a popular thing (this ad was released in 1998). To grow big, they needed to appeal to the consuming crowds, not the geeky computer programmers. So they went ahead and said it in the ad. Apple wanted to change their image from being just another complex machine to the trendy and simple tool everyone wants (including me). Heinrichs' shows term changing as, "Don't accept the terms your opponent uses. Insert your own." Apple does that almost exactly. They wanted to create a new reputation so they literally inserted a new one.
Redefinition
I owe redefinition my life. While I wasn't brutally bullied in middle school, I did have rivalries with a lot of people and didn't integrate quite well with my grade. I certainly wasn't popular, and even though I was sort of a loser, people envied my academic success. A lot of kids responded to their jealousy and immatureness using a commonplace. "Why are you such a nerd?" they would say. Oh no! They're calling me "nerd," a huge insult with a terrible connotation. They'd expect most people to respond to the commonplace insult like that, and even though I did for a while, my brain was functional enough to realize I could redefine that term when being part of dumb preteen face-offs. "I'm a nerd because my parents raised me this way and because I can be one. You're futureless idiot with no skill at all. You're not a nerd because you can't be one," became my last resource argument for middle school survival. Heinrichs defines redefinition as using what your opponents call you in your favor. In this case I could have gone with definition jujitsu and accepted the bad connotation for nerd, but I attempted to make a new one. Looking back it was pointless to insult some people that way, but for my rhetorical purposes of that time, crushing their arguments and self-esteem, I was very successful. I've learned that accepting others critiques about you (or insults) is just a step to get to know yourself and destroy them better.
Definition Jujitsu
I don't think "Colombia es pasión" or the new toucan Colombia logo (in the marketing way) have been very successful to deal with the horrible reputation the country has basically everywhere, but the catch phrase you often see in Colombian airports (shown below) has indeed helped. While uninformative advertisings like saying that Colombia is passion or using a well-designed colorful bird for the brand don't mean anything to a tourist arriving here or some random European being targeted by the Colombian country brand, the image below shows a marketing strategy with rhetorical tools behind it. The motto acknowledges what people outside Colombia think, that it's dangerous and many people get kidnapped, so it accepts it and turns it into a positive thing. Through this definition jujitsu, people see that their term of Colombia, a dangerous place, is actually different. Its kind of amusing so it catches people's attention, but since it uses rhetorics, the ad achieves much more than abstract mottos about passion or biodiversity.
Definition Judo
As the presidential elections are closer, my grandmother gets passionate about her hatred for socialism. After living in the US for most of her life, she has become very interested in American politics and even excited to vote against Obama. I went to visit her today because she is leaving to Florida for a couple of weeks, to visit friends and family, but mostly to submit her Republican ballot in the good old fashioned way. My father tried to convince her that Obama was not that bad, and that things like health and welfare needed to be improved to prevent the US from decaying. After having heard the phrases (commonplaces) public good, universal health and social improvement, my grandmother attacked back with civil liberties, communist (which can have a horrible connotation for many crowds), terrorism and public debt. While she does point out things that she thinks Romney will do to help the country, during this discussion she just used commonplaces that contrasted to my dad's and made Obama sound like an awful tax collector. Like I see when my grandmother talks about the elections, politics has a lot of definition judo, where each party takes the other's terms and contrasts them.
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