Thank You for Arguing: Chapter 24 Summary & Analysis

It’s never a good idea to propose to a woman at a baseball game via JumboTron, Heinrichs says. If your lover is unsure, you could become embarrassed in front of tens of thousands of fans. In short, the JumboTron is the wrong medium for a proposal. In this chapter, Heinrichs will talk about how to find the perfect medium—print, face-to-face conversation, a big speech, etc.—for different rhetorical maneuvers.

When considering the proper medium, persuaders should consider a few factors: 1) Timing, in other words, how long the message will last, how fast a response the audience expects, and other related questions; 2) What combination of ethos, pathos, and logos would persuade best, since different media favor different combinations; 3) What gestures will enhance the argument. By “gestures,” Heinrichs means any behavior, literal or not, that improve one’s rhetoric (like a smile or a handshake).

Different media persuade in different ways, because the senses work in different ways. Sound, at least a spoken voice, is the most rational sense (although when the sound is music, pathos becomes more important). Smell is the most “pathetic” sense, and sight is often pathetic, too, since people tend to believe what they see, and what they believe determines what they feel. Touch and taste are pathetic, as well. (One could argue that reading text counts as using sight, but Heinrichs replies that reading is actually more focused on sound, since readers “receive voices, not mere type.”)

Now Heinrichs will talk about different media and how they favor different senses and different kinds of timing. Email favors the logos side of rhetoric, and makes it difficult to express emotion. It’s also important to consider the timing of an email: once the email is in an audience’s inbox, it can stay there forever. If you send an angry message, your audience might not read it for days, by which point both of you might have calmed down, and the initial pathos of the email will be irrelevant. Now compare email to texting. They’re very similar, but texting is instantaneous and ephemeral. Because texting involves words, there’s little space for pathos, but in part because of its brevity, texting favors appeals to ethos more than logos. Like all good appeals to ethos, texting is all about code grooming and inside talk.

In general, the instantaneousness of Internet communication makes the Internet better suited for pathos and ethos than logos—perhaps explaining why the Internet hasn’t been a “great cauldron of democracy.” Above all, people use the Internet to attract like-minded people, not to persuade through deliberative rhetoric. This is especially true of Twitter—its shortness limits logos and emphasizes pathos and ethos.

Phone calls are probably the most logos-centric form of communication, because, without eye contact or face-to-face gesturing, people are forced to rely on appeals to reason. This might seem a little surprising, since 1) phone companies advertise their products with highly pathetic ads, and 2) teenage lovers will still call each other on the phone to express their passion. Regarding 1), ad agencies have no choice but to use pathos to sell their product—appeals to logic and logos wouldn’t work. Regarding 2), it’s interesting that when young lovers talk over the phone, they pause far more than they speak. Furthermore, it’s interesting that nowadays, young lovers often prefer to Skype or video chat, rather than talk over the phone. Perhaps this suggests that phone calls really are rational, provided that the call is used to communicate words, not just passionate pauses.

The old-fashioned newspaper op-ed might seem like a purely rational medium, but it’s not. Often, the op-ed will make appeals to the author’s authority and reputation; one could even argue that the author is more important than the logic behind the essay itself. In all, it’s important to keep in mind that “the senses and their persuasive appeals” point toward different forms of communication.