Convincing at its Best!

Virtue, practical wisdom, and selflessness: the three essential parts of ethos for arguing.  No one would have thought they would actually use these qualities to persuade someone into doing something or to argue about anything. But yes, after reading Chapter 6 of the book Thank You for Arguing, I realized how important and effective these three qualities really are.

Let’s start with virtue. According to Dictionary.com the meaning of a virtue is a “moral excellence; goodness; righteousness.” In other words, it is our pride. When persuading someone into doing something, we tend to do that. We just want them to agree with us, no matter what it takes.

For example, a year ago my dad was bothering me when he had no reason to do it. He was just “having fun”, or at least that’s what he thought. I was concentrated on my homework and he came in my room and started to switch the lights on and off, not letting me concentrate, then he just left the room leaving the lights off. I stood up from my desk really angry, opened the door, called him a bad word, and turned the light in my room on again. The next day, he took my phone away and told me I was grounded for a month. I didn’t pay much attention to it or said I was sorry or anything, but the day my friend was throwing a party I just wished I hadn’t said that. I lost all my virtue on convincing my dad to let me go. I said I was sorry, that It was a wrong thing to do and that I would never do it again. I kept on bragging on all the good things I had done, which according Heinrichs on page 62,“it’s the most red-blooded American technique.” But he says, “It doesn’t always work.” To my surprise, it worked. He took my punishment away and I was able to go to the party. We both knew we were wrong but none of us did something due to our lack of virtue.

            When I first read that virtue, practical wisdom and selflessness were used in arguing I laughed. How is that possible? After reading this chapter I realized that we use them almost every day. Amazing!