We argue, therefore, we are

Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Eminem and Homer Simpson can teach us about the art of persuasionJay HeinrichsAllen Lane, Penguin India. 2008 Price: £ 6.99 Pg: 316 

Prasenjit Chowdhury Kolkata

If Thucydides and Aristotle elevated deliberative rhetoric to make it the basis of political community, Cicero celebrated eloquence because it contributes to the “benefit of mankind”. He claimed that eloquence led human beings out of a “brutish” life into a civilised existence as citizens (De Oratore). Cicero's emphasis on persuasion suggests that the chief purpose of oratory is to arouse passion. The time-tested power of rhetoric, or the art of persuasion, the history of which dates way back to three millennia, is back again, now in the hands of American author and wit Jay Heinrichs, who lays out a jujitsu manual of verbal attack and defence in the book under review. Mind you, if Amartya Sen's  The Argumentative Indian was a dialogic tome on India's long argumentative tradition, Heinrichs' is an in-your-face handbook on the art of holding forth your side of story.

Condemned to live a life under constant persuasion by posters, Coca-Cola labels, politicians' press releases, cartoons and pop songs we are actually and unwarily, in this post-modern zeitgeist, held captive by rhetoric — the art and science of persuasion. And it is instructive to learn as much as how Eminem won the contest in Eight Mile, as about the timing secret of Stalin. So aptly we get the picture of a carrot at the cover of the book, a-dangling as bait from a hook, which is brandished to tempt and persuade us. We persuade our boss for a promotion and our sons persuade us to go dating with their girlfriends and our spouses persuade us acquisitively, advertisements and the salespeople persuade us to buy their products, consumer society goads us to spend and so on. 

“Seduction”, Heinrich begins, “underlies the most insidious, and enjoyable forms of argument”. He argues that the Food Network uses techniques identical to that of porn industry — overmiked sound, very little plot, good-looking characters, along with lavish close-ups of firm flesh and flowing juices.