THINKER'S ALMANAC - July 12

Subject:  Rhetoric - Tricolon

Event:  Birthday of Julius Caesar, 100 BC

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. -Benjamin Franklin

 

Although his exact date of birth is uncertain, today is the traditional day that people mark as the birthday, in 100 BC, of Julius Caesar -- Roman general, statesman, and dictator.  

 

In his Life of Caesar, Plutarch tells a story that reveals the unique character of Caesar. It relates to an incident where the young Julius was kidnapped by pirates:

 

To begin with, then, when the pirates demanded twenty talents for his ransom, he laughed at them for not knowing who their captive was, and of his own accord agreed to give them fifty . . . . For eight and thirty days, as if the men were not his watchers, but his royal body-guard, he shared in their sports and exercises with great unconcern. He also wrote poems and sundry speeches which he read aloud to them, and those who did not admire these he would call to their faces illiterate Barbarians, and often laughingly threatened to hang them all. The pirates were delighted at this, and attributed his boldness of speech to a certain simplicity and boyish mirth (1).

                                                                 Image by Efry E from Pixabay

Caesar made good on his threat.  After being released, he pursued the pirates with his fleet, captured, and executed them.

 

Julius’ place in history is probably best attributed to his combined powers as a tactician, a statesman, and an orator.  After leading his Roman army to one particularly decisive victory in 46 BC, he famously wrote the Roman Senate to report:  

 

Veni, vidi, vici

or

I came, I saw, I conquered.

 

A student of rhetoric and oratory, Caesar knew the power of the tricolon, the use of three parallel words, phrases, or clauses to generate sentences with rhythm, clarity, and panache.

 

There is something special, perhaps even magical, about the number three, and when combined with the power of rhythm and repetition, what results is an unforgettable recipe for rhetorical resonance.

 

We see it in the Declaration of Independence:  “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  We see it in religion:  “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”  We see it in films and television: “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” and “It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman!”  And we see it advertising:  “The few, the proud, the Marines” (2).

 

Balance and rhythm with two elements is good.  This is called bicolon, as in

“Roses are red, violets are blue.”  And four works too.  It’s called tetracolon, as when Winston Churchill told the British people that he had nothing to offer but “blood, toil, tears and sweat.”  But you just can’t beat the rule of three; it’s the most ubiquitous, the most memorable, and the most magical of them all.  No wonder newly reelected President Barack Obama used 21 tricolons in his 2008 victory speech (3).

 

Challenge:  Tricolon Trailers

What are examples of things that come in threes -- familiar phrases, titles, or trios?  Write the text of a voice-over for a movie trailer of your favorite film or book.  Use at least one tricolon to add some rhythm and resonance.  Here’s an example for Hamlet, Prince of Denmark:

 

Mourning his dead father, berating his clueless mother, and continually contemplating the murder of his remorseless, treacherous, and lecherous uncle, Hamlet is not having a good day!  Something, indeed, is rotten in the state of Denmark, and it’s not just the fish from last week’s dinner that’s been festering in the corner of the Castle Elsinore’s Kitchen.

 

Sources:

1-http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Caesar*.html

2- Backman, Brian.  Thinking in Threes:  The Power of Three in Writing. Austin, Texas:  Prufrock Press, 2005.

3- Forsyth, Mark.  The Elements of Eloquence:  How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase.  London:  Icon Books, 2013: 84-88.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - July 11

 Subject:  Scarcity and Loss Aversion - New Coke

Event:  The Coca-Cola Company discontinues New Coke, 1985

Imagine you are a part of a cookie taste test.  Before you are two jars of cookies.  One of the jars has ten cookies in it, while the other had just two.  Do you think you would be capable of judging the two cookies objectively?  Do you think that the number of cookies in each jar might somehow influence your preference for one over the other?  

An actual psychological experiment was conducted as described above.  What the researchers did not tell the subjects, however, was that all the cookies in the experiment were exactly the same.  The results of the study revealed that subjects consistently preferred the cookies that were in short supply over the cookies that were more plentiful.  This fact illustrates a powerful idea from social psychology called the scarcity principle -- the tendency that humans have to perceive the value of things that are less abundant or rare over things that are viewed as common or abundant (1).

On April 23, 1985, the Coca-Cola company announced that it would be introducing “New Coke,” a sweeter tasting version of its long-successful traditional formula.  Almost immediately there was a backlash from Coke drinkers across America demanding that old Coke be restored to the store shelves.  One Seattle man even organized a group called Old Coke Drinkers of America to lobby and even sue the Coca-Cola Company. 

                                                        Image by Harry Stilianou from Pixabay

Coke executives thought they had done their research, for they had developed the new formula over a four-year period and conducted blind taste tests with thousands of consumers in twenty-five cities.  The results of these taste tests were clear:  55% to 45% of Coke drinkers preferred the new formula over the old.  In addition, in tests where consumers were told they were drinking old and new formulas, 6% preferred New Coke.

What the Coke executives failed to account for was an important phenomena from psychology called the scarcity principle.  In short, it means that when we are told we can’t have something or that something is in short supply, we want that thing even more.  Furthermore, we truly dislike it when we have something and it's taken away from us.

When New Coke was released, Americans had been drinking Coke for nearly 100 years, ever since Dr. John Pemberton sold his first glass of the bubbly beverage on May 8, 1886, in a pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia.  More than just soda pop, traditional Coke was a part of Americana.  With old Coke no longer available, the scarcity principle kicked in.  In addition, a related notion came into play, loss aversion, which causes people to weigh losses more heavily than gains (2).

If Coke executives would have understood scarcity and loss aversion better, they might have, for example, kept old Coke on the shelves awhile before fully replacing it with New Coke.  Similarly, they might have framed their advertising to account for loss aversion by emphasizing losses over gains.  For example, they might have advertised New Coke, saying, “Don’t miss the opportunity to be the first on your block to taste New Coke.  For a limited time you can buy it at a 20% discount over old Coke.”

Because of their failure to understand the consumer’s psychology, the Coca-Cola Company finally had to admit defeat.  It was on this day in 1985 that New Coke was discontinued and “Classic Coke” was reintroduced.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What is the difference between loss aversion and the scarcity principle?

Challenge:  Failed Products - Busts

What are some classic failed products from the past? Do some research into the product, and try to answer the question of why it failed?

Sources:

1-Cialdini, Robert B.  Influence:  The Psychology of Persuasion. New York:  Harper Business, 2021:  268.

2-Goldstein, Noah J., Steve J. Martin, and Robert B. Cialdini. Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive. Free Press, 2009.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - July 10

Subject:  Confused Language - History and Heritage

Event:  History professor Steven Conn writes about the Confederate flag controversy, 2015

Perhaps the writer has used an important word incorrectly by not taking the trouble to look it up. He may think that "sanguine" and "sanguinary" mean the same thing, but the difference is a bloody big one.  -William Zinnser

On this day in 2015, an editorial appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer weighing in on the controversial issue of whether or not the Confederate flag should be a part of the flag of the state of Mississippi.  In explaining his case, historian Steven Conn of Miami University in Ohio began by emphasizing the distinction between two words:  history and heritage.  Conn argued that these two conflicting views of the past should not be used synonymously; instead, they should be treated as opposites:

History follows rules of evidence an interpretation.  Most important, it is debated and revised constantly as new evidence and new ways of  evidence come to light . . . . Heritage, by contrast, is a mythologized version of the past, stripped of all the unpleasant parts.

                                                             Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Conn continued by explaining the key distinctions between the two words, explaining how they are anything but synonymous:

History, [unlike heritage], doesn’t care about your feelings.  It isn’t therapeutic and its job isn’t to make you feel good about yourself, your relatives or the ethnic tribe with which you identify.  History forces you to think, to question the assumptions you hold about the past in order to analyze the present more deeply. -Steven Conn

As it relates to the Confederate flag controversy, Conn argued that “Those who cling to the Confederate flag want their personal, rose-tinted mythologies of Confederate heritage to be taken seriously as history.”  The error here is that this attitude conflates heritage with history.  Unlike heritage, which is the subjective “past-as-we-wish-it-were,” point of view,  history takes a broader, more objective view of the past, looking at “the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

  

To illustrate his point beyond just the issue of the Mississippi flag, Conn presents the example of attitudes about Christopher Columbus.  Italian Americans have a long tradition of celebrating Columbus’ achievements as an explorer; however, to go beyond just heritage, they should also recognize the historical facts relating to Columbus’ enslavement of native people, which began the unfortunate history of slavery in the New World.

Conn’s argument is an important reminder of how important it is to establish clear definitions when addressing an argument.  This is so important, in fact, that whenever looking at a controversial issue, debaters should begin by identifying and defining specific terms that are essential to understanding the issue.

Clarifying precise definitions and making fine distinctions between words is important in order to avoid misinterpretations or misunderstandings that can derail a debate.  Imagine, for example, that you’re debating the issue of capital punishment while your interlocutor thinks you're discussing corporeal punishment.  Obviously, both issues involve punishment, but the adjectives “capital” and “corporeal” involve two totally different kinds of punishment.

Furthermore, clarifying definitions will help you establish common ground based on agreed-upon definitions and also open the door to identifying assumptions that should be brought out into the open.  For example, in Steven Conn’s argument about the past, he clearly defines the terms history and heritage, revealing the distinctions between the two terms and showing that they are not synonymous.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What are the key distinctions between the definitions of the words “history” and “heritage”?

Challenge:  Words with a World of Difference

Research the precise definitions of a word pair that some people might think are synonymous.  What is the definition of each word, and what is the difference?

The following are some possible examples of word pairs:

Norm/Average

Joy/Exhuberane

Judgement/Prejudice

Happiness/Pleasure

Prosperity/Wealth

Reason/Logic

Right/Want

Slander/Libel

Jargon/Slang

Freedom/License

Frankness/Rudeness

Sanguine/ Sanguinary

Also on this Day:

July 10, 1871:  Today is the birthday of Marcel Proust, the French writer, who gave us the following insight about reading:  “Reading is that fruitful miracle of a communication in the midst of solitude.”

Sources:

1-Conn, Steven.  “Heritage and History Aren’t the Same Thing.” The Philadelphia Inquirer 10 July 2015.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - July 9

Subject:  Questions - The Interrogative Mood

Event:  Bob Dylan records “Blowing in the Wind,” 1962

I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.  -Richard Feynman

On this day in 1962, Bob Dylan recorded the song “Blowin’ in the Wind” for his second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.  Of all the memorable protest songs that came out of the turbulent 1960s, “Blowin’ in the Wind” is the best known.  Its success lies in its anthem-like quality as well as its universal and timeless themes of war, peace, and freedom.  But perhaps its most powerful feature is its presentation of a litany of rhetorical questions, questions which perfectly balance the general and the specific in such a way that the questions remain relevant more than fifty years after they were written:

 

How many roads must a man walk down

Before you call him a man?

How many seas must a white dove sail

Before she sleeps in the sand?

Yes, and how many times must the cannonballs fly

Before they're forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind

The answer is blowin' in the wind

 

“Blowin’ in the Wind” is Bob Dylan’s most covered song.  The most successful cover version was recorded by Peter, Paul, and Mary, which reached number two on the Billboard pop chart in April 1963 (1).

                                                             Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

 

As Bob Dylan reminds us, a question is like a magnifying glass that allows us to more closely examine ideas.  A question also allows us to expand our thinking, limited only by the size of our own imagination.

One example of a writer with an enormous imagination for questions is Padgett Powell, who in 2010 wrote a novel called The Interrogative Mood, a Novel?  In case you are unfamiliar with the term interrogative mood, it simply refers to sentences in the form of a question.  So instead of a typical novel featuring a narrator, Powell’s novel features an interrogator, who riddles his reader with roughly 2,000 questions over the course of 160-plus pages.  

Here’s a small sample:

Can you read music?  Would it be reasonable to ask someone if he or she has a favorite musical note?  Would you like to visit a tar pit or peat bog, or would you rather eat cucumber sandwiches on a pleasant veranda with a civilized hostess in England?  Will you wear a garment with a small tear in it?  Do you cry at movies where you are intended to cry, or at other points in the drama, or not at all?

Padgett, who has taught writing at the University of Florida for more than 20 years, got started asking questions when he noticed that some of his university colleagues wrote emails to him composed entirely of questions.  In response, he began composing his own witty replies, all in the interrogative mood.

Asking questions is the foundation of philosophical thinking, best known as the Socratic method.  Socrates’ mother was a midwife, and he used this fact as a metaphor for his teaching method:  rather than filling students with ideas, his goal was to draw the ideas out of his students by asking questions.  Instead of arguing with people, Socrates asked probing questions -- questions that forced his interlocutor to examine and test his or her own beliefs.  Socrates’ questions could make people uncomfortable, but he didn’t care. More than being concerned about the feelings of others, Socrates cared about finding the truth.

 

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  Why did Socrates use questions as the basis of his teaching method?

Today’s Challenge:  Interrogate a Topic

What is a topic that you care about -- a topic that you are curious about?  What are some questions you have about the topic?  Select a topic that you care about.  Use your passion for the topic to generate a list of at least 10 legitimate questions that you do not know the answer to.  Use these questions as springboards for future writing.

 

Sources:

1-Songfacts.com.  “Blowin’ in the Wind”

2-Powell, Padget.  The Interrogative Mood.  New York:  Ecco, 2010.