Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion

I really wanted to like this book. And I did find some recommending traits. This book may be okay for someone who sticks to low-stakes debates and never gets in a snarl with a skilled arguer. But if you're looking for a guide to the real meat of argumentation, keep looking, because this isn't your book.

Author Jay Heinrichs does bring some recommending characteristics to this book. His plea for a return to a firm education in rhetoric reflects a stance I've found myself taking more than once recently. His claim that rhetoric could revitalize America's stagnant public sphere is persuasive. And if you limit yourself to the small-scale arguments of the kind he describes in this book (turning down the stereo, convincing your kid to wear long pants on a snowy day), the steps and strategies in this book will probably be useful to you.

But some of the author's prescriptions are not supportable. He claims, for instance, that rhetoric is the realm of debaters, but that dialectic is the exclusive realm of philosophers, and that dialectic has no place in your argument. This is strange, since dialectic is the process of questions and answers upon which any good argument should be based. Aristotle's Rhetoric begins (in the W. Rhys Roberts translation) by stating that "Rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectic." Heinrichs' opinion is the opposite of what most argumentation teachers claim, since you cannot have a productive argument unless you are able to ask and answer good questions.

Heinrichs also claims that productive arguments always take place in the future tense, which he calls Deliberative Rhetoric. Hermogenes and Aphthonius would not agree; these influential teachers dedicated much of their classic rhetoric primers to deliberation about how the past should be received and understood. And since I write this review at the start of a major political season, I wonder what we would think of a candidate who, in arguing about future choices, failed to ask, "Is this an option which has proven effective in the past?"

Perhaps the most baffling for me is the division Heinrichs makes between the Right and the Advantageous. These terms are lifted directly out of Cicero, who appears to be the author's major influence. So I can't help but wonder why the author sets these two topics at odds, when Cicero dedicated the final third of his most famous treatise, "On Duties," to reconciling Right and Advantageous, and stressing that in a dutiful culture the two should coincide. Does Heinrichs truly believe ours is not a dutiful society, or one which can be made dutiful?

All of this is compounded by the fact that the book is almost exclusively dedicated to oral argumentation. This is important, but think of the face-to-face arguments you've had recently. They tend to be very near-term and largely limited to topics close at hand. Most significant arguments in this post-Gutenberg age take place in writing. Even the Internet is mainly a written medium, and while YouTube may make it more oral in the future, I would estimate that about eighty-five percent of the Web is still made up of alphabetic writing. So why no chapters in this book on the unique demands of written argument?

If your only interest as an arguer is in coming to amicable resolutions with close friends and family members, I actually recommend this book. It encompasses the tools which you will need in that forum. But when the author makes sweeping claims about how skillful rhetoric can restore the grandeur of American society, and then disregards how grand social arguments really take place, I have to wonder where his head's at. If you want to use skillful words to change your world, keep looking, this isn't your book.

I used to study logic and rhetoric for fun, but in the past couple of years I have kind of lost my touch. I saw this book and with the reference to arguing and Homer Simpson on the cover, I had to check it out.
The books is fun, easy to read, and starts out right from the first chapter informing us about the use of rhetoric in our daily lives and then livens up the rest of the read with silly, but apt, analogies to rhetorical usages in pop culture.
For someone that loves the study or someone just getting into it, this is a good book for all of us to read. We need more people out there to brighten our lives with knowledge of the ways that politicians and advertising companies go out of their way to screw us on a daily basis.

This book has some stellar advice, but it's hard to get through when the author brags, insults his reader, discusses his everyday manipulation of his own family for nothing more than getting his way on movies.
If you can get past the author's personality flaws, I do have to admit that the book is a hidden gem in content.

This is a fine book. Educational, funny, clever and well-written.

It will teach you plenty about rhetoric, while making you laugh. So it's doubly persuasive.

Heinrichs' observations on American society are also well worth the read, as when, for example, he explains that Americans once loved banter, until, that is, classics and rhetoric fell out of favor in the 19th century.

I will be re-reading this one.

Thank you, Mr Heinrichs.

Perhaps a sequel on the written word?

When couples come to me for marriage counseling, they typically violate Heinrichs' most elementary principles. After reading this book, I realize that an important aspect of my counseling has been teaching rhetoric--the art of polite arguing.

For most couples, the idea of arguing politely seems like a joke or at least a myth until they learn to do it. The book will help with your understanding, but probably won't be enough to provide actual marriage help to put anger management into practice.

Heinrichs' style of writing makes rhetoric easy to learn, and some people will be able to put it into practice just using the book. However, in my experience with marriage counseling, I find that couples need practical exercises to make the process really easy and natural in everyday life.

You should know that my first copy was from the library. Half-way through, I realized I wanted my own copy. Then, when I was reading my own copy, I noticed my bookmark was mysteriously changing. The mystery was solved when my 22-year-old son announced he had been reading it and wanted to "borrow" it--and now I am buying my second copy.

Heinrichs has a light and humorous style. He brings stories from his own life, and he makes very complex concepts understandable through modern-day examples. I recommend this book for anyone wanting to improve his or her relationships.