Archive for March, 2010

Recently, certain members of the FWR household have been waging a war of attrition. I will name no names, and definitely will not name any topics of debate, but I will tell you about how attrition is the way to go.

There are many ways to debate, to argue, and, in theory, to win an argument. There is of course the lie/cheat/steal option, which works especially well for the unscrupulous. However, if you are scrupulous enough to not do any of those devious activities, yet ruthless enough to want to win, dangit, then here are your options.

1. Logic. Doesn’t work too well with the unreasonable. If you are like myself, there are far too many people in your life who are irrational for this option to work reliably. Logos: 0; Oppositional Defiance: ∞.

2. Emotional Appeal. This can be very effective; however, your antagonist might catch on eventually and set up some very thick walls that will not be dissuaded by any number of tears, trembling lower-lips, or tales of woe. Pathos might not work the best for those with too much pride, anyways.

3. Appeal to Your Own Credibility: You see, I understand this better; take my word for it.Besides, I’m such a great person. Likely to not work for the same reasons as 1 and 2. Ethos: shot down.

Well, I’ve run out of Greek words to describe types of appeal, but let us not digress and move on!

4. Flattery. Doesn’t work well with your pride. May be helpful if the other person is as in 1, irrational.

5. Violence. Effective if you are dealing with siblings and/or are under the age of 18. After that, this gets tricky.

6. Emotional Blackmail. Incredibly efficient. Unfortunately, goes against the whole “I have a conscience thing.” When dealing with family members, this isn’t such a big deal – you do it all the time already, trust me. Just hope you aren’t giving anyone a complex while you’re at it – those take a while to go away.

7. Bulldozer. In this argument method, one disregards the other’s feelings on the matter and charges forward on all thrusters: “I will leave you, damnit, I swear, I will leave you: I will take this trip and I will come back, get my things, and leave you!”

8. Attrition. And here we arrive. Attrition has so many things on its side, but let us summarize. First off, it is the part of the scheming, conniving, and clever – not in a bad way, of course. It takes stamina. Only a truly heroic character is capable of keeping up such a war for long. The war of attrition involves a) refusing to go away b)reinstating your argument quietly and insistently, and c) waiting for the opposition to crack. And they will, if you can keep it up long enough. You see, in a regular old war, one side has to deliver, as my high school APUSH teacher explained, “the knockout punch.” In one swift blow, the opposition must be crippled. Attrition ignores all of those rules, and just hangs around, and keeps churning, until finally the day when they can raise the victory flag.

Of course, this is all projection. The attrition-ers of the FWR household have some battles won (most by technique 7), but they have yet to win the war. Oh, but they will.

So, true story.

Shortly after I came home last night, my stepfather enlightened me to the exploits of my dogs that day.

“The pups killed a squirrel in the backyard. You might need to clean it up.”

“Yeah,” said the editor, “that thing could have rabies.”

Myself: “….did you know that plague is endemic to the squirrel population in Texas?”

“What?!” Her eyes got very large. “Yeah, sometimes people catch it.”

“I think the pups ate the whole thing.” said V, who had just walked in.

The editor mused, “well, if it is rabid, I think if we leave it out for 24 hours it won’t be contagious anymore…”

“And if it has plague, the fleas might have died, as that is how it’s transferred…” I added.

Needless to say, at this point, nine pm at night, no one was going out in the dark to search out some mutilated squirrel carcass. The threat of getting a fourteenth-century illness (actually, plague has been around longer than that), coupled with cold kept everyone in for the time being.

Now, I will tell you, I was not being entirely factual about the whole plague thing. That’s the great part about having a little information – one can misconstrue it, misrepresent it, and yes, convince their mother that the Black Death could be hanging out on the porch.

Rock Squirrel © James H. Robinson

The truth is, plague is a zoonotic disease that is endemic to some rodent populations on every continent except Australia and Antarctica.  However, it is more common in rural areas, further southwest, and likely in ground squirrels, like the Rock Squirrel, spermophilus variegatus. (so says the CDC, my new best friend) And, cases are quite rare – around a dozen a year in the US.

Still, gotta love it. In case you are interested in similarly freaking people out with slightly erroneous arcane information, follow these handy steps:

1. Learn something esoteric enough that your current audience has no reliable knowledge on the subject. (this is why the media is so good at messing up scientific information for the general public: what the general public understands about science would not fill page of printer paper) It helps if you are an “expert” – the house pre-med student or a widely respected news outlet.

2. Exaggerate choice details so that the example applies to your audience.

3. Say it in an ominous or casual way.

4. Enjoy the reaction, and pat yourself on the back for encouraging the misinformation of the populace.

5. If you have no sense of ethics, repeat.

Meanwhile, I would like to let you know that my older sister, being a mammalogist who studies mice, is likely to die from Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome – “a febrile illness characterized by bilateral interstitial pulmonary infiltrates and respiratory compromise usually requiring supplemental oxygen and clinically resembling acute respiratory disease syndrome (ARDS).” And that awesome last sentence is exactly why I am going to medical school someday.