Week #2 Post #1

Coming into reading this book was very different for me. It's written in a style that I'm completely not used to, and I'm absolutely in love with the informality of it. I do believe, however, that the informality could very well be a cover of a much more complex and purposefully sequenced style of writing (he even goes as far as to point out when he gets seemingly off topic). Upon rereading and reflecting on some of the passages we've gone over this week, and even talking with my ever-curious mother about it, I've noticed several things. One big thing that I've noticed is that Jay Heinrichs is extremely smart and seems to have such a beautiful grasp on what he's talking about, and manages to assert his points and sub-points in the higher abstraction of it all. To clarify the previous statement; in a different plane of thinking, I believe that he uses the very rhetoric that he's preaching, in each example, in order to persuade us that each is true. I see it as a circular reasoning, and justified entirely due to our belief in reading it. He is extremely well versed in it all (obviously, being the author of a book on it (see the recurring ethos there?)) and shows it off in the best, underhanded ways.

Has anyone seen the movie Inception? Despite the joke and further reflection, I see it more closely comparable to professors teaching undergraduate students to be teachers.

To tie it all back to the actual reading, I'll refer to the initial toothpaste example. Heinrichs had 'convinced' his son to get him the toothpaste by conceding a point, and goes on to tell us why it is that whatever he did had 'worked' and why he had 'won'.
My mother is actually the one who raised the idea to me that his son could simply be mature enough on his own to be doing a decent thing for his father, and separate from the "I'm manipulating you" mindset-tone that had been projected right away. I had recounted the story to her verbally and out of context, and she immediately saw the hole in logic; whereas I don't recall anyone in class mentioning it. There are obviously several possibilities, such as my mom being a natural rebel, but I suggest that it's fun to think that Heinrichs simply knows the game (his game) even better than we were initially led to believe.