I Did Not Have Sex With That Woman

In Thank You For Arguing, Jay Heinrichs teaches readers how to manipulate terminology in arguments. Heinrichs calls techniques for taking advantage of the terminology of key words “definition jujitsu” and “definition judo”. In the first, you use definitions given by the opponent and twist them against him, in the latter you create contrasting terms that oppose those given by your opponent.
>
The author also talks about “term changing” (which literally means just that) and “redefinition” in which you accept the denotative meaning but alter the connotations. Heinrichs gives the example of redefinition with Bill Clinton’s manipulation of the meaning of sex, when inquired about his relations with Monica Lewinsky (who we hispanos get a kick out of calling Lenguinsky).

I agree with Heinrichs in that Clinton was able to muddle his way through the issue by manipulating terminology, nevertheless I do not believe that what the ex-president did would fall under the “redefinition” category. Clinton played with the popular understanding of sex, which in the minds of most people would constitute both the active and the passive parties involved in fellatio, and the legal definition of sex, which as used in the case was the following:

"For the purposes of this deposition, a person engages in sexual relations when the person knowingly engages in or causes:

1. Contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person with an intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person; 2. Contact between any part of the person's body or an object and the genitals or anus of another person; or 3. Contact between the genitals or anus of the person and any part of another person's body.

Contact means intentional touching, either directly or through clothing."

Because Clinton did not have any contact with any of the body parts listed above, then legally he did not have sex with Monica Lewinsky. This rhetorical trickery deserves a category of its own. I propose that it be called “definition MMA (Mixed Martial Arts)” since it employs a mix of various definitions for maximum favorability.

Don’t trust 'em (2 / 2)

Don’t trust 'em (2 / 2)

Jay Heinrichs, author of Thank You For Arguing, compares modern politics with eighteenth-century politics and concludes that Americans have ceased to value disinterest: a reputation for being selfless and unbiased.

 “Hamilton and colleagues would have wondered at our preference for billionaires” (p.72). True enough, some eighteenth-century politicians went bankrupt on purpose so as to increase their popularity.

 Why, then, has being rich become accepted in the 21st Century?

 I believe the answer to be a combination of two things. 

In the first place, the “American dream” has been marketized to the point that people believe that being rich is simply an American success and a question of choice. The truth is – this is not the case. 

 Income inequality is measured through the GINI Index, an indicator that ranks a country from 0 (100% of income is distributed equally among all households) to 1 (one household has 100% of income). With a GINI Index of 0.45, the USA ranks 74th from lowest (best) to highest. In comparison, Sweden has 0.23, Germany has 0.27, Canada has 0.32 and the average for the European Union is 0.30. 

 The second reason people like the wealthy is because of corporate publicity. In the modern American culture, multimillionaires have made sure they are seen as benefactors. There have been cases of “philanthropists” that spend more on advertizing their donations than the amount of money they actually donated. In addition, any opposition is labeled as “cynical”, “communist” and the increasingly popular, “European”. 

Again, my advice would be: don’t trust 'em. Forgive me for the idiocy of making a generalization but, if they’re rich: it’s because they are the most (eighteenth-century definition) “interested” of them all.

Don’t trust 'em (1 / 2)

Don’t trust 'em   (1 / 2)

In Thank You For Arguing, Jay Heinrichs gives a series of tricks that can make people more persuasive. These tricks work by deceiving the audience in favor of the speaker. In other words, the author teaches the art of manipulation. When Heinrichs writes about selflessness, honesty, and rationality, he does not advocate them as important traits that a leader should have, but rather as important traits for a leader to seem to have. For the author, it’s all about the illusion.

As I read further into the book, its purpose seems to be crafting western 21st Century politicians that fully adapt themselves to their audiences, neglecting their own beliefs. These politicians can be excellent candidates, in office however, dangerously unpredictable.

Just look at some of the tittles and subtitles and you’ll understand what I mean:

Chapter 4: “Soften Them Up”

Chapter 5: “Get Them to Like You”

Chapter 6: “Make Them Listen”, Subtitle: “Converting character into a tool of persuasion”.

Chapter 8: “Win Their Trust”, (my favorite) Subtitle: “Using selflessness for personal gain”.

Chapter seven is about practical wisdom, the second major element of ethos. When a speaker portrays practical wisdom, the audience will be more likely to agree with whatever he says. So, does Heinrich teach us how to be streetwise? No. What he does is teach readers to seem streetwise, namely, by bragging on experience, bending the rules, and appearing to take the middle course in polemical issues. Interestingly, he starts the chapter by quoting Aristotle saying, “they should rule who are able to rule best”. Perhaps he should make a personal adaptation to the quote, making it something like: “they should rule who can fake the ability to rule”.

The problem with teaching manipulation is that it can empower dangerous manipulators.

This guy, for example.

Most shocking of all is the number of YouTube likes on this video (10560) and the top comments: “I can't LIKE this enough! I listen to this to keep me pumped up! I wish some of the weak United States politicians spoke like this. With such passion! HE is amazing!”, “Hitler did nothing wrong” and “he’s better than obama”.

This speech is so powerful that it can clearly make modern people leave behind what is logical and morally good, in favor of, arguably, the most repudiated person of all time.

Nowadays, you don’t have to be Alexander the Great to learn rhetoric from Aristotle. Knowledge has become so accessible that millions of people can make use of rhetorical guidebooks (such as the book which I now hold in my hands). Nevertheless, this knowledge has not been extended to the majority, making much of the audience for, say, politics, susceptible to be manipulated by a large number of people.

In politics, the form has overridden the content. The American democratic system favors people with dubious intentions who excel in the usage of rhetoric.

Lets remember what really matters.

Doing What it Takes

Ethos, pathos and logos, the Aristotelian tools or argumentation, are three great powers equal in strength. The key for success is to learn how to use them effectively and, more importantly, when to use each one of them. Depending on the circumstances, it might be most useful to put all the weight of your argument on or two of these tools and maybe, omit the third. Also, it can be convenient to make transitions that will let you fight your war on three fronts. One option to do this is via quick adjustments as part of an intervention in a debate. President Barack Obama, an excellent orator, frequently hops between ethos, pathos, and logos. In the third 2012 presidential debate, being accused by contender Mitt Romney of neglecting allies in the Middle East, Obama effectively did a transition from logos to pathos by saying that when he had gone to Israel, the first thing that he did was to visit the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Switching between the three tools can also be done systematically through long periods. In this case, the argumentator changes his methods in response to changes in the audience. An example of this can be seen in the Catholic Church in Colombia. Some decades ago, the church relied almost completely on ethos. Obviously there was still logos in religious scholars and pathos in hell threats, but the religious institution mainly relied on ethos. People attended mass in Latin, with a preacher that was standing opposite to them. How could this be anything but what Jay Heinrichs says of ethos: “argument by character”.

Now, when you see the Catholic Church in its maximum effectiveness, it is by performing “miraculous healings” and having tele-curas
vividly preaching in front of thousands. The reason behind this change in the Catholic Church is that Colombia, once a solid Catholic monopoly, has opened its doors to a set of new religions. This new competition, especially in the form of Catholicism’s more modern cousin Protestantism, has forced the church to change up their game.

I like what has happened to religion in Colombia. Being a Capitalist and an Agnostic, I am all for competition and a wealth of options.

A Night in The Theatre

The third presidential debate was focused on National Security. Although this debate was not much of a game changer because important domestic economical issues are prioritized this year, the national security debate could have a relatively important effect in the public image of both candidates.

For Obama, being seen as firm-handed and decisive is crucial because he is sometimes perceived as weak in handling foreign relations. Obama’s economical policies towards China, nuclear reduction negotiations with Russia, and his ineffective sanctions on Iran are examples of overly feeble postures. Romney took advantage of this by forensically criticizing the president’s early actions in Iran, repeating the catch phrase “four years closer to a nuclear weapon” in regards to the Iranian nuclear program.

For Mitt Romney, the usage of future-tense deliberative arguments was essential because the audience was evaluating his ability as a commander in chief. It was important for Romney not to appear as a republican warmonger to detach himself from hawks like George Bush. Romney did this effectively by talking incessantly about peace, even attacking Obama from the left in saying that “we can’t kill our way out of this mess”.

Obama had a clear win in the Logos department of this debate. This can be easily explained because Obama is currently president and has to deal with national security issues on a very regular basis. Nevertheless, Mitt Romney was also on guard, being careful to be extremely clear in explaining his proposals in clutter-free lists, examples of this where his five simple steps fo r bettering the economy and his four essentials for development in the Middle East.

Both candidates used Pathos recurrently throughout the debate, as usually happens when discussing national security. 9/11, the Holocaust, and unemployed veterans were all pulled out. Obama made an extremely effective transition from ethos to pathos when, being incriminated by Romney of speaking negatively about America in the Middle East, he started talking about his visit to a genocide museum in Israel. Also, both candidates had a story in which a young woman approached them with consternation, an obvious attempt to persuade the audience by their emotions that could have backfired.

In this third debate, nothing was more important than Ethos. It is clear that the votes are going to be swayed by the economical policies presented by the candidates, so everything relating to national security goes to finding the candidate to be a sensible, trustworthy man who can excel as a commander in chief. In this aspect, I believe that Mitt Romney took the lead because he was able to portray himself as a moderate republican that will take conscious decisions. Obama, well, he was very constricted by the actual decisions he had taken in office.

Experimenting on Myself

Jay Heinrichs, author of Thank You For Arguing, decided to experiment the pervasiveness of arguments by attempting to spend a whole day without being persuaded or persuading anybody . Heinrichs fails miserably as he is inevitably persuaded by his son, his wife, and even his wristwatch. I understood the point being made by Heinrichs but seriously doubted that he had conducted the experiment at all. After all, steering clear out of persuasion should be easy enough if you are mind is fixed on it, right?

I decided to test the experiment by putting myself through it. It is now 7:am, from now to 7:pm. I shall become immune to persuasion. As Heinrichs put it, I wont take any crap from anyone.

Later that day…

After spending many hours sans persuasion, I’m pretty sure that the author was telling the truth. The challenge proved to be much harder than I expected. Here is what happened:

Right after I finished writing the first two paragraphs of this blog, I moved on to a Sociales essay. I worked at a good pace and was nearly done in forty minutes. However, I could not find a good ending for it so I called my father up and asked him for a suggestion. My father gave me two suggestions that I did not like. Not wanting to agree to something bad but trying to avoid hurting his feelings in order to be able to ask him  to help me in the future,  I told him that his ideas were great  but that they should be tweaked in a different direction. Once he received my positive reinforcement, he gave me a better idea, which I used to finish my essay. As soon as he left the room, it hit me. Damn! I had used persuasion. Realizing that the experiment was going to be a little harder than previously thought, I decided to cheat, isolating myself in front of a television for more than four hours.

Finally, lunch was served. After we finished eating, my mother told me to do the dishes. On hearing this  I realized that it would be hard to get out helping in the kitchen  without persuasion, and having already faltered, bit my tongue and started scrubbing. Being only half done, I felt the need to quit.   Once my mother saw me leaving the kitchen she started shouting something about the dirty dishes. Without uttering a syllable, I went down the stairs to fetch the newspaper, handing it to her so she would forget about my undone chore. Was this persuasion? I think not.  

A bit later, my ten-year-old brother persuaded my mother to ask me to take him to the park. Handling my brother is extremely hard and not my idea of a chilled Sunday. I knew it would take the best of my persuasive abilities to avoid this. By then  it was only 2pm and I still had five more hours until the experiment ended. I decided that I wouldn't sacrifice my peace for science. And in any case, the result of my experiment was already clear: persuasion is inescapable. Seeing how uncomfortable it is to become a persuasion anarchist, I will now try the opposite and become and expert in manipulating persuasion to my own advantage.

A Kaleidoscope of Audiences

The Colombian government will, for the third time, try to make peace with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), a belligerent guerilla group that has fought the established government for more than fifty years. Many talks were held during the previous tries to establish an armistice, evidently, none were fruitful.

This time, it seems to be different. I believe this set of peace talks will be successful because “all the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come” (Victor Hugo). The idea of peace is ripe. Colombia is economically, politically, socially, and psychologically ready for the end of this issue that boils down to a Cold War conflict between capitalism and communism.

As a Colombian, I feel that it is a great time to learn about rhetoric. This is why I have been devouring Jay Heinrichs’s Thank You For Arguing, a rhetoric guidebook that is excellent at showing the average reader how to apply most of the theory developed by the great classical thinkers.

Using what I have being learning by reading   Thank Your For Arguing, I shall make a series of blogs in which I will analyze different aspects of the peace talks, but always  applying what is taught by Heinrich in my blogs. In this first one, I will start by examining the first thing Heinrich says that has to be done when entering a debate: determining the audience.

So, who is the audience in the peace talks?

First of all, I would say that there is no one audience. The whole negotiation process implies that the parties will be trying to convince several  audiences at the same time,  and each member in the negotiating teams will be looking to convince the audience that he-she considers to be the most important  one while cheating the other audiences involved. Also, the negotiators will be using different kind of arguments depending on who they are trying to convince.

Here is the diagram from general to specific:

Dirty John

John Perkins’s story is somewhat fantastical. The author portrays himself as a kind of evil James Bond that does all kinds of dirty work to protect the interests of America and its companies in the international scenario.

For Perkins, it is essential that readers believe him. To achieve a good ethos, he always gives great importance to his activities, setting himself in the center of the action by saying things like: “that is what we EHMs do best: we build a global empire” (prologue p.20).

Perkins’s view on American foreign policy is very radical, therefore his tone is accusatory. This can be evidenced by the use of words like “elite”, “corporatocracy”, and “empire”.

Building Credibility

However, the author does not want to be viewed as an opinionated journalist who believes in conspiracy theories, but rather as a knowledgeable insider who has decided to come out and reveal his secrets. For creating this impression, Perkins does two things. The first is that he talks about many private aspects of his life including sex, personal thoughts, and uncomfortable experiences. This gives him a frank and honest charisma that is very effective in gaining the readers trust. At one point he writes that he “craved female companionship – sex; the idea of a slut was most alluring” (p. 5). The story reads, as many memoirs do, like a confession.


The second thing that Perkins does to better his ethos is to make every detailed observations filled with factual evidence and figures, making his arguments and point of view seem very solid and credible.



For now, I will believe the things he says.  

Both Sides of Everything

In a section of the opinion pages called Room for Debate, The New York Times hosted a debate between two rival linguists representing contending schools of thought: the descriptivist and the prescriptivist. The discussion was about the rules that regulate proper written English and whether they should be adapted to suit changes in the spoken tongue. Descriptivists describe language as it is used, believing that cumbersome grammatical rules that are not consistent with the regular English used by most native speakers should be eliminated. On the other side, prescriptivist linguists make emphasis on how language should be used.

I began reading the article with a prescriptivist point of view, believing that all rules make the ideas being expressed in writing clearer. Obviously, I did not advocate an unchanging language, archaic and inconsistent with the vernacular. More so, it can be said that I agreed with Bryan Garner in supporting a “nonstandard, but rule-bound, dialect.”

Robert Lane Greene made me change my mind. I understood that making the rulebook more comprehensive could be a social equalizer, by extending written expression to those who, in the words of Lane, were “just unlucky not to get a great education”.

Nevertheless, I also understand Garners’ point of view. If language rules become too elastic, language becomes a hot mess in which the effectiveness of writing is compromised. Lane suggests a worthy solution to this problem with his “meta-rule”, stating that when a rule is in conflict with the actual usage of many great writers and the majority of native speakers, the rule should be expunged in favor of the actual usage. Unless these conditions arise, Garner suggests that rules be followed.

CNG Diction/ary

Here is the link to our book. http://issuu.com/seximexi/docs/dictionary

Another Panama Tailor?

“Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars” (p.11). Confessions of An Economic Hitman is a nonfiction book written like a thriller.

John Perkins had the job of economically manipulating third world countries in favor of North American interests. Now, he has come forward to reveal a bunch of dirty secrets about multinational corporations and even about government officials.

The author gives great significance to EHMs, explicitly stating that their actions have led to terrorist attacks including 9/11. This leakage is almost to good to be true. Why is Wikileaks so famous while I had never heard of Economic hit men?

Suspicion.

Having just finished a very dubious book by Silvana Paternostro has made me a skeptic.

I have drawn up the following possibilities:

1. John Perkins is telling the absolute truth but for some reason he has not become ultra-famous (maybe powerful corporations whom he accused are behind this).

2. John Perkins is exaggerating things based on the truth, probably to sell more books.

3. John Perkins is making things up. Déjà vu: My Colombian War.

4. John Perkins is writing about an old issue. Political manipulation through financial loans sounds more reasonable whe

n todays developing were called underdeveloped countries. I shall read further into the book and make a conclusion.

Freedom

Rules that apply to written language should be limited to what is strictly necessary for mutual understanding within a given language. Every rule that does not comply with this principle should disappear. Everyone would benefit from this.

The shape and structure of the text also play an important role. In academic writing, where ideas should be expressed concisely and adornments should be used sparingly, non-fiction writers whose only purpose is to pass on a message could do so without having to concentrate in complying with all the archaic and cumbersome limitations to writing that their language inherited from its history, focusing on what is really important: ideas. This might even curb other vices that are probably begotten by conventions, such as an exaggerated use of quotations, which may challenge the author’s originality. On the other side the lack of references, which is a consequence of people’s lack of scientific honesty, will probably never go away.

In literature, however, everything changes. In poetry and abstract literature, the great masters have been ignoring rules and conventions for a long time. This practice should be promulgated and taught in schools. Let us remember that writing is only a medium and that it should have no authority over what it carries. Fiction writers, particularly the great ones such as William Shakespeare, James Joyce, and Julio Cortázar ignore conventions and adapt things to their own needs. Others recur to archaisms like what Nicholson Baker calls the “comash” (,- ), the “semi-colash” (;-) and the “colash” (:-). In general, authors want to free themselves from the restrictions imposed by the strict rules that regulate written language and the strict definitions of words. Cortázar damns this system of rules by calling them perras negras.

A system for writing that suits both needs, conventions for written language that will allow precision to academics and full expression to poets must be devised. The way in which we write today works well, but not perfectly. It is still encumbered by rules. The main purpose of written texts is to convey information. However, having to concentrate in complying rules makes this task harder. In the absence of a speaker, an author must make use of all the elements of language to define the tone and mood with which the message is delivered. It is not so much what is said, as how it is said.

You Say You Want A Revolution

In many rural places in Colombia, very poor families sometimes leave one of their children in rich households so they will be taken care of, learn a trade, and have a better future. Paternostro’s grandmother had one such girl. Her name was Imelda, the daughter of a day laborer in the family estate. Imelda had spent ten years with Paternostro in Barranquilla, after which she got into trouble and was returned to her family in the provinces. Thinking about Imelda, Paternostro remembers: “I always thought Imelda would be the perfect candidate to have joined a revolutionary movement. I would have if I were her I always said” (p.99).

So why didn’t Imelda become a guerrilla? Why don’t most
Imelda’s do?

Although not explicitly, Paternostro has often blamed the inactivity of Colombians for many of the country’s troubles. She thinks that very few average people want to change the situation we live in and simply carry on believing they are happy and turning a blind eye to problems.

I find this unconvincing.

In my opinion, the reason why Imelda did not join the FARC is that practically no ordinary people do anymore. The FARC mainly recruits fighters at rallies filled with communist propaganda and promises of a better life. Also, recruits freely join the Marxists when they have a family member already inside. Not many people actually seek the movement. It is not common for someone like Imelda to realize that she is a “have-not” and become a revolutionary fighter. Fidel Castro has criticized this about the Colombian revolution, in his opinion: there is not enough involvement of the masses.

Colombia is ultra-right, something very strange for a country in 21st century South America. Usually poor countries with high inequality rates tend to be leftist. The reason we are not so is because everyone hates the FARC, and they represent the other extreme of the political spectrum. The FARC have popularity ratings of under one percent, and it’s not too difficult to imagine why. Nearly every Colombian, rich and poor, has a story about the FARC. One hears constantly about Burned cars, kidnappings, pillage, rape, etc.

The reason why the FARC will never succeed in making a revolution in Colombia is that they got the approach all wrong, associating themselves with criminal activities they have irreversibly damaged their public image. The FARC cannot expect to terrorize the people and then earn their support. What masses are they going to rally in a country where 99% of the population disapproves of them?

Lost in Translation

Paternostro’s story is very intimate. She even titles the book My Colombian War because her memoir is mainly about how she makes amends with her past in Colombia. Her readers are center-left Americans who have no real knowledge of the country. Therefore, much of the story is a walk down memory lane.

This is Paternostro’s problem, narrating a personal story deeply ingrained in the Barranquilla coastal culture to foreign readers who have never been to the place. She tries to take the easy way out, oversimplifying and exaggerating things so readers wont get confused. Paternostro’s method does not work perfectly because the audience can’t get a taste of the real thing. One example of this is her story on the angelitos, poor children that beg for money the morning after Halloween. When the angelitos approached her house, Paternostro received them with candy. Insulted they chanted: esta casa es de espinas, donde viven la mezquinas, which Paternostro translates to “this house is made of thorns, this is the home of the stingy”. The problem with Paternostro’s translation is that she changed the register. Someone who knows Spanish and has lived in Barranquilla associates the chant with informality and playfulness, a kind of simple cleverness that poor costeños are famous for. I can easily imagine a group of little black boys with a look of indignation, animatingly chanting their verses with a heavy accent. Paternostro’s translation sounds formal and boring, it doesn’t have any allure. One really has to work the imagination to picture a group of poor, uneducated kids in any English-speaking country singing: this house is made of thorns! That phrase sounds more like it came from a Shakespeare play or something In the Bible.

A less good example can be seen in how Paternostro uses the term marimberos. She simply defines the word “as the men in the marijuana business were called” (p.111). A dictionary style definition that makes the term marimbero loose all of its connotations. Marimberos is a slang word that people use when speaking degradingly about those associated with marijuana, it is not something you would find in a formal report. By depriving the slang word of its connotations, the reader misses information. Namely, that the common term with which people referred to dealers was insulting and therefore,

that those associated with marijuana were not accepted by society.

It is undeniable that transmitting the true feeling of a country is something hard to do when addressing an unknowing audience in a foreign language. Nevertheless, because culture in Barranquilla is a key aspect in her book, Paternostro should have been especially careful.

Preaching to the Choir

Shifting Tone

As Silvana Paternostro makes progress in My Colombian War, the tone with which she narrates shifts.

In the beginning of the book, when Paternostro tells the story of how she regained interest in Colombia, the tone of her writing can be seen as reflective or contemplative, using words like “realized” and “analyze”. It is during this period, when Paternostro develops an obsession for Colombia and decides to travel back home. Once here, here tone shifts again and becomes critical, with words such as “strife”, “chaos”, and “plagued”. Some of her experiences while in Barranquilla also seem to be told with an unintended patronizing tone, especially when she is shallowly theorizing about the roots of Colombian issues.

As the story goes on, Paternostro starts recalling her experiences. While doing this, she keeps a very intimate tone, increasing the use of personal pronouns like “I”, “myself” and “mine”, as well as words like “family” and “naïve”. I believe this to be one of the reasons that this book has become so successful; Paternostro’s intimate experiences are simply very entertaining. The problem then comes when she tries to interpret these great experiences in a shallow, unknowing, prejudiced manner.

Towards the end, Paternostro’s tone becomes reflective again. However, these new reflections have a tone of wisdom in the background. Paternostro has already been there and back; she has made her peace with Colombia.

I wonder if people perceive the tone differently depending on their particular background. If people were perfect readers, we would all find the same tone since with a proper analysis of word usage one can establish the actual tone. However, we are not perfect readers, and sometimes we see only what we want to see. I suppose an American would see Paternostro’s town as objective, knowledgeable, critical and intimate while a Colombian might find it patronizing, gullible and accusatory. Reading the same book, someone from Asia… well, someone from Asia would probably not be reading Silvana Paternostro.

The Inevitability of Being Silvana Paternostro

The Inevitability of Being Silvana Paternostro

I have much criticized Silvana Paternostro. In fact, all my blogs on My Colombian War contain some form of criticism. The reason for this is that I dislike her intentions, disagree with her opinions, and mainly because I believe the book to be a useless collection of lies, glamorized exaggerations, and trivial observations turned into erroneous assumptions.

Paternostro is not the only one. Many people whom I know to ha
ve a background similar to hers act and think like she does. This gets me thinking: If I had been born a woman, spent my teenage years in elite Barranquilla, been convinced by my parents about the supposedly glorious past of my family and the importance of my last names, gone to Miami for every vacation, and then moved to New York to become a journalist… would I have written My Colombian War?

Inevitable

In other words: for the problems I have with My Colombian War, should I blame Silvana Paternostro or society in general?

The reason why Silvana Paternostro gets important assignments regarding Colombia from The New York Times is because she is perceived as an insider; a knowledgeable Colombian. In my opinion: she is not exactly Colombian and not exactly knowledgeable.

Paternostro was educated in the Parish School, were everyday she would sing the Star Spangled Banner and say the Pledge of Allegiance to the red, white, and blue. Then, in her mid-teens she was taken to a boarding school abroad. She learned to love the US and everything that had to do with America. Things changed when Silvana Paternostro studied in Michigan University. There, her naivety made her especially susceptible to whatever her professors taught. In this case, it turned out to be American liberalism. Did Paternostro have a choice in this? Not really. Her previous education had not provided enough tools for her to make her own opinions.

Finally, after being instructed in Michigan, Paternostro comes back to Colombia. In her hometown, she can now only view things with the prejudice of a misinformed left-winged foreigner. This is why she is shocked by a homeless man’s stories, in which among other things, he supposedly barricades the door from rebels by using dead children. Everyone who has lived in Colombia knows not to trust things said by the people in the street, they are not a credible source simply because they earn money by making people feel sorry for them.

Paternostro is just narrating things from an uninformed, shallow point of view. An example of this can be seen when she says that laborers in the infamous Masacre de las Bananeras “massacred by the military and dumped in the ocean” (p.91). Nobody dumped anyone in the ocean, that part was a poetical exaggeration made by Garcia Marquez when narrating the incident in his fictitious novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. Half an hour of Internet research could have shown her this.

Now comes the big question: Am I like Silvana Paternostro?

After all, I do study in an American school were Spanglish is spoken and the foreign culture is venerated. Also, I haven’t really had a first hand experience of the Colombian issues. Nobody has invaded my house with weapons, I have never seen a land mine, and I’ve never even been to most of the dangerous regions.

So am I like her?

I sure hope not.

Socio-Babble

Silvana Paternostro believes that “Colombia’s ills come from the power structures inside the homes, many of which have masters and servants living as if it were eighteenth-century feudalism” (p.72). Paternostro made this appreciation, seemingly, because she saw maids in her aunt’s house.

People are entitled to their own opinions and everyone has the right to make an hypothesis. Nonetheless, when writing non-fiction books, one would hope that authors thought carefully before formulating broad-spectrum theories.

What about countries like India, Brazil, and Paraguay were servants are more common than in Colombia. Do those countries have serious problems of organized violence?

No.

For the aforementioned commentary, did Paternostro take into consideration that most Colombian households do not have maids?

No.

Did she remember that maids are mostly seen in urban settings while the violence is mainly rural?

No.

The problem with Paternostro’s hypothesis is that it was made out of the blue, while watching television in her living room. That’s why the scientific method was established, so serious people could test their theories before putting them in books.

The way in which she sustains her thesis on Colombian “powers structures” and their effects in violence is, for Paternostro, not an exception. Throughout the book, she has been making similar hypothesis based exclusively on in-my-living-room observations. Such is the case of her ideas on education. Paternostro believes that Colombia is in a chaotic state because most people do not take an active role in governance and are uninterested about Colombian history. She makes this argument just because when arriving at a museum with her driver, “I invite José in but he declines” (p.85).

Once again, I conclude that Paternostro’s observations shouldn’t be taken seriously and that the purpose of My Colombian War is not so much to make a useful explanation of Colombia’s social issues, but to provide an entertaining story about an exotic place to foreign readers.

Lessons From the Brits

In 1999, when the FARC made a series of attacks on urban populations, Silvana Paternostro called her father to see if everything was okay. She was amazed at her father’s indifference almost as much as he was amazed at her concern. This is probably because, as every other Colombian, Mr. Paternostro was used to violence.

I remember when living in the states that one day our school was closed down because there had been a suicide in another school down the block. Everyone was alarmed, the mood was quite tense, and I think it even made the news. No terrorism, no mass shootings, only someone taking their own life.

Here in Colombia, the complete opposite happens. When something that doesn’t directly relate to us happens, we move on with our daily lives. I saw this very clearly with the recent attacks against Fernando Londoño. Leaving two dead and forty-eight wounded, the attack was by all standards a massive one. However, most things went on as usual and few think about it anymore. Paternostro might say this is a bad thing, she might argue that the reason that Colombia has not overcome its problems is that most people don’t want to face them. In fact, I believe that she titled her book My Colombian War because of this, saying: “To them Colombia might not be at war. But I am at war with Colombia. I am going back because there is a war, brutal war, a war full of horror. I am going to tell them that each and everyone knows it, allows it, and hides it. Everyone has blood on their hands. I want everyone to plead guilty.”(p.40).

In this case, I disagree with Ms. Paternostro.

Terrorism is only successful when it produces fear and chaos. If people develop a resistance to fear, terrorists loose their teeth. I agree with the British national motto: keep calm and carry on, the idea of which has been “colombianized” to the popular phrase no hay que llorar por leche derramada (there shouldn’t be any crying for spilt milk).

Doubt

In my last blog, I criticized Silvana Paternostro for making up big chunks of her story. Specifically, I called her out for saying that her mother’s family (Montblanc) owned El Carmen and were known throughout the region. Happy with my discovery, I thought it would be fitting to watch Shattered Glass: a movie made about a famous writer who is caught lying in his articles. Instead of enjoying the climax scene were the author is caught lying, I empathized with him. Seeing his guilt and exasperation, I made a vow to never make such blatant lies that could get me in big trouble. Then I remembered what I had written about Paternostro. What if she was right? What if someone related to her had actually owned El Carmen? What if she was referring to some land near, but not in, El Carmen? What if there was another place called like that?

It was time for research.

First, I found out that in the El Carmen were I am from, the one situated in the province of Bolivar, there are definitely no Montblancs. However, her father (Paternostro) did have connections with El Carmen de Bolivar. In fact, the Paternostro are well known in town for being one of the first Italian immigrants to inhabit the region. This means that if Ms. Paternostro was lying, El Carmen de Bolivar might have been a good choice because of her father’s presence in the area. However, if she was lying, why choose her mothers strange surname? To throw off people who knew Mr. Paternostro? Maybe.

Then, I looked into the specific details with which she described her origins. There was no information in any search engine regarding Gustavo Montblanc, her supposedly famous ancestor who served in the military, became a founding father, and established El Carmen. Another detail was that she mentioned the Cesar River, a long waterway that, by itself, does not come of use when pinpointing locations. Nevertheless, it is to far away to be associated with El Carmen de Bolivar.

My next clues came from this: “I heard Consuelo was killed because she couldn’t keep up with her kidnappers as she was taken into the hills - the Perija hills behind El Carmen.” (p.49) Regardless of my particular enquiry about Paternostro, this quote is interesting… because it’s wrong. Consuelo Araujo, the famous politician mentioned, was not killed in the Perija hills. She was killed in the Sierra de Santa Marta, rather close to El Carmen de Bolivar. Therefore, either Paternostro got the name wrong, or she got the hills wrong. In the first case, if she was referring to the Sierra de Santa Marta, then she must be thinking about El Carmen de Bolivar and, therefore: lying about her family. If she just got the information wrong, but her lands are near Perija, the exact location of her farms can be pinpointed by finding a midpoint between Perija and the Cesar River. Taking my huge Atlas out, I learned that there are in fact 32 places called Carmen in Colombia. This goes from cities, to ports, to Rancherias. There does seem to be one Carmen that is somewhat geographically consistent, but it does not convince me.

Finally, I did one last piece of research. Remembering the New York Times article that said almost 40 Montblancs had been kidnapped, I skimmed the lists of kidnappings posted on the internet by various impartial organizations. I did not find a single kidnapped person whose surname was Montblanc.

With this information, I drew up the following table.

Clues that indicate Paternostro is lying

• She was wrong about Consuelo Araujo, or she is referring to Sierra Nevada.
• There seems to be no Montblancs who have been kidnapped.
• It would be strange for a place to be called El Carmen with nothing afterwards. (The El before the name and a distinction afterwards are used to differentiate cities with popular names.)
• No information on Gustavo Montblanc, or any other Montblanc in the Caribbean Region.
• Book contains many other exaggerations.

Clues that indicate Paternostro is not lying

• Provides very specific information, not something a liar would want to do.
• A place exists which is roughly consistent with the descriptions given.
• Never used the full name: El Carmen de Bolivar.

I personally think Paternostro is lying. Nevertheless, for now, I will give her the benefit of the doubt.

Works Cited

     Grimes, William. "BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Back to Barranquilla, Seeking Sense of Place." The New York Times. The New York Times, 16 Nov. 2007. Web. 02 Sept. 2012. .

Pants on Fire

                                                             

Reading My Colombian War for an English unit called It’s All a Lie is simply perfect.

In her memoir, Silvana Paternosto does nothing but lie. For the most part its ok, they usually come as small lies about details that help readers get the big picture. However, I think she may have overdone it when speaking about a small town called El Carmen, a very important and lengthy part of the book.

She starts of by introducing her genealogical roots in the region. “I think about El Carmen, the place my family calls la finca, a farm that makes my mother and everyone with her surname an enemy of the people – at least the enemy of FARC… El Carmen is as large as Shelter Island, large enough for my grandfather to be called a terrateniente.” (p.31).

A cold shiver runs down my spine. El Carmen? ,“la finca”?, what on earth is this woman saying? I am from El Carmen. I know who the landowners are and, being a small town, I also know who they have been for the past decades. I feel kind of insulted that she calls my hometown her “farm”, but I kept reading, I gave her the benefit of the doubt: maybe she was just making yet another oversimplification, simply wanting to say that her family has a lot of land in El Carmen and they are therefore targeted by the FARC.

Some pages later I find this: “I was born and baptized Silvana Maria Paternostro Montblanc...I plan to drive from Barranquilla to the family farm, to finally go on the road, and if I have my full name anywhere in sight, my odds of getting there without being kidnapped or threatened are slim. My uncle had warned me about the dangers of my second last name.” (p.42).

No way.

Does she expect people to believe that Montblanc is a traditional last name from a Colombian pueblo called El Carmen? At that point, I was 99% sure that her story was garbage, but not wanting to risk falsely calling her out, I start phoning people from El Carmen. All the answers I receive sum up to this: apart from chocolates and pens, Montblanc is completely unheard of. If her last name had maybe been Frieri, a family who owned an estate in El Carmen so large that it was called Medio Mundo (Half World), then it wouldn’t be that bad of a leap to say that she owned the whole thing. Montblanc, that is quite ridiculous.

Feeling a bit like Sherlock Holmes, I Google “Montblanc, El Carmen”. I do get many hits, all of them connected to the book and none to the region. Her lies are like an iceberg. There are dozens of writers quoting her like the Bible and ranting about Montblanc and El Carmen. This is William Grimes from The New York Times*:

“The maternal surname Montblanc on her Colombian identity card immediately links her with El Carmen, a vast agricultural estate created by her grandfather in the mountains near her hometown, Barranquilla, a port on the Caribbean coast. Nearly 40 Montblancs have been abducted and held for ransom.”(Grimes, 2007)

I laugh. This is delicious. Such serious people. Such a serious magazine. So incredibly false. After this, I don’t think I will ever believe things said by the Media.

                                                                         Works Cited

* Grimes, William. "BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Back to Barranquilla, Seeking Sense of Place." The New York Times. The New York Times, 16 Nov. 2007. Web. 02 Sept. 2012. .

Lie Detector

Authors are always thinking about how their writings will be interpreted by hypothetical readers. This is why I am sure Silvana Paternostro wouldn’t have wanted me to read her book. When a reader has the same information, or the same personal experience as the author, he can read in between the lines, making inferences about the author’s true intentions and personality. This is my case in regard to My Colombian War. In other words: I can reveal the lies in her book.

I am not the intended audience for My Colombian War. Essentially, I am not the intended audience simply because I am not an American. The way in which Silvana Paternostro describes things like the taciturnity of Cachacos and the loudness of Costeños, the violent civil wars, Juan Valdez and Pablo Escobar, are similar to how Laurens van der Post describes Bushmen and their culture in A Story Like the Wind. The popular song Se va El Caiman, a jingle that I sang as a five year old at family gatherings, is translated to sound like an African tribal chant. Being able to read in between the lines, I can perfectly understand why she included that song to make a point about migration to large cities (the song is about a man who, turned into a caiman, travels to Barranquilla). I have often heard the same point made using the same example. She is from the Coast; her hereditary memory remembers when Barranquilla was Colombia’s “Golden Gate” and not just a decadent city characterized by the irresponsibility of its government.

The author and I have a lot of background in common. We were both born in Barranquilla, both descend from traditional conservative families with roots in a small town called El Carmen de Bolivar, we have experienced Colombo-American culture at school and real America by living there. Furthermore, I indirectly know her. My mother told me about her boyfriends and her grades, my father said that he has always found her personality to be obnoxious, my grandfather told me about her father. Having all this contexts and having met so many people that think and write like she does makes me feel as if the story was naked. As a reader, I am usually only exposed to what the author wants to show us.

Never had I noticed an accent in American English before spending a month amongst Britons. Previously, I could recognize and imitate most English accents except American. When trying, my default Colombian accent kicked in. Now, I don’t see American as the default English, gaining a more universal perspective of the language. I felt similarly after reading My Colombian War. Looking at the thoughts, opinions, and beliefs of a person similar to the majority of people in my immediate community, from an outside point of view and in a different language, really made me understand the mentality of one certain Colombian subgroup.

.