"The Fight" and the Arguments

This weekend I watched an old episode of The Office called "The Fight" on Netflix. It was about a fight that Michael Scott (the branch manager at Scranton, PA) has with Dwight Schrute, a salesman. This episode is absolutely hilarious because Dwight, a purple belt in Goju-Ryu karate, battles with Michael, who has absolutely no idea how to fight. Michael's pride and ego takes over him and lies about having experience and being a street fighter. Coincidentally, I found many things that are explained in Thank You For Arguing. 

During the weekend, I also read chapter 20. I really enjoyed this chapter, definitely more than 15 and 16, because I find cleverness very fascinating. Many of the techniques I knew about, others are completely new. For example I already knew about irony, metaphors, and repeated first words. The others are obviously clever, but unknown to me. 

Many of the terms that came up in chapter 20 actually appeared in this episode of The Office, however the first thing that came up was from way back from chapter three. At the very beginning, the three-core issues from chapter three (blame, values and choice) were recognizable. As Dwight comes into the office he blames: "Who moved my desk?" Then he uses demonstrative rhetoric and says, "It is not funny. This is totally unprofessional." After nobody confesses he uses deliberative argument and says, " Ok, I am going to tell Michael and this entire office will be punished." 

Later on, I found the use of verbing (turning nouns into verbs, or vice versa). Michael Scott said, "Chillax, Pam. Don't start Pam-M-S-ing" (quite funny, converts Pam – in this case the noun – into a verb). 

Then I found two examples of metallage, which is when you take a word or phrase and use it as an object within a sentence. Both of the examples are said by Michael Scott: "this is more of a ying-yang thing. Michael is all cursive and Scott all caps." And "Oh hi there, "Karate Kid" (used to refer to Dwight, and maybe it could also be a metaphor). 

Another thing that I found was the self-answering question. Dwight asks himself, "Did I wanna harm Michael? The one man I've been hired to protect? No, I did not!" 

Irony was the next thing that I recognized and was used by Jim Halpert:" Well, we're all kind of excited to see this fight. The Albany branch is working right through lunch to prevent downsizing. But Michael, he decided to extend our lunch by an hour so that we could go down to the Dojo and watch him fight Dwight. Fight! Fight! Fight!" This was very funny because he is comparing their branch to the Albany branch and the way that people at the other branch are working very hard and for extra hours in order to avoid downsizing, while at Scranton they are just fooling around with a stupid fight. Michael doesn't care about corporates's downsizing decision, and promotes all of the foolishness. 

Finally, the episode ends with a question that the interviewers ask Michael. They ask him if he would rather be feared or loved and he responds, "Would I rather be feared or loved? Easy. Both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me." This could be a chiasmus, and in a way a self-answering question. 

The Office was and still is one of my favorite shows, and I really enjoyed being able to spot all of the different things that I've learned from the book. I wonder, were the writers of the show aware of the use of rhetoric or was it pure coincidence?