I would like to wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving. While I do not condone the treatment of Native Americans by English settlers, I still believe in the legitimacy of Thanksgiving as a time for celebration of all that is great in life, quality time with family, and of course consumption of great food. Be sure to tell your family how much you appreciate them and realize how lucky you are to have the life you do.
Do great things.
-Spencer
Subject: The subject of William F. Buckley Jr.’s “Why Don’t We Complain?” is the apathy toward situations enormous as politics and dictators and as miniscule as the temperature on a train or the lack of timely lunch try disposal services. Buckley argues that Americans would rather accept inconveniences such as sitting in miserable heat on a train, having to ask a waitress multiple times for a glass of milk, and not having your lunch tray collected while on a plane. Such an apathy is both the cause of and caused by many Americans’ apathy toward huge political and social issues, creating a vicious circle of indifference and sheer laziness.
Occasion: Buckley writes his piece as a result of constantly finding himself accepting the inconveniences of life that could be easily fixed if he were to just speak up. He notices himself sitting through an entire movie where the picture is out of focus, constantly annoyed by this but hoping someone else would complain rather than speaking up himself. Similarly, he is appalled that he would allow himself to stay silent when he had to ask a waitress for a glass of milk three times, and no longer needing it once it finally did arrive. Buckley realizes that this apathy has begun to cause indifference toward much larger problems, and writes his piece hoping people will learn to stand up for themselves.
Audience: Buckley’s audience is, in its broadest terms, the American people. Buckley pinpoints apathy as a part of American culture, not specific to any certain socioeconomic class, gender, race, or religion. Americans of all types are apathetic toward large issues such as politics and global human rights, and toward minor yet annoying inconveniences such as a hot bus, so Buckley writes to any American willing to listen about the need to complain
Purpose: Buckley’s purpose in writing his essay is very evident: to convince Americans that it is time to start complaining. Rather than sitting passively when a movie is out of focus or a bus is too hot, Americans should say something to someone with the power to change the problem, so he or she and everyone around him or her can benefit from the needed change. Buckley fears that apathy towards small inconveniences has caused and will continue to cause apathy toward larger problems, and would like to reverse the trend as soon as possible.
Speaker: The speaker of this essay is William F. Buckley Jr., a politician, talk show host, and writer. Buckley is highly connected to the issue he is speaking about, because he has found himself to be apathetic and passive in many situations where he easily could have spoken up. As a result of this discovery, he has began speaking up, or “complaining,” oftentimes to little avail. Through his personal experiences, Buckley convinces the reader that if people start to complain, the culture of apathy in America will be reversed and complaints will no longer be met with such hostility.
Tone: The tone of Buckley’s essay is extreme frustration. With the frustration, Buckley works in regret, because he has noticed that he too has been apathetic and passive, although his essay is speaking out against this. Buckley is certainly frustrated with the inconveniences that exist in everyday life, but he is even more frustrated with the lack of complaints against such inconveniences. He finds it ridiculous that people would rather wait for someone else to complain than stand up and do it on their own, and desperately wishes people would begin to speak out.
Why Football is the Most Important Thing Ever and all Other Passions are Invalid
William Golding once said that “there is nothing that requires less intelligence than a bunch of big sweaty men, running around and chasing a ball.” However, William Golding was ugly and also wrote terrible books, therefore he is wrong, and football is amazing. Also, Hitler did not play football, so anyone who does not play football is an anti-Semitic and quite possibly a Nazi. The main reason football is so great is because the people who play it are awesome. Well, you may ask, why are the people who play football so awesome? They are awesome because they play football, the greatest sport in the world. Also, if you do not admit that football is awesome I will punch you in the face. To understand how truly amazing football is, we must look to its historical roots. Football was created in the 19th Century, way after the Big Bang occurred. Thus, the occurrence of the Big Bang caused the invention of football and if you deny the importance of football, you deny the importance of the Big Bang. If you do not think football is important, think of Michael Oher. This man was homeless and did nothing with his life until he got onto the field and started devoting his life to something positive. How sad would it be if Oher just continued to live his life homeless and died alone? Do you really think Oher deserved to do nothing with his life? No, because that is incredibly sad and unfair. You cannot deny the importance of football to one’s character. Many people who are not athletic or play other sports have little respect for football because it oftentimes overshadows other sports or activities and receives a disproportionate amount of funding. What do I say to that? Well, tough luck! Those other people who are too weak and stupid to play football deserve the lack of funding, so they should not be complaining. My three best friends at Jeremy Rodney High School played soccer, football, and tennis respectively. However, the soccer player turned out to be a drug addict, the hockey player is in jail for committing child molestation, and the tennis player was abducted by aliens. Thus, all soccer players will be drug addicts, all hockey players will molest children, and all tennis players will be abducted by aliens. Take me on the other hand- I played football in high school, and I am now happily enjoying my fifth marriage and I was just elected Employee of the Month at Arby’s. Warren, my brother-in-law, also played football in high school, and he is equally successful. He just received a promotion to Ball Pit Manager at the local Chuck E. Cheese and has never committed a felony worse than murder in the third degree. The stories of Warren’s and my success proves that anyone who plays football in high school will be successful in some way. Sure, our bodies function far worse than they should given our ages, but Steven Hawking wasn’t in the best physical condition and he was certainly successful!
“Don’t Call Herman a Monster” is an opinion/editorial piece written by “Charles M. Blow” on November 4 in the New York Times. This piece argues that there is no way to know whether the allegations of sexual harassment against Republican Presidential Candidate Herman Cain are true or false, and that the allegations seem to have been helping his candidacy. To make his argument, Blow employs all three rhetorical methods: ethos, pathos, and logos. Blow makes the least use of ethos, for he does not rely on his reputation or standing in society to make his argument appear credible to the reader. However, Blow does establish that he is an Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times, who has most likely been working there for a decent amount of time. The article is accompanied by a picture of Blow, which depicts him as a classy, well-dressed man. Moreover, Blow speaks with a certain authority. He does not use quotations such as “I’m not connected enough to the issue to speak about it,” but rather he immediately gets to his argument and speaks with a tone that implies a notion of experience and reliability. However, this tone is the extent of Blow’s use of ethos.
Blow also employs pathos in his article, appealing to the identity of the reader through graphics and rhetorical questions. An image, depicting a graph of different categories of people responding that the allegations against Cain are “serious” or “not serious” is accompanied with the article. This article is very much in Cain’s favor: 55% say that the allegations against Cain are not serious, and 69% say that the allegations will not effect their decision to vote for Cain in the 2012 election. Though women tended more to vote the allegations as serious and that they were less likely to vote for Cain because of them, this is by a small margin. This graph shows readers that even those who are most likely to vote against Cain because of the allegations, women, are not swayed by the allegations and that female readers should not be either. However, this graph is biased: it only surveys Republicans and republican-leaning independents, and Cain is a highly right-leaning Republican. If people from all political backgrounds were included in the graph, it would probably have had entirely different results. Blow also manipulates Cain’s background to appeal to readers. The article frequently reminds the reader that Cain is not some wealthy, political genius but rather a man with a working-class background who feels politically competent enough to lead the country. Blow writes, “He’s anti-intellectual and anti-establishment. He’s ‘real.’ He’s a real guy with real passion who has had a real job but has no real understanding of government.” This is a major example of pathos, because the writer is trying to establish a sense of relatability to Cain. Working-class Americans who read this will think, “Cain is not some guy who’s lived a privileged life and doesn’t care about me; he has had to work for a living just like I have.” Such an ability for the reader to relate with Cain and his background will certainly sway readers away from the notion that “Cain is an idiot and probably a pervert at that,” and probably even win him some political support.
Much more than both ethos and pathos, Charles Blow utilizes logos to his full advantage when making his argument. Much of Blow’s rhetoric is based on logical analysis of Cain and the controversy surrounding him. For example, Blow states, “There’s no way for me to evaluate the veracity of the claims. The details remain murky. Anyone can accuse another of anything, innocuous actions can be perceived as predatory and there can be reasons other than guilt for settling a claim.” Blow, while not outright defending Cain, assures that it is highly possible that these claims can be made up and one cannot choose to believe them until there is stronger evidence. Additionally, Blow discusses concrete facts and political trends to explain that the allegations against Cain are more likely to help him than hurt him. He writes, “That is why, barring more accusers and more detail and more flubs, this ‘crisis’ could help, not hurt, Cain with his base. It helps him more perfectly evoke the Christlike ideal among those on the right of persecution and perseverance. Claims that portray Cain as a predator and monster will be rejected out of hand. This isn’t really about him, but the idea of him. He could be the Teflon Pawn.” Rather than making some bold claim, Blow uses simple deductive reasoning based on political trends and historical evidence to cement his argument which, in combination with the less extensive ethos and pathos he employs, becomes highly persuasive.
Making an argument is the central component of writing. While writing can be done creatively, all writing has a purpose and usually this purpose is to prove something. Argumentative writing does not necessarily have to be controversial or follow a stereotypical analytical structure to prove a point. Oftentimes even shorter or less formal compositions seek to prove something. There are three key pieces that a successful argument must contain. First of all, the argument that a piece of writing is trying to make must be clear. Sometimes, writers use techniques such as allegory or satire to purposely disguise his or her argument, but in all other cases the argument of a piece of writing must be clear. If an educated reader reads a piece and cannot determine what the argument is after reading it, the argument has clearly not succeeded in persuading the reader, because he or she cannot even determine what it is. Being clear about one’s argument does not require the writer to come out and say “my argument is,” but the writer must avoid being overly complex so the piece of writing clearly proves something. Additionally, to make a successful argument a piece of writing must contain clash. It may seem counterproductive to include clash because it purposely highlights evidence against the argument that a writer is trying to make, but if a writer discusses the evidence against his or her argument, it not only makes the argument much clearer, but also if a writer is able to effectively discredit or eliminate the relevance of evidence against his or her argument, the argument becomes incredibly successful. Finally, an effective argument must avoid bias. If a piece is written called “Why Pepsi is Better than Coke,” and the reader observes that it is written by the owner of PepsiCo, he or she will probably recognize the bias and be unable to trust the article. However, if the piece is written by a neutral party, or even if it is still written by the owner of PepsiCo but uses a more neutral title such as “Advantages of Drinking Pepsi,” and contains legitimate data and facts, it is much more trustworthy and has a better shot at succeeding.
There are various tools or devices that a writer can use to make his or her argument more compelling. Some simplistic techniques include those that make an argument clearer, such as parallel structure. For example, if a writer writing an essay about the advantages of exercising writes a sentence that states, “Exercising allows a person to stay physically fit, stay mentally sane, and stay free from diseases,” it becomes clear to the reader what the author’s three arguments in favor of exercise are and the entire essay becomes that much clearer and easy to read and understand. Additionally, the use of emotion or logic, and especially the combination of the two, immensely improves an argument. Nobody can argue with their emotions, so if someone writing an essay about the tax code asks the reader, “how would you feel if you could not afford medication for your sick mother because you had to give all your money to taxes,” the reader will certainly be effected. Obviously, there are situations where this technique is inappropriate, mainly in formal analytical writing, but if the situation allows for it, emotion is incredibly powerful. Simple logic, such as that following the “If A = B, and B=C, than A=C” format is a strong technique because it is indisputable. If the author of the same essay about the tax code proves that the current tax code taxes lower and middle class Americans a higher percentage of their income, and then proves that taxing the middle or lower class a higher percentage of their income is ineffective or unfair, he has, without even stating it, proven that the current tax code system is unfair. Finally, the employment of contrast, or discrepancy, particularly for the more confident and slightly controversial writer, can work wonders. This can occur through simple statements that are paradoxical, or a writer can devote his or her whole piece to employing contrast, through methods of sarcasm or satire. Through satire, a writer is able to take the opposite point of view from the point that he is trying to make, and use the arguments that someone holding the opposite view would, proving the fallacy in them. For example, I once read a piece called “Ten Reasons why Gay Marriage is Un-American,” and the reasons included ideas such as “Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall,” or “Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.” By pretending to make the opposite point, the author of this piece takes very common arguments against gay marriage, but quickly proves the glaring fallacy in them and proves the reader in a much more effective and entertaining way than a boring analytical essay examining the topic would. Contrast, when employed appropriately, can be highly effective. There are a plethora of other devices that a writer can use to improve his or her argument, and when these devices are appropriately worked into a piece of writing that has a clear arguments, presents clash, and avoids bias, it is highly likely that a reader will be convinced by the argument that the writer is trying to make.
spencerblair619 