Classical Principles of Argumentation
In the essay “Reminders of Poverty, Soon Forgotten” the author Alexander Keyssar uses classical principles of argumentation. He uses ethos, which is the character of the speaker; he uses logos, which is an appeal based on logic or reason; and he uses pathos, which is an appeal based on emotions. His piece is over poverty and what came from Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath for the people. He also discusses what other events in history have contributed to poverty, and how nothing is being done about it by the government.
He begins in part 1 using pathos, “ There they were on our television screens, the storm’s most desperate victims- disproportionately poor and black, wading through muddy water,
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Part 8, “Disasters and crises in American history have, in fact, rarely produced any fundamental changes in economic or social policy. Natural disasters, like hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and fire, are invariably local events, leaving to much of the nation unscathed to generate any broad-gauged shift in understanding or ideology.” This appeal is being made on logic meaning there hasn’t been a change in the policies on the economic or social levels regarding natural disasters.” Part 11, “The long post-Civil War downturn of the 1870’s, for example, toppled millions of people into destitution or near-destitution; arguably the first depression of the industrial era…” The author is making this appeal to show poverty after the civil war, could have been the first depression of the industrial era. Part 24, “But there will be no national programs to aid the poor, and precious little in the way of targeted antipoverty programs in the gulf.” This appeal is to show that there is nothing that has been done to help the poor in the gulf, even after this disaster that shed light on just how bad the situation was.
In part 7 the principle ethos comes in when the author writes “As a historian- and one who has taught and written about the history of poverty in the United States- I should not have been surprised by the quick
The author starts by explaining a question that many people ask about the odd behaviors in poor people and their purchases. She helps to explain this by giving background information on her own family when she was growing up. An event she describes is when her neighbor was unable to obtain benefits to raise her granddaughter after a year, the authors mom dresses “expensively” or nicely to gain an upper hand when asking for their benefits. This is done to further her belief that people buy these things to belong and to gain more privilege. She ends her essay by stating a person cannot judge what a poor person does until they’ve been poor themselves.
In Ruby Payne's “A Framework for Understanding Poverty” she endeavors to provide educators with strategies to teach children from poor families, but Ruby Payne went wrong when she just took a mental image from a classroom and began analyzing on what she saw without enough evidence, her principal message was that poverty is not simply a monetary condition. She describes it to her audiences as a culture with particular rules, values, and knowledge transmitted from one generation to the next.
In her writing, George examines how certain organizations, such as the “Habitat for Humanity” that aim to eliminate poverty may be working against themselves by the way they choose to show the problem. The visual representation that the organization gives reflect the understanding that most Americans have when it comes to what poverty really is. Showing the typical shacks, dirt, and black and white photos will alter a person’s mindset on poverty and cause them to not be able to recognize themselves in that situation. In reality, the poverty in countries like Africa are no different than the poverty we have in America. Georges writing gives examples of how Americans within our society are not motivated to help people as compared to other countries. All the sources she uses in her analysis are representing
The importance of making a change to those living in poverty is shown through the use of
The essay begins with Henry George referring to his audience as ladies and gentlemen. He then goes on to state that poverty is a crime. A crime not committed by the poor, but rather the poor as victims of the crime. He also does not wholly blame those perpetrating the crime, he also gives a kind of notion that the victim has a hand the situation he or she finds themselves in. He says the poverty is a curse that not only the poor have but is on every level of society even the rich. He says the rich also suffer because it is like the air all the community breathes. They too must breathe it.
As a main point of her argument, she argues that poverty is generally stereotyped into the poverty that would only be seen in Africa, or another third world country. To support this, she establishes a sense of ethos for her readers by citing other individuals that have also noticed the poverty representation gap. Seeing that poverty is a complex issue to begin with, George addresses this complexity by simply suggesting that it should be represented as such in the media. Nonprofit charities may now have to reconsider their
Poverty has been a big issue over the past century or so and continues to be a problem to this day in the United States. Due to the Civil War, rural areas and industrial areas were affected by poverty. The poverty of rural sharecroppers in 1877 was different from the poverty of unemployed industrial workers in 1939. Even though both situations were dealing with a form of poverty, both were two completely different situations. There were several major events that happened that caused poverty of rural sharecroppers in 1877. Although there were various events leading up to the poverty of unemployed industrial workers in 1939, poverty in the year of 1877 was just as bad, if not worse, as in the year of 1939.
His aim was to use this method of doubting everything you know to discover what we actually do know for certain. So we can prove them.
Ethos, pathos, and logos are all devices that Barbara Ehrenreich effectively uses throughout her novel Nickel and Dimed to prove that America needs to address the commonly overlooked issue of poverty within every community. It is important that she uses all three devices because they help support her argument by increasing her credibility, connecting to the readers’ emotions, and appealing to their sense of logic. The combination of these devices puts a sense of urgency on the problem Ehrenreich is addressing and therefore creates an effective argument.
“What those unsuspecting infants could not have realized, of course, was that these were temporary conditions, a false spring to life that would be buffeted by winds of change dangerous and unpredictable, so fierce that they threatened not just America but the very future of the planet.”(p4) Brokaw’s use of imagery here helps the reader understand the drastic nature of the change that occurred in the world between the 1920s and 1940s. He is stating that the youth of our nation was living in a safe-harbor for only a short period of time, almost as if under false pretenses, and that this promising future of America veered radically off a path as they had to face the unprecedented crash of the stock market, with damage so great that over a thousand banks would close, millions of people would become unemployed and homeless, and an overwhelming sense of economic calamity would sweep the feet out from under their fragile vision of security. Brokaw described this in the chapter titled “The Time of their Lives,” as a time when “A mass of homeless and unemployed drifted across the American landscape.” (p7) This gives the reader an image of millions of people hopelessly wandering the country in search for work to survive. The
The printed work of the Dust Bowl written by Donald Worster tells of the devastating man-made events that occurred between 1929 and 1939. Worster described this time in history as the darkest moment life in the southern plains encountered in the twentieth-century (4) which was a time where drought, poverty, and famine were of concern. Worster also ties the Great Depression with the Dust Bowl and said that the same society produced them both because of the weakness of America (5). He strongly believes that the Dust Bowl was not a disaster created by nature, but a crisis created by man due to capitalism. Dust Bowl gives a powerful stance on how man ignored the limits of the land which led them into the dirty thirties; however, his beliefs cause him to disregard the disaster as the fault of nature, and specifically blamed man.
Philosophy is defined by Webster as "Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline" or "Investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods." This essay is a general look at those who pursued that intellectual means, those who investigated, even those who reasoned Reason. Because volumes could be written and this is a rather quick, unworthy paper: apologizes.
Writer, Bell Hooks, in her article “Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor” focuses on images of poverty in culture/media society has displayed of poverty through any false assumptions made by media portrayal and higher class culture. Hooks adopts a compelling tone in order to appeal any similar experiences or feelings in her audience. The author does a good job convincing her audience by including personal anecdotes and speaking about various cultural attitudes between the relationship of poverty and personal integrity. Due to the personal experiences of being poor, Hooks uses ethos to back up her evidence by using her own personal experience. She uses both logos and pathos in a smooth manner throughout her argument, using logos by providing information from other sources to be able to support her facts. Pathos are used by sharing her emotions and feelings about the current situation.
Chapter six: The author discusses the symptom of being poor, and the illness of being poor. What does the author mean? Do you agree with him? Explain. How does the poverty line right now compare to 100 years ago? Why is America like a real life version of “Revenge of the Nerds?” What’s so important about Human Capital?
The circumstance surrounding her addresses concerning poverty is where the author makes an appeal to pathos. She states,“the poor