Commentary on Gabe's Critique

On the subject of voice and general entertainment, this essay was fascinating. You provide a large amount of external information that very effectively strengthens most of your arguments. You stay on topic every time and I have to point out the fact that each part of Sullivan's article that you attack is perfectly and directly assessed with legitimate evidence.

My only suggestion for this paper is that on some points your evaluations of Sullivan's rhetoric (in my opinion) seem to become "claim-y" themselves. At certain points you break down Sullivan's claims with opposing claims that I feel you can supply better evidence for. Not to say I disagree with your evidence or even that your backing isn't believable, but I feel that your evidence is second-hand knowledge that expects me to believe what you're saying in order to agree or be persuaded. I have to reiterate that it isn't that what you're saying seems false or exaggerated, like when you say, "Children are getting incarcerated in private prisons for spitting out gum...Sullivan has no idea of the prejudice..."I whole-heartedly agree with this, however, I'm not sure many readers would be inclined to do the same. Technically, you're claim here might be just as unprotected as Sullivan's. I do want to point out that you don't do this a lot. Most of your claims are backed with solid evidence. Bringing up the constitution is extremely helpful in persuading the audience.

Your strongest paragraph out of the whole essay has to be when you speak of Sullivan's account of the "two-tiered system."Your language is very clear and your arguments directly break down the subjects you're critiquing.

I really enjoyed reading this mainly because of the strength of your arguments. Only a few moments did I feel like your claims were a bit unstable, but for the most part this essay is very well organized and flawlessly scripted. Nice job. Definitely an A paper.

Rhetorical Critique

Chris Gomez

Professor Brown

English 1B

24 March 2013

A Strong Table with Weak Legs

American activist and literary icon Susan Sontag had a lot to say after our nation was attacked on September 11^th 2001. Facing one of the biggest emergencies in America’s history, the general public was in a vulnerable state that had a huge effect on the way they absorbed consolation from the government in tandem with the way the media shed light on what many others said about the attack. Sontag’s article “9/11” provides her account and criticisms of the way the nation and government dealt with the aftermath. The negative responses to Sontag’s claims shift the focus the article itself, mainly its rhetorical strategy. We can analyze the article’s rhetorical technique by separating her appeals to ethos, pathos and logos. By focusing on evaluating her usage of these rhetorical devices, we can see that Sontag’s overall argument not only fails to propagate her claim but also fails to essentially appeal to her concurrent audience.

Sontag’s argument construct presents some issues within the ethos technique. At first glance, it appears that Sontag attempts to create the connection between herself and the audience. Her description of the 9/11 attack as a “monstrous dose of reality” is appropriate in terms of how the rest of the nation might be viewing the attack. Many readers would agree with her by the way she introduces her claim. Later in the article, Sontag begins another paragraph by saying phrases like “America is not afraid” and “our spirit is unbroken.” With respect to the timing, or kairos, of this article’s publishing, these types of expressions suggest that Sontag is starting most of her topics off by building a bridge between her argument and the audience. On the other hand, when progressing through the text, we see that her proposals are quite lacking in other areas of ethos strategies. Once again, taking into account the timing of the article in response to the actual event being described, it can be assumed, as stated by Sontag herself, that the nation is in a state of grief. For her to go on to try and persuade a mourning audience not to be “stupid together” and that they are being “infantilized” by our leaders can be best described as a futile endeavor to prove her point. Sontag’s motion here detracts her credibility. Furthermore, the text fails to establish an element of fairness to alternative views. She explains how we we’re comforted by a “robotic president” without acknowledging the inevitable scrutiny that those in favor of our nation’s president at the time will respond with. This comment most likely destroys whatever bridge was established with the audience. Sontag effectively sets up her proposal for failure by squashing her appeal to ethos. 

In analyzing Sontag’s text in terms of her appeal to logos, we can see that her argument poses some concerns here as well. The amount of backing evidence for her rather bold claims is what is in question. When speaking of issues regarding the competency of public figures, such as our president, one must anticipate the potential arguments against the claims being made and make the appropriate adjustments. It just so happens that Sontag makes an indirect attack toward President Bush, characterizing him as “robotic” in standing behind a nation with ”ineptitude of American intelligence.” There is an implied assumption in this text that the audience is behind her with this opinion. Not only does the argument make a claim that is assumed to be true, she fails to provide evidence other than the evidence that the nation is being shielding from the truth, which is also an assumed claim. The main issue here with Sontag’s appeal to logos is that much her claims are justified, however, their justifications are merely claims that have to be assumed as true in order to back the original claim. Sontag attacks public leaders by saying they are deceiving us and backs that up by explaining how they aren’t allowing us to bear the “burden of reality.” Because there isn’t a justification for the claim that we aren’t bearing the burden, the audience must assume that we aren’t in order to accept that we are being deceived. There isn’t foundational evidence that establishes a common ground of agreement other than Sontag’s acknowledgement that the attack was “monstrous” one, which only goes so far. Although the text does justify itself, the claims are merely unspoken assumptions that ultimately fail to provide evidence for the claims stated.

Sontag’s argument largely relies on the appeal to pathos, due to her overtones of frustration and anger; however, there is a discrepancy between the effectiveness of her pathos and the effectiveness of her overall argument. After the 9/11 attack, the nation was in a state of dramatic emotional distress. We can assume that a majority of public commentaries in response to the attack appealed largely to pathos because of this. Emotion plays an important role in dictating how experiences are perceived. In fact, pathos was probably the best way to appeal to the public around the time the article took place, specifically because of the fact the country was mourning. Sontag’s diction is emotionally heavy throughout so we can assume she was aware of this. Describing the attack as a “slaughter” and touching on America being “strong” and “unbroken” establishes a profound and nationalistic tone to the article. Although the actual substance may contradict ideas of American nationalism, the tone stands upon an element of pride and dignity. Arguments appealing to pathos may tend to stray from logical understanding, where in this case, Sontag’s article would be a bit more effective. Her use of this rhetorical strategy isn’t perfect, but it isn’t substandard. So, in order to understand why the article still lacks in appealing to the audience in this way, we have to understand that at this point, the only people to side with Sontag in this argument are those who already agree with her. Her ideas most likely parallel with those shared by others who have a problem with the way the nation deals with major incidents like 9/11. Had Sontag wanted to appeal emotionally to her audience in this situation, her arguments would need to simply reflect those that she directly opposes. In the end, the article relies heavily on the appeal to pathos, but because it is somewhat contradictory to the collective emotion of the nation, it is deemed unsuccessful.

The most important aspect of Sontag’s rhetoric that must be understood is how her appeal to ethos and logos affects her appeal to pathos. Had Sontag refrained from indirectly insulting the public’s intelligence, the audience might have had less of a hard time buying into her arguments. To take that even further, she practically begins the article by insulting the public, making her argument that much more incredible. Sontag’s claim against the president also digs the hole deeper. Timing is a factor as well. You can’t choose a worse time then when someone is depressed to tell them that they’re stupid. This only succeeds in pushing that person farther away and lessens the chance of persuading them to believe anything you say; once again, emotion dictates how we interpret our experiences. Sontag’s appeal to kairos negatively affects the success of her article. On the other hand, she does utilize analogies to back her claims. Her references to how we react to the Soviet Party paired with how she touches on how a “few shreds of historical awareness” would help to see things how she sees them actually help her argument by making her appear knowledgeable and serving as an example to back her claims. The only problem is that these mean nothing once her appeal to ethos and logos have already failed.

“9/11” is, without a doubt, an article that evokes much controversy regardless of when it’s read and what context it’s read in.  Susan Sontag feels strongly about the way the nation responded to the terrorist attack. Her article does a good job of reflecting her opinion not only of the subsequent incidents of the attack but perhaps her opinion of the nation’s government overall. Unfortunately, Sontag’s argumentative techniques in this article don’t come across to her audience that smoothly. Sontag doesn’t establish her credibility very well as we see how she doesn’t do much to appeal to her audience. Other than the fact that we can all agree the attack was a terrible thing, her voice stands alone; at least in the context of her rhetoric. The article also lacks solid evidence for her claims. Her claims remain claims and never really evolve into credible points of view. And because of this, her pathos is predisposed to failure. With all the rhetorical devices rendered inadequate, including the appeal to kairos, Sontag’s argument proves to be ultimately unsuccessful.

Reflection

My rough draft was a bit unclear as to what my argument entailed. Readers wouldn't find out what exactly I was arguing until about halfway. Also, my choice of words did affect the comprehensibility of a lot of the points i was making.

In my final draft, I designed a matrix template that helped me to better organize my topics in a way that related to my thesis overall without straying from the point. By following my outline I was able to focus on each topic with clarity without any worry of straying from my argument.

The main difference wasn't really the thesis or anything major. I just needed to reorganize my ideas into a way that created a narrative for my argument. I also took into account with more focus on eliminating as much as possible any refuting counter arguments. I also built my own counter argument a bit stronger so that my refutation had a better effect on fortifying my thesis.

Overall I feel my final draft is a much better and clearer representation of what I was trying to argue.

Response to Sontag #2

1. How can we clearly evaluate Sontag's view on media censorship?

2. How does this article reiterate her views on American public awareness of politics?

3. In this article Sontag packages knowledge in a way that allows us to focus on a certain aspect of American culture. How could this argument be refuted?


Response to Question 2:

Sontag returns (not sure if this article came before or after the last one we read) to bring Americans into the light of awareness. We can still see that she sees something wrong with the way we handle major situations like politics and war. Part of her argument is that she feels we don't know how to mourn situations that involve public distress. I'm inclined to agree, based on her last article. This perspective, in my opinion, is so thought-provoking.

When you really think about it, Sontag isn't really providing us with any new information. Her article isn't "news," at least in the terminological way. What she does is a simple "re-packaging" of facts and information from which she highlights certain details that correlate with each other in order to parallel an idea or pattern that these details evoke, which subsequently reflect and reveal her attitude. What I find especially interesting in this article, is how it complements the other that we read for class. Her previous argument was that the nation keeps certain pieces of information from the public with the alleged agenda of nationally "mourning" the terrorist attack of 9/11. This article, however, shows how the nation becomes selective  in what it chooses to disclose to the public. Kinda makes you think that news isn't really  news  anymore. News isn't simply the disclosure of events that occur worldwide anymore (assuming that it was before). The news now seems to propagate through a sort of filter by which a desired goal is formulated to elicit a particular response or feeling once it's viewed. I can't help but analogize this concept with foundational conventions.

To be more specific, when we choose to tell stories, anecdotes, or a series of events and incidents to friends, family, etc., the train of thought mandatorily passes through our brains' filter from which we can decide what exactly we want to say about what we're saying. Without going to deep into thought, we take into account certain factors: how will this story affect my friend/teacher/other? Does it make me look bad? Does it make someone else look bad? Will it make them think differently of me? Will I look smarter after? Whether we agree or not, these factors help to determine which pieces and details of our stories are revealed and which are concealed. Sound familiar? Sontag seems to think this is what the news does, in relation to war photography.

So on a larger scale, is this how everything is heard and learned? Is all information just the longest game of telephone ever recorded? What of what we know is 100% accurate when we learn it from a secondary source? This makes me wonder just what from our reality is what really happens. Or is reality just that precisely? I've heard many times before (work, court, law) that perception is reality. So unless we see everything for ourselves, will there always be a principle of doubt?

My opinion is yes. I think we show and tell what we want in order to attempt to control, modify, and adjust our surroundings. On a side note, I think Sontag makes a good point in using the idea of photographs to push her idea that we really don't know how to mourn on a collective level. When was the last time this country really formally mourned for a loss in a collaborative manner? I can think of the last most serious one and it wasn't 9/11. I wasn't alive at the time, but when John Lennon was murdered, the nation joined and wept. The streets of New York were completely saturated with a collective emotion of mourning. This, at least to me, seems like a conventional way of mourning when a nation is faced with tragedy. A worldwide funeral, if you will.

Altogether, I side with Sontag a lot. I'm a psych major and I look at and reflect on a lot of experiences through the lens of that discipline. I think Sontag does too... She has some good ideas.

Response To Sullivan Article

1. Which of Sullivan's arguments best supports his opinion of our country's assessment of hate crimes?

2. What audience would most likely support Sullivan's claims?

3. Analyze the foundational argument against hate crimes that Sullivan presents.


Response to Question 3:

I think Sullivan has attained a higher mode of thinking. In my opinion, putting the blame, or cause rather, on the basic nature of human beings from an anthropological/psychological viewpoint can be applied to virtually any case.

A great example is his observation that the mere acknowledgement of hate in existence solely provides opportunity for more hate to occur. In my research paper for last year, one of my arguments was that children, during their years of gender discovery, express tendencies of gender flexibility in order to develop the boundaries and constructs of their own genders. Making the concept known will never contribute to its eradication (of the concept of course). That goes for everything. Also with gender, the more that people try to resist gender constructs, like a women applying for job that was intended to capitalize on maybe more masculine aspects of labor, the more evident and blatant the gender division becomes.

Sullivan sees that deeming hate crimes an issue to go to war with will just remind everyone that hate is around. Don't we want to forget that it's around. Which bring me to my next point. Sullivan finds the problem of hate is rooted in the societal constructs that determine our upbringing. It's a psychological issue that needs a psychological solution. He basically realizes that hate is an inherent component of human existence within a society. The point is not to get rid of it, but to get rid of our acknowledgement of it. I mean look how we, as citizens (not politicians), treat the homeless. What is the most common initial reaction to an encounter with a homeless person. Usually short and dismissive, or maybe even no acknowledgement of them at all. If that's how we deal with coexisting with humans with a societal stigma, such as homelessness, why couldn't we treat another in the same way? We, as financially stable components of the population, hardly think of homeless people throughout our day, and we tend to ignore them when confronted. Haven't we essentially eradicated them from existence? I'm trying to say that we don't care about them, i'm simply arguing that our general reaction to homelessness could be analogized with how we can treat hate. We have accepted many things about humans that we can't control. Anger, perversion, religion, ignorance. We don't wage war against these traits and strive to eliminate them from humanity. Can't hate fall under that category?

The way Sullivan breaks down our arbiters' account of hate in reference to the society as a whole shows that it can. Hate is merely a byproduct ( or whatever you want to call it) of living with other humans in relatively close proximity ( by relative i mean "same planet"). The only way we get rid of it is to accept it. I agree with Sullivan in this case.

Response to Sontag Article

Question 1: Do Sontag's perspective on 9/11 stand out among the many opinions and perspectives directed at the US government's reaction to the incident?

Question 2: When Sontag is recounting the details of her physical return to the site of the attack is she refuting her argument?

Question: Sontag mentions the notion that the US government's agenda is one of "psychotherapy." Were this to be accurate, is the government justified in acting this way?

Response to question 3:

This part of the article was extremely interesting to me. The idea that the US government 's agenda in responding to the public reaction was one of psychotherapy is essentially her thesis. She feels that the way our country is assessing this situation in the eye of the public is meant to therapeutically calm the nation. This seems to be one of those arguments that isn't realized at first but then afterward realized as abhorrently accurate. Is this usually how our nation responds to tragedy? Is it the government's goal to make us feel better? Should they be making us feel better about things that happen?

My stance on the issue is that, to some degree, the government should be indirectly providing consolation for disasters like 9/11. However, and in lining up with Sontag's argument, this consolation shouldn't be a vague dismissal like "our nation is strong." This makes me feel as though the nation is telling me "don't worry about it, we'll take care of it." For the most part, this might make us feel comfortable. We trust our nation's power. We trust our defense. If they tell me everything's going to be ok, I have an obligatory inclination to believe them. Not to mention, the nation is in a vulnerable state of mourning. In this state of mind, that may be precisely what the people want to hear from our government. "Give us some time to grieve over the catastrophe while you take care of the problem."Sontag is one of the few who was not initially and emotionally afflicted the way the rest of the people were by the incident. This predisposed advantage gave her the opportunity to rationally react to the public figures' comments on the attack, therefore, allowing her to see this as "manipulative" and "deceptive." The question this raises is: had she been in New York at the time of the attack, would she have felt this way?

Sontag says so herself. When she returned to the site of the attack her "initial focus on the rhetoric surrounding the event" were seen by her as less "relevant." I feel there is a possibility that, had she been in New York on 9/11, she would have been receptive to the way the government assessed the situation. Not being in New York at the time gave her the advantage. That still leaves the important question though. Is the government justified in doing it that way?

I don't think so. I mean yes, it's hard to go up to someone who just received personally dreadful news regarding losses and say things that pertain to anything other than consolation. A grieving person is dramatically less receptive to anything else but consolation. But what do police detectives say to parents who report missing children or to parents who's kids have been murdered by an unknown suspect? They tell them "We are going to do everything we can to find the person who did this," not "we're strong. It'll be ok." So, aligning with Sontag's argument, the nation, indeed, should be regarding incidents with the foundational truth behind these terrorist attacks. They want to attack our system, not just retaliate against our invasive technique with foreign policy. Our style of life and liberty is offensive and infringing on the middle east. Therefore, our way of life is under attack. Shouldn't we be made more aware of this as an unfortunate truth? And, subsequently, shouldn't we be told how we will combat this abhorrence? 

To conclude, I don't think the government was wrong in being "therapeutic" in response to 9/11. According to the article, even Sontag found it hard to think of her initial reaction as important among the devastation of the "foul-smelling graveyard." The issue is how the government disclosed why they feel it happened (as far they want us know). We should be informed of the actual weight of this issue as a threat to our "modernity" and "capitalism." I'm glad Sontag wasn't in New York at the time. It was the only that way that she was able to reveal a less biased perspective on a matter that calls for inevitable reconsideration.