Analysis Of Wendell Berry's Essay 'The Whole Horse'

Authors and speakers alike use some type of persuasion on their intended audience. They often try to make you agree with their argument before considering other factors. Persuasive writing often has a copious amount of logical fallacies, defined by the Perdue Online Writing Lab as “errors in reasoning that will undermine the logic”, despite that they tend to have success with sympathetic audiences. Wendell Berry’s essay “The Whole Horse” is an example. Berry is likely to persuade his conservationist audience because of his use of emotive language.
The emotionally charged style of “The Whole Horse” is the strong point in persuading his conservationist audience. Berry mainly appeals chiefly to pathos (emotions) rather than logos (logic) or

ethos (credibility). Berry cleverly chooses his diction to play on the emotions of his audience. He connects with them on a personal level and uses it as an asset. Throughout his essay Berry makes remarks that might sound good to a sympathetic audience, however, most distrustful audiences will see through his word play. Although his assumptions aren’t exactly reasonable, his audience still agrees with them. The sympathetic audience will push aside the abundance of logical fallacies, and focus more on their hope of saving some part of nature. They are already invested in what Berry is writing about, so likely the only way to persuade them is through emotive language. Berry uses emotive language to motivate his conservationist audience to act upon their hope. He uses this advantage to put as much emotive language in his essay knowing that that will raise the hopes of his audience and in consequence cause them to do more. He encourages readers to respond on an emotional level, rather than considering the facts.
Berry shapes his argument perfectly for his intended audience. He knows they need hope to make a bigger impact. Berry right away critiques the conservation movement to get them to act on hope claiming “nature-romanticism of the nineteenth century” has an agenda in modern conservation groups (115). By stating this, he is getting readers to focus on weak points in the movement so that he is able to give example of how to fix things. He makes the statement that the conservation effort becomes “long on sentiment and short on practicality. (115)” Berry basically calls the movement out on not doing a lot to actually help the economy. He demeans the effort that conservationist have put into helping to change the economy, which would likely make them strive to do more to be noticed. After shaming the conservation movement, he goes on to say that they’ve at least “brought under suspicion the general relativism of our age. (115)” Berry then uses the movement’s weak point to suggest what he thinks would be the best fix for the industrial economy.
Using his connection with his audience, Berry suggest agrarianism as the only “countervailing idea” that might correct industrialism (115). While the suggestion doesn’t use so much emotive language his description of agrarianism does. He begins to describe agrarianism as a “loyalty” and “passion” (115). Then he goes on to say “The agrarian mind begins with love of fields and ramifies in good farming, good cooking, good eating, and gratitude to God. (118)” Readers’ emotions are stirred at the thought of being able to conserve nature. Berry describes industrial culture in an unfavorable light by saying it is an “…accidental by-product of the ubiquitous effort to sell unnecessary products for more than they are worth. (116)” Because he describes in such a way, he inspires anger towards the industrial world. The more he goes on about industrial, the more his readers are willing to take action. Berry chooses to only write the downfalls of the industrial economy, because he knows that, that will incite a response from the conservationist in his audience. By the end, agrarianism seems like the only viable option, which is what he intended to do. He used negative emotive language to push his audience to choose agrarianism.
Berry’s evidence demonizes the industrial economy. Berry states that the World Trade Organization Agreement regulates the “industrial ambition” to destroy everything (120). He goes on to make the claim that acts not in harmony with nature are cataclysmic. Berry points out that unless working with nature and the land, the economy will eventually consume it. Berry knows how important nature is to conservationist. He recognizes that in order to convince his readers, he needs to debase the corporate world as much as possible. His continuation of big business’ desire to promote “big government” encourages readers to support his argument more. The claims he makes are targeted at topics readers connect with strongly. He aims to get an uproar, and that is exactly what his writing does.
He appeals to pathos by adding that we do not know where any of our stuff came from and so we lose the history of meals, habitats, or families. In his essay he gives the example “‘I had a good time,’ says the industrial lover, ‘but don’t ask my last name.’ Just so, the industrial eater says to the svelte industrial hog, ‘We’ll be together at breakfast. I don’t want to see you before then, and I won’t care to remember you afterwards.’ (113)” Berry makes the point that the history of certain elements is unknown because of participation in the industrial economy. His address to pathos continues as he delves into the shortage or lack of satisfaction people feel because of the industrial economy’s degrading of material objects. Emotive language such as “shoddy” or “transitory” is being used to describe objects that allegedly will not be remembered (114). He degrades the material objects to make readers think about just how low the culture is willing to go. Conservationist Also, in the example before he calls the industrial hog “svelte.” Berry makes his readers feel guilty for taking part in the industrial economy.
Berry makes the claim that even though people say his thoughts are hopeless, he still has hope that change is possible.

The claim that things are “worse off now than when I started” causes an emotional stir in readers (122). He then compares himself to conservationist saying he is “like all other conservationist” in that way. Berry uses words like “battle” to describe the conflict between conservationist and industrialism to evoke emotion (122). He further appeals to emotions saying that because they have not quit they are not hopeless. His hope is to start a “revolt of local small producers and local consumers against the global industrialism of the corporation. (122)” Berry clearly tells readers he believes that such a revolt is possible. In fact, he claims the revolt is already in progress. As the economy grows, so do the “abuses” from industrial agriculture (123). He says the revolt is happening because an “intelligent” consumer should be able to see that it is becoming harder to hide such things (123). Using diction like abuse is more than likely to cause an outcry. Automatically people associate the word abuse with a bad thing. No one correlates abuse to a good thing. Even a skeptical reader will likely feel some type emotion towards the emotive language describing the wrongdoings of the industrial economy. Berry uses words to his convenience when detailing why the revolt is

possible.
“The most tragic conflict in the history of conservation is that between the conservationist and the farmers and ranchers. (125)” Despite all the conflict between industrialism and the conservation movement, Berry says the worst is actually between people wanting to conserve nature and the land workers. What should be the most connected is what berry thinks is the worst off. He calls the conflict “unnecessary” for the fact that it can be fixed (125). Which is another lay on readers’ hope. He states that they cannot conserve everything unless they collectively join forces with land users to use what they must well. He then pushes conservationist to go help with the “nature-conserving local economies” so that one day they can ask for help in return (125).
While Berry’s essay has logical fallacies present, his appeals to pathos are great enough to convince his readers to take action. Berry relies heavily on the connection with his readers. As well, Berry tries to alter the view of a skeptical audience. Approval is more likely to come when an emotional connection is made rather than logical examination. Since the audience is invested in the topic of conservation already, using emotive language closes the gap between agreeing and not agreeing. Berry uses every opportunity he gets to stir the emotions of his readers whether positive or negative. Because of the abundance of emotive language, sympathetic readers will overlook the flaws of Wendell Berry’s essay “The Whole Horse”.