Fallacies In Speech 'Six Minutes And 20 Seconds' By Emma Gonzalez

Fallacies in Speech
Often, when a public speaker is addressing his argument, fallacies are made. No speech is immune to this literary error and even some of history’s most famous speeches contain fallacies. Speeches such as world renowned “I Have a Dream” by Martin Luther King Jr. and the recent, yet equally astonishing and impactful, “Six Minutes and 20 Seconds” speech by Emma Gonzalez are great examples of works containing the fallacy of appeal to emotion. Because of the fact that both of these speeches are regarding a controversial topic, the creation of this type of fallacy is most convenient to the speaker.
Fallacies are occasionally made unintentionally, yet they are also a clever and almost subliminal way of getting the argumenter’s

point across and achieving their goal. The appeal to emotion is exactly what its title states. By triggering the “soft spot” of the audience, the speaker may get them to budge in and agree to their statement. This is successful because as humans, people often subside out of compassion ( Bustamante 3). When making a statement about a popular opinion, or demonstrating preference to a widely shared idea is called Ad Populum fallacy. Using peer pressure in order to get the public to agree to his/ her argument is successful because instead of standing out on the contrary of everyone, most people would rather agree to what everyone else is saying. Ad Hominem is the fallacy of attacking the opponent’s character and uses it as a way to derive the credibility from the counter argument the person is presenting. Finally, the last fallacy is testimonial. A Testimonial fallacy is an opinion that lacks reliability due to the person’s lack of expertise in the field. At times, when the statement is made by an expert, if the evidence is the opposite, the person is viewed as biased and untrustworthy.
Everyone has heard of the “I Have a Dream” speech and many have tried to analyze why Martin Luther King Jr. used the words and phrases that he did. At the beginning of his speech, MLK began drawing attention to his argument by painting a picture of the horrible and injust feelings the Negros went through. He stated, “ one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free; one hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination; one hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity; one hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land” (King 1). What he intended to express was that African Americans, though gained freedom from slavery many years prior, were yet to be free due to the extensive violence towards them, discrimination, and segregation. King continued by stating that the Negro could not enjoy the sense of great prosperity in America because of their skin complexion. This is one of the sections that MLK made an appeal to emotion. The key phrases that aid the reader to figure out this fallacy are: “sadly crippled”, “chains of discrimination”, “lonely island of poverty”, and “exile in his own land”. Through out the entire speech Martin Luther King makes various fallacies, yet his appeal to emotion is by far the most used and what made his speech as impactful as it is considered.
Due to the recent gun violence incidents in schools that have been taking place, Emma Gonzalez delivered a speech called “Six Minutes and 20 Seconds” in the I March for Our Life march.

In her speech, the appeal to emotion fallacy was the main character. Because gun violence, especially regarding kids, is a sensitive topic, she made this fallacy in order to allure the audience to siding to her statement and understanding her point of view by aiming to their heart. She begins her speech by stating “17 of our friends were taken from us, 15 more were injured, and everyone, absolutely everyone in the Douglas community was forever altered.” Gonzalez talks about the sense of abnormality and sadness that will forever shadow the city and mentions that her friends were taken from her. This gives the audience the idea of unjustful death which will be what the whole speech is about. Later in her performance, she once again makes this fallacy. “Six feet into the ground, six feet deep. Six minutes and 20 seconds with an AR-15, and my friend Carmen would never complain to me about piano practice. Aaron Feis would never call Kyra "miss sunshine," Alex Schachter would never walk into school with his brother Ryan, Scott Beigel would never joke around with Cameron at camp, Helena Ramsay would never hang around after school with Max, Gina Montalto would never wave to her friend Liam at lunch, Joaquin Oliver would never play basketball with Sam or Dylan. Alaina Petty would never, Cara Loughren would never, Chris Hixon would never, Luke Hoyer would never, Martin Duque Anguiano would never, Peter Wang would never, Alyssa Alhadeff would never, Jamie Guttenberg would never, Jamie Pollack would never.” By mentioning the names of the deceased and the activities and actions each of them were characterized for, Emma Gonzalez filled people with sadness and

nostalgia.
Fallacies can be made in order to increase the chance of acceptance of a statement. Speeches such as the ones by Martin Luther King Jr. and Emma Gonzalez fall into this characterization. The appeal to emotion may be one of the most successful fallacies due to the tendency of human beings to take sides with what serves them compassion.