Rhetorical Analysis Of Why We Don T Complain

William Buckley expresses throughout his writing that Americans are way too passive. In “Why we don’t complain” he makes the conclusion that Americans do not speak up for what they want or believe in. Americans do not like intruding on other people and Buckley has three anecdotes that make his argument convincingly true.
Buckley claims that Americans would rather be uncomfortable than speak up and fix the issue. He describes a scenario where he is at the movies and noticed the screening was off, but never once let a worker know in order to fix it. Buckley stated “we are all increasingly anxious in America to unobtrusive” (Buckley 139). His argument could still be relatively related to today’s time in society when people typically speak up when infuriated or in extreme situations.
In the second anecdote Buckley made a stipulation that Americans only speak up when the situation gets out of hand, never for the little things, because then that would be an inconvenience. Buckley describes a time when he was in a ski shop and needed his ski to be tighten and there were two

workers and only was actually tending to customers. Consequently, this consumed most of Buckley’s time and became very impatient and that was a time where he only spoke up and demanded ‘If you are not too busy, would you mind handing me a screwdriver’ (Buckley 141). Buckley believes that Americans should not be reluctant if we are not satisfied with something to communicate the feelings that are kept inside and instead project them.
The third anecdote that Buckley introduces is for Americans to realize that this will not change in future if it does not change now, in fact it may be worse in the long run.

In this third scenario he asks the flight attendant to please take his plate away while she was walking towards the back, and instead the flight attendant excused herself to the back without the tray. Although instead of explaining it to her that it would in fact save her time by picking up the tray, he remained silent. He presumes on to state “I think the observable reluctance of the majority of Americans to assert themselves in minor matters is related to our increased sense of helplessness in age of technology and centralized by political and economic power” (Buckley 142). Explaining that Americans do not speak up because we have become helpless in a sense of fixing our own problems we assume that someone else can fix

it.
Buckley’s ideas are convincingly true in a sense that Americans tend to let someone else take action and fix the issue on hand. Americans should not be so dependent and helpless, but rather speak their minds and conclude what they feel. Buckley’s three anecdotes are convincing of the matter that Americans are passive.