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What is the overall argument for malcolm gladwell's article
What is the overall argument for malcolm gladwell's article
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Malcolm Gladwell’s Usage of the Straw Man Method of Persuasion in What the Dog Saw A straw man fallacy, in its most lucid form, is executed when a person not only disregards an opponent’s counterarguments, but also distorts them into exaggerated versions of themselves in the interest of making them easier to refute. In many cases, the adversary’s arguments are skewed to such a severe point that they wind up being completely different than what the adversaries were actually fighting for; however, this is all for the convenience of the proponent. An innumerable amount of politicians and authors are infamous for using this problematic method of disproving opposing arguments, even notable celebrities like George W. Bush. The straw man method of persuasion is a proficient way to make a personal stance sound factual, but it …show more content…
is precarious in the fact that it does not properly address opposing viewpoints. That being said, Malcolm Gladwell (however problematically) uses the straw man method of persuasion in What the Dog Saw to his advantage and encourages his readers to look at things from a different perspective, which was his utmost goal.
First, in Gladwell’s essay “Million-Dollar Murray”, he utilizes the straw man method with the purpose of altering our opinion on how to take care of the issues of homelessness and police brutality. He begins the essay with a piece on Murray Barr, a homeless man with an extreme drinking problem. Gladwell paints the picture of a kind, light-hearted, loving old man who just happened to be a product of circumstances being helped by some nurturing and caring police officers, even writing that, “he had a wonderful smile” and “people loved [him]” (177). Gladwell’s idealistic portrayal of the loving relationship between a police officer and a homeless man supports his view that most police officers and homeless people are not causing the problem, it is the radical extremes of the groups who do. To bolster his claim that homelessness and police brutality follow a power-law (hockey stick) curve and not the customary bell curve, Gladwell markedly exaggerates the severity of the extreme cases and cuts to erroneous conclusions/counterarguments, creating a straw man fallacy. He writes that
“the problem [of police brutality] is tougher than it seems” (Gladwell 182) because the “institutional mechanisms in place to get rid of bad apples clearly weren’t working.” (Gladwell 183). In writing this, Gladwell misconstrues his opponents’ arguments and turns them into something they aren’t; all they desire is to have those “bad apples” fired, which would not be that difficult to do and could solve the police brutality problem a lot easier than Gladwell seems to believe it could be solved. Later in the passage, Gladwell poorly responds to some counterarguments by saying that “the reason we treated the homeless as one hopeless undifferentiated group for so long is not simply that we didn’t know better. It’s that we didn’t want to know better. It was easier the old way” (196); so, now not only is he slanting his opponents’ viewpoints, but he is also beating around the bush in responding to them. These are only minor examples, but anyone closely examining the passage can easily pick out Gladwell’s inexpert way of providing and responding to counterarguments. Therefore, he was not successful in using the straw man method of persuasion.
When listening to ‘Dog’ by Bob Dorough from the album ‘Jazz Canto – Volume 1’ before listening to the track ‘Ella Guru’ from Trout Mask Replica, there are a number of comparisons to be drawn, specifically with the lyrics and vocal delivery. More than anything, it’s the fast cadence and playful style, when Dorough delivers lines such as “The dog trots freely in the street, and what he sees is reality, and the things he sees are bigger than himself, and the things he sees are his reality”, in many ways, Dorough is describing an otherwise quite complex idea with words that are as simple as they can possibly be, while at the same time it could’ve been described in less words, though had it been, a lot of the poetry of it would’ve been lost. Beefheart’s style is similar in ‘Ella Guru’ where – before the first chorus – he sings “She do what she mean
Recently police officers are questioned if they are abusing or utilizing their power the correct way. For example a police officer shot an African American whom he “believed was armed” but had no evidence of a gun. In “Partial People” by Terry Bisson the weaker people, or the partial people as Bisson calls them, are allowed to be beaten and do not have equal rights as non-partial people. In Bisson’s “By Permit Only” people who have money can buy permits to abuse other people. Bisson uses the absurdity of “Partial People” and satirical situation of “By Permit Only” to demonstrate that powerful people will always try to dominate the weaker people.
Americans have embraced debate since before we were a country. The idea that we would provide reasoned support for any position that we took is what made us different from the English king. Our love of debate came from the old country, and embedded itself in our culture as a defining value. Thus, it should not come as a surprise that the affinity for debate is still strong, and finds itself as a regular feature of the mainstream media. However, if Deborah Tannen of the New York Times is correct, our understanding of what it means to argue may be very different from what it once was; a “culture of critique” has developed within our media, and it relies on the exclusive opposition of two conflicting positions (Tannen). In her 1994 editorial, titled “The Triumph of the Yell”, Tannen claims that journalists, politicians and academics treat public discourse as an argument. Furthermore, she attempts to persuade her readers that this posturing of argument as a conflict leads to a battle, not a debate, and that we would be able to communicate the truth if this culture were not interfering. This paper will discuss the rhetorical strategies that Tannen utilizes, outline the support given in her editorial, and why her argument is less convincing than it should be.
Whilst the concept of autism and what it means to be autistic is still widely unrecognised by many, Mark Haddon’s use of conventions of prose fiction and language amplifies the distinctive qualities of the text. Haddon exemplifies key themes such as the struggle to become independent, the nature of difference and the disorder of life through the strategic placement of literary devices.
There are reasoning fallacies that attempt to persuade by replacing argument and premise with humor and ridicule (Larson, C., 2013). This is used in health care campaigns and political health care reforms (Kurtzman, D.). Cartoonist Daniel Kurtzman used this in recent cartoon depicting President Obama as a physician (Kurtzman, D.). In the cartoon, he is giving a male baby boomer patient wearing a USA cap a shot from a bottle labeled “health care reform” (Kurtzman, D.). The humorous caption reads “either it will cure you or it will kill me” (Kurtzman, D.). This cartoon statement creates a “false dilemma” (Larson, C., 2013, p. 247). Others may use non sequitur where the flow of the argument does not flow and the message is not logical (Larson, C., 2013, p. 247).
“The Coddling of the American Mind” is a persuasive article written by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt about the increased use of trigger warnings. As all persuasive writing does, the authors used logos, ethos, and, especially, pathos to convince their readers of how unnecessary and possibly harmful the use of trigger warnings can be. In “Coddling of the American Mind”, authors Lukianoff and Haidt try to sway their readers with facts and logic, or the rhetorical appeal known as logos. The most obvious use of logos is the list of Common Cognitive Distortions listed at the end of the article; this list provides helpful information for the reader, as well as makes the authors seem knowledgeable. Definitions for words such as “microaggression”
In the story, “The Dog That Bit People”, Mother always blamed others for the things that Muggs did. On page 4, paragraph 7, muggs bit Lieutenant-Governor Malloy. Mother blamed the governor by claiming that the sound of people screaming excited Muggs, and that made him bite people. Also on page 3, paragraph 6, the narrator stated “it was a foolhardy thing to do and the last time I saw my mother, about six months ago”. It can be inferred that Mother either left or that she kicked the narrator out of the house because she placed the blame on the narrator for holding Muggs in the air.
“You can either allow the obstacles in your life to be the excuse for your failure or make them the reason behind your success.” Although the quote’s author is unknown, anyone can connect to this quote in some way about how you can let obstacles stop you from doing what you want to do or you can use them as a reason for success. This holds true for Christopher, the main protagonist in the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon. Christopher is a 15-year-old in the autism spectrum, and although gifted in mathematics, he struggles with communicating and has extreme likes and dislikes. These obstacles definitely make it seem as if his goals are far from reach and as secrets come out his success seems almost unattainable, but because of these hardships he learns many lessons about human nature and himself, including that deciphering facial expressions to find the emotions connected to them and that he is capable of doing anything regardless of the obstacles thrown at him.
In this book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time, Mark Haddon writes about Christopher John Francis Boone who is an autistic child. Throughout this story Christopher attempts to solve a murder case of his neighbor’s poodle. Christopher wakes up one day at seven minutes past midnight, and he notices the next-door neighbor’s dog laying on the ground. So he decides to go over and check out what happened, soon he found a garden fork sticking out of a dog named Wellington. Since Christopher likes murder mystery novels, he decided to write his own murder mystery novel starting with finding out what happened to Wellington. Throughout his attempt in solving the mystery of the murder of Wellington, several hidden secrets erupted and were revealed to Christopher.
The author, in “Locke and Load: The Fatal Error of the ‘Stand Your Ground’ Philosophy,” argues that Florida’s Stand-Your-Ground law is very flawed. The author includes influential stories in his article that support his argument. He also manipulates the reader in order to cheat them into thinking his argument is right. Lastly, Debrander disproves the opposing argument in his article which shows the reader that the opposition is weak. Debrander’s opposition shows how an author can influence a viewer to believe their viewpoint by manipulating the information. In conclusion, Debrander uses different styles and methods of persuasion like good examples, disproving the opposing argument, and manipulated the reader in his article which makes the article very persuasive.
“It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs.Shears's house.” The way an author narrates their book is a very important factor in the reader’s understanding. The book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon is narrated in first person by a 15 year old autistic boy named Christopher Boone. Having the book narrated by an autistic boy is not a good idea because readers can understand some situations better than Christopher could, he has trouble determining how others feel and he’s always explaining things he doesn’t understand, but most readers do. Christopher is an inadequate narrator which frustrates the readers.
Gladwell discusses how by changing or fixing little issues existing in society, the authorities of New York City fixed bigger problems. First the authority realizes the problems, as Gladwell writes that “Like graffiti, fare-beating could be a signal, a small expression of disorder that invited much more serious crimes” (Gladwell 152). Gladwell presents a solution to regain insight as a community through being aware of the small issues in the community. When community became over involved with violence, they ignored the little issues such as graffiti andfare beating. Likewise, Nelson claims that when individuals pay too much attention and become too involved in violence they become unaffected by the violence. Nelson writes that “In light of the heightened state of perception conjured by Cage’s piece-its profound capacity to “return us to our sense” via an emptying out of input rather than an overload” (Nelson 306). To realize the problems in the New York Subway system, authorities needed to “empty out” their over-attentiveness towards the violence and “return” to their sense, which enables them to see the issues that are actually causing the
On 04/22/18, at approximately 1:17pm, I Deputy Warden N. Christian with Franklin County Animal Care and Control (FCACC) was dispatched to 988 N. Cassady on a dog on dog or cat attack (dog owner address). I arrived on scene at approximately 1:54pm. I met with The Columbus Division of Police (CPD) and dog owner Christine Wheeler. Ms. Wheeler stated her granddaughter and two other kids were walking her pug (black) on leash in the area 2818 E. 11th Ave, when a pit bull (brown) came charging out of that location and proceeded to attack her pug. The kids ran away from the scene without the pug. Dog owner of the pit bull ran out and took control of his dog and put him inside the house. I asked to see Ms. Wheeler pug, she complied with that
The effective use of rhetoric can spur people into action for worthy causes, bring about positive health changes, and even persuade one to finish a college education. In contrast, like most things in life, what can be used for good can also be used in a negative way to elicit emotions such as outrage, fear, and panic. This type of rhetoric often uses fallacious statements in an appeal to emotion which complicates the matter even more as the emotions are misdirected. Unfortunately, the daily newspapers are filled with numerous examples of fallacious statements. Within the past week, the following five examples appeared in the New York Times and USA Today. The examples included statements that demonstrated scapegoating, slippery slope, ad hominem, straw man, line-drawing, arguments from outrage, and arguments from envy.
Another category of dogs that help people is detection dogs. A detection dog is a canine that uses its nose to find substances. There are quite a few different types of detection dogs, but there are two that deal the most with our safety: military and arson detection dogs. Humans have had a relatively short history of using dogs in war. Dogs were first used in World War II (Weiss-Roessler 3). The United States alone used 12,000 dogs during World War II (Coren 203). From then on, dogs were not used in large quantities until 1989 in Afghanistan (Weisbord & Kachanoff 16). Military dogs have had a exceptional history. It is estimated that 10,000 lives were saved during the Vietnam War due to military dogs (Coren 209). There are a few different tasks that dogs can preform in wars. Dogs can be “scouts, sentries, trackers, and bomb detectors, and also help improve troop morale” (Weiss-Roessler). They can act as scouts by walking ahead of the troops with cameras and microphones on them so that their