Readings for Tuesday: Lakoff+3 articles
For Tuesday, you should also read the George Lakoff essay, "Moral Politics."
In addition to Lakoff, be sure to read the following articles:
- Dahlia Lithwick, "Babies and Bath Water," from The New York Times.
- Douglas J. Feith, "A Smarter Way to Use Our Troops," from the Washington Post.
- Matea Gold and Edwin Chen, "Kerry Criticizes Bush's Plan to Withdraw Troops", from the Los Angeles Times
Note: You may be required to register to view articles from the Times and other newspapers we read in class. This registration will always be free, even if it can be annoying.
For your first blog entry, you should analyze one of the three bulleted articles/editorials listed above. You may choose to analyze the article according to the model offered in Good Reasons, or you may apply some of the arguments raised by Lakoff in his essay on political discourse. If you analyze the article using Good Reasons, discuss which of the appeals the author seems to be using (he or she may be using more than one), and discuss which arguments are most and least effective and explain why. Your responses should be approximately 250-300 words.
posted by chutry @ 6:07 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Clara Olson
Tryon
English 1101 F5
24 August 2004
Blog Entry #1- Douglas J. Feith’s “A Smarter Way to Use Our Troops”
Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy, uses each of the appeals (pathos, ethos, and logos) in his essay supporting President Bush’s new plan for a change in U.S. global force position. He focuses on logos, with many reasons why the plan is beneficial to the U.S., and makes allusions to pathos. Feith’s ethos is questionable.
Because he is the undersecretary of defense for policy, Feith is likely biased in his opinions about Bush’s new plan to consolidate and withdraw troops from abroad in various places around Europe and Asia. He makes only one allusion to anything possibly negative about the plan: that “the changes will cause some dislocations,” and then immediately states that our allies, nonetheless, have “voiced support, indeed enthusiasm, for the realignment,” and thereby negates his consideration of unfavorable aspects of the plan. Ethos may be his least effective argument, where nonbiased facts are concerned.
Feith makes some references to our pathos. He sympathizes with the families of deployed soldiers abroad and notes that 60,000 to 70,000 service members will be shifted from foreign to U.S. bases. Later he gives a more specific example of the strife of soldiers who have to leave their already-deployed families to serve at a different station in another country abroad. The pathos in Feith’s argument is effective mostly for soldiers and their families.
Possibly the logos in Feith’s article is his most effective form of argument. He explains in detail why Bush’s new plan is good for our military and our world relations. Feith lists many logical reasons including that the plan will consolidate scattered facilities around the world and make it easier to deploy forces on short notice.
Dr. Tryon,
The URL for the group at the back in D4 class is http://attheback.blogspot.com
Needless to say, our blog entries will be posted there.
Thanks for the link, Walid. I'll add it to the linkroll shortly. Thanks to the people who have left their responses here in the comments. So far so good.
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