Sunday, September 9, 2007
Case for Torture
The “Case for Torture” article leaves you with an interesting feeling after reading it the first time. He states his claim and spits his thoughts at you so fast, you don’t have time to think about what you might personally think. He writes smart because, he uses facts and stories, but they are all skewed toward his argument. He doesn’t use anything that could be turned around and used to counter his argument. He also uses stories and ‘what if’ scenarios that are relatable to anyone. His plane story is just as relatable for his pre 9/11 world as it is for out post 9/11 world. His sardonic views of the other side of the argument, make the people who agree with him agree with him even more. He knows his readers and he writes to them well. His arguments may seem a little extreme but they make sense. You don’t even have to agree with the points he tries to make, as long as you agree with his overall message, he has done what he set out to do. After reading the piece the first time you have to stop and think what he is trying to say, and then reread it with that thought it mind. Without that thought you cant really decide if you agree with his statements, and you can then decide if you want to agree with him or not.
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3 comments:
I don't agree with your second points that you will agree with his argument if you don't agree with the points he makes and that he makes sense. He doesn't make sense to me because he ignores the good questions of the other point of view and he doesn't use good facts. And if you don't agree with his points, how can you agree with his overall thing?
I agree with your first points though- that he writes a clever argument with all the facts skewed towards his side. And his hypothetical scenarios are relatable to basically everyone on both sides of the 9/11 divide (b4 and after). And I agree that he does know his audience really well.
I have to agree with both Liz and Jordan. I like how Jordan says that his argument is clever, since he is, he uses his audience to his advantage, seeing as how the audience won't be thinking about this article too much considering it is a magazine article and this is for a quick reaction by the reader. I think he is using the whole shock effect by using arguments that really can't be countered, so I really love how jordan makes that more apparent, I never thought about it like that until I read Jordan's Blog. I do have to disagree with Liz on her opinion about how he doesn't make any sense. It makes perfect sense to me how he uses his point of view to sway his audience and gain their opinion and make you side with him. he is not using any other points, because that won't give the same effect on the reader and he probably knows how the reader will react to his style of writing. I also think that although he is a professor of Philosophy, he does know how to read his audience.
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