Class,
Refer to the link on your syllabi for week 2 on the subject of fallacies:
§ http://www.galilean-library.org/int16.html
Do you recognize any of these devices in your reading? Blog them here.
See you soon,
Mariah
About Me
- Lightedstar
- Mariah Lichtenstern-Walebowa is an entrepreneur, media consultant and producer. She founded Lightedstar Entertainment and Mobile App Development Pro. Mariah's multimedia portfolio includes narrative film, documentaries, music videos, commercials, websites, blogs, and social networks.
9 comments:
I chose to do my blog on John Lewis, this week. He was the president of the first major industrial union, in the U.S., the United Mine Workers. Workers from different unions were being brutally attacked, and many died, Lewis stepped in to speak for them.
The National Association of Manufacturers, the United States Chamber Of Commerce, and similar groups, used personal attacks as a fallacy. They must have felt some kind of threat from unions forming as they were some kind of communist group. So they equipped themselves with wooden clubs, and lethal weapons, to try to prevent this onward march of labor.
Lewis asks of these people “Do those who hatched this foolish cry of communism in the CIO fear the increased influence of labor in our democracy? Do they fear its influence will be cast on the side of shorter hours, a better system of distributed employment, and better homes for the underprivileged?” Basically they are threatened by the fact that labor workers are going to be equal in pay, health care, and have better living standards, as though the labor workers are not worthy.
I really like his end statement “I repeat that labor seeks peace and guarantees its own loyalty, but the voice of labor, insistent upon its rights, should not be annoying to the ears of justice nor offensive to the conscience of the American people.
I was reading Oscar Ameringer’s “Intolerable Suffering Throughout the United States”. The suffering is the Great Depression during the 1930’s on how the country was suffering after the stock market crashed. People lost their money and their jobs. Life in the United Stated is in a bad condition.
Most of his speech is about the suffering is stories about others who had dealt with this problem. There were the apples in the orchard story as well as the sheep handling story. All boiling down to the point on how the production weren’t meeting its demands. It feels also that Oscar was using a form of emotional persuasion to convince his point. He also makes a statement on how a chain of effect supposedly happens when farmer cannot pay their mortgage and the mortgage company loses the recouped holdings.
The only thing I feel about this speech is that it doesn’t feel completed. It felt as if it just stated what was already happening and not thinking of anything to fix it. He tells on how bad our economy is and leaves it. I really didn’t care for this speech, it just seems ...depressing.
I decided to discuss the speech that was given by John L. Lewis, who was the president of the first major industrial union, the United Mine Workers. After tension started to build up between unions and employers, resulting in the death of ten strikers, Lewis decided to give a speech opposing corporate tycoons as he believed were to blame.
Towards the end of the speech Lewis uses the fallacy of argumentum ad consequentium, or appeal to force, where he suggests that the consequences of public opinion not demanding employers to accept fair rules, will give labor no choice but to surrender to the higher economic powers.
Samantha:
In Oscar Ameringer's speech, I noticed two fallacies. There was Argumentum ad misericordiam and affirming the consequent.
In F.D.R.'s speech I noticed a few more. Argumentum ad hominem (abusive), Argumentum ad populum, red herring, affirming the consequent, and false dilemma I thought were all present in his speech.
For Joseph Strauss' speech about the Golden Gate Bridge, I couldn't find any fallacies. Just metaphors and similes.
Mary McLeod Bethune had red herring and I think hasty generalization in her speech.
And lastly was John L. Lewis. I noticed Argumentum ad hominem, complex question, Argumentum ad populum, affirming the consequent, false dilemma, and red herring in his speech.
I choose the speech by Joseph Strauss, the engeneer of San Francisco's golden gate bridge. In this speech he uses a lot of creative descriptions and metaphors to make this bridge out to be the most momentous creation man has ever constructed. Though it is a major accomplishment in engeneering it is not quite all he makes it out to be. This is why I found the fallicy in his argument to be hasty gereralization. A good example of this is; "To that extent, and to the extent of the vast benefits it will convey to the common wealth of California, it has enriched the world...." He jumped rather quickly from the commercial upsides of a useful bridge in california to enriching the world. Though the bridge provides quicker transportation in California it doesn't help anyone in china get to work faster.
He goes on to describe how the bridge provides such things as freedom, opportunity, prosperity, hope, ideals, aspirations, and so on down to a better life. These are all hasty generalizations because these things may be evoked to some extent in some people, but not all. The speach is very stong, just blown to extreme proportions.
I chose to write on the hearing during the Great Depression. A man by the name of Oscar Ameringer stands before Congress to give his account about his testimony on what he had seen and heard during his travel threw 20 states during a 3 month period. The very first example he gives is during his visit to Washington he said, "In the state of Washington I was told that the forest fires raging in the region all summer and fall were caused by unemployed timber workers and bankrupt farmers in an endeavor to earn a few honest dollars as fire fighters." The fallacies identified is argumentation ad ignorantiam, the reason for this he states "I was told" who was his source? Was his source creditable or did he have his own interest in mind when he accused innocent men of a very serious crime of setting fires in attempt to "earn a few honest dollars". This is an example of an informal fallacy because I do not believe the man intentionally came to miss inform congress however with no proof his claim is irrelevant. He goes on to say "the last thing I saw on the night I left Seattle was a number of women searching for scraps of food in the refuse piles of the principle market of that city" He gives no proof that he knows the women were starving and digging threw trash for food, for all he knows one of the women could have lost her wedding ring while working in the bakery of the market and her fellow coworkers were helping her look for it. Oscar goes on and gives many examples of his what he had heard and seen threw this travels however we do not know who he is or why what he says is creditable, he is introduced as "one observer". I also see on a flaw in logic to believe at a time when the country is in such economic turmoil and this man is traveling around the U.S. who funded his voyage? Is he a Democrat who was sent around to find the most devastating situations to report on in order to discredit the Republican party?
EXTRA CREDIT TOP 100 SPEECHES:
Richard M. Nixon: "Checkers"
Richard Nixon delivers a speech to America on September 23,1952. The reason for his speech is to defend himself on accusations against him due to 18,000 he was given as a donation for his campaign for the vice presidency of the U.S. He opens his speech with "I come before you tonight as a candidate for the vice presidency and as man whose honesty and integrity has been questioned." He goes on to explain that that the "usual political thing to" is to either ignore or deny accusations without giving details but he shares his belief that the people of America deserve more from the men they choose to put in power and that is why he is here to set the record straight. He uses an ethos appeal threw the majority of the speech. He gives example after example of his honesty and moral values and then backs them up with proof by allowing a personal audit by the leading law firm at the time and reads the results to the American people declaring him innocent of the crime he is being accused of. He goes into great detail to explain his values and moral standing which is an appeal to ethos. he gives an example that in the years he as served as a senator he has never put his wife on the payroll like other senators do even though his wife has put in countless hours helping in office as a stenographer. This is an example of an ad hominem abusive because it is not illegal to have your wife on the payroll as long as she contributes and earns her wage so in a way it took away from the genuine feeling I was having toward him at this point in the speech. I do believe Nixon did a good job of defending himself and bringing in the law firm to do the audit was proof and another ethos appeal. Toward the end of the speech he began to call out Mr. Mitchell, the Chairman of the Democratic national Committee for saying" if a man couldn't afford to be in the u.S. Senate, he shouldn't run for Senate" this is an appeal to logic because so any of the Americans he is addressing do not have the money necessary to fund their own campaign and being wealthy does not make a person a good candidate for any office, it is irrelevant to the persons character and what they would be able to accomplish once in office. Another example of logos is when Nixon gives an example of a democrat whose ethics have been called into question and he calls this man out and basically points the finger and says now you stand up here and show the American people all of your financial records and tell me who put the money in your pocket and what favors they received for their contributions. This is an ad hominem abusive and in my opinion took a little away from Nixon's character which is what he worked so hard to build threw this speech with the ethos appeal. Nixon is a non practicing attorney and his law background serves him well in this speech, he almost treats it as if he is in the courtroom on trail defending himself with proof and building his personal ethos then pointing the finger at a man who actually should be standing in front of them.
Labor Woes –
The main Fallacy I noticed Lewis using is “Popular sentiment” coupled with “begging the question.” for example when he says “.Lewis asks of these people “Do those who hatched this foolish cry of communism in the CIO fear the increased influence of labor in our democracy? Do they fear its influence will be cast on the side of shorter hours, a better system of distributed employment, and better homes for the underprivileged, Social security for the aged, and fairer distrubution of our national income?” he says these things but then goes on talking about what the workers want for example “ certainly the workers want a voice to the determination of these social justices.” 1st he assumes that these are the exact reason for the “communist” accusations being thrown about by employers 2nd he appeals to the people by making that long laundry list of things they want to hear another assumption because these reasons may or may not be the reasons the employers are using for their resistance.
I choose to do my fallicy on Oscar Ameringer describes intolerable suffering throughout the U.S. as a result of the Great Depression.
The title in its self could be a fallicy. But I choose to do my fallicy on Post hoc,ergo propter hoc. Which means, “after this ,therefore because of this” In the speech before this one promising hope and prospering times were spread to the people of America by future president Hoover and his administration. But since the economy dropped and the stock market crash, everything went downhill. So Post hoc, ergo propter hoc comes into place because after the speech of good times coming for America was made, people started to grow so many crops. And because of this when the market crashed no one had money to buy anything. The workers were fired so there wasn’t anyone to pick the crops so they were all wasted.
Post a Comment