America Needs Its Nerds Summary
America Needs Its Nerds, written by Leonid Fridman, expresses the country’s need for studious people. The United States look down on kids that would rather learn than play sports. Leonid argues that this anti-intellectualism idea is not good for the greater community. Without intellectuals the U.S. will not be as great as countries that value academics. Leonid Fridman uses motifs, hyperboles, and criticizing questions to support his argument on how nerds and geeks are essential to society. Leonid Fridman starts out by using the hyperbole, ostracized, to initiate his argument. “Nerds are ostracized while athletes are idolized” (line 18). Intellectuals are not truly expelled from society, nevertheless they held to a lower standard. Meanwhile, …show more content…
“In most industrialized nations, not least of all our economic rivals in East Asia, a kid who studies hard is lauded and held up as an example to other students” (line 37-40). Every other successful country values intellectual people. Instead of being outcasted they are praised. “How can a country where typical parents are ashamed…. Of their son reading Weber…… be expected to compete in the technology race with Japan or remain a leading political and cultural force in Europe?” (line 47-52). America does not value academics like other countries, therefore their advancements would be better. There is no way to compete with countries that care about their academics. “How long can America remain a world-class power if we constantly emphasize socials skills and physical prowess over academic achievement and intellectual ability?” (line 53-56). There is bound to be the decline of power for the U.S. Fridman is asking these critical rhetorical questions to bring up the problem with outcasting nerds. They are the ones that keeps America a world power and without them our rival can over power us. This rhetorical question is forcing the reader to think about how serious the problem is and by society valuing physical fitness over academia it is keeping the country from
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