A Rhetorical Analysis of William Graham Sumner William Graham Sumner had a great influence on Social Darwinism in the nineteenth century. Sumner was a Sociology professor at Yale University, who adopted the idea of Social Darwinism because of his belief in the survival of the fittest. Even though he did not fully commit to Social Darwinism, he did promote the idea of the constant struggle against nature. He explains that in order for survival, one needs to struggle and compete with nature to provide our basic human needs of food and water. During the Gilded Age, businessmen and the middle class men supported the theory of Social Darwinism which was first introduced by the pioneers of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. Sumner followed the idea that the one who attains more than the other is unequal and superior to the poor. A rhetorical analysis of Sumner’s writing is essential to make a counterargument against Social Darwinism. In order to successfully persuade an audience, you first need to understand the meaning …show more content…
He wanted to persuade the government to overturn the laws regulating corporations. He wanted corporations to have the freedom to decide whether to give to the poor. Sumner suggested that in order to favor the unfittest, we have to first destroy liberty, which means the right to choose and dispose of a product. He wanted society to favor the best so society can be advanced as a whole. Sumner uses ethos effectively because of his authority and credibility. In the “challenge of facts,” Sumner states that, “The relation, therefore, between each man’s needs and each man’s energy, or “individualism,” is the first fact of human life.”(32) Sumner is blunt in his authority to tell his audience exactly the truth and what it is. As the first to teach sociology as a professor, he has this overconfidence in his ability to use his own voice and words to persuade his
Good afternoon, Professor! Sorry to trouble you with this, first. I know you must be very busy with the semester's end fast approaching, and I had rather hoped to actually meet with you in person with this thing. Regardless, before class tomorrow, I had merely wanted to apologize for my multiple submissions (to the degree of excess) with last Tuesday's Milton essay.
In matters of environmental preservation, one has two options; extol the virtues of economic expansion, or shelter the wounded environment- an angel and devil perched upon shoulders situation of sorts. In building his argument, human rights activist and 39th president of the United States of America Jimmy Carter displays a commendable zeal for his cause whilst skillfully utilizing the element of persuasion to transcend the “devil”. No one is blind to the suffering caused by environmental abuse, but Carter draws a dagger of emotion, veiled by stylistic phrasing and subtle remarks, and plunges it into the heart of his opposers with this passage, ensuring no blind eye may be turned to the fate of his country. Changing the opinion of an opposer
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, former of the America President, builds an argument in his Third Inaugural to provoke his audience of America into the Second World War. He does so with mentioning the persuasive usages of words such as maintaining the true democratic government, which elucidates to the sense of responsibility and emphasizes the emotion, and burdening the readers in order to the fulfill the American dream by mentioning the origin; Roosevelt illustrates his claim clearly with the facts and symbols of America which strengthen his argument. To start with, Franklin Delano Roosevelt eagerly proclaims his statement to his audience by usage of provoking language, mentioning “Without the body and the mind, as all men know, the Nation could not live” in order to deliver strong sense of duty to
Kyle Lascano Sociology Chapter 1 Journal In the early 1800’s, two men planted the seeds that would later burgeon in to a heavily debated study about a perfect society. Herbert Spencer coined the idea of Social Darwinism. In a society as such, the theory of evolution plays a big role. Survival of the fittest is the main idea here.
Theodore Roosevelt, in his compassionate letter to his son “The Proper Place for Sports” (1903), implies that football or sports in general shouldn’t take priority over more urgent responsibilities. Roosevelt supports his opinion by incorporating insightful historical events, acknowledging the potentially reasonable opposing view, and implementing compelling anaphora. His purpose is prevent his son, Ted, from completely being engulfed by his demanding dream of joining his school football team in order to convince him to focus on other vital duties, such as schoolwork. Roosevelt adopts a sympathetic tone (“I am proud of your pluck, and I greatly admire football… But the very things that make it a good game make it a rough game”) aimed to his
Theodore Roosevelt uses logos throughout his speech. He uses it to show that he knows what he is doing and using his intelligence to convey that he is the right person to lead the United States. When he says, “Upon the success of our experiment much depends, not only as regards our own welfare, but as regards the welfare of mankind,” it makes us think and feel that he knows what he is talking about, reassuring why he will be a good president. His logos is also shown when he talks about the Republic of the days with Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Bringing this into the speech shows that he knows his history on the US and knows that they did great things for the country, showing that he will also do great things.
Social Darwinism was a sociological hypothesis well known in late nineteenth-century Europe and the Assembled States. It combined Charles Darwin's hypothesis of common determination and Herbert Spencer's sociological speculations to legitimize government, prejudice, and free enterprise (i.e. preservationist) social and monetary strategies. Social Darwinists contended that people and gatherings, much the same as plants and creatures, rivaled each other for achievement in life. They utilized this declaration to legitimize existing conditions by guaranteeing that the people or gatherings of people at the highest point of social, monetary, or political pecking orders had a place there, as they had contended with others and had demonstrated themselves
“Words can inspire, and words can destroy. Choose yours well.” - Robin Sharma. In 1787, a convention was held to determine the efficiency of a debatable Constitution discussed by the delegates. Benjamin Franklin, having represented Pennsylvania, then presented a speech regarding his position on the topic, declaring his agreement to it in spite of his uncertainty on whether or not it will result in negative consequences in the future.
When arguing for racial equality, James Farmer Jr. quotes St.Augustine, “An unjust law is no law at all.” He claims that just laws are meant to protect all citizens; whereas, unjust laws that discriminate Negroes are not laws to be followed, thus raising awareness of racial discrimination by using emotional and logical appeals. In The Great Debaters, Henry Lowe appeals to the audience’s emotions during a debate about Negro integration into state universities. To challenge his opponent’s claim that the South isn 't ready to integrate Negroes into universities, he affirms that if change wasn’t forcefully brought upon the South, Negroes would “still be in chains,” which is an allusion to slavery. With this point, he is able to raise awareness of
William Lloyd Garrison was a white abolitionist in colonial America, and whose most well known exploit was running the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator. He was also one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Though Garrison’s abolitionist efforts were certainly admirable and impactful, much of the logic and rationale that he used when appealing to the white public for emancipation used the same racist beliefs about enslaved black people that led to their enslavement in the first place. Because of his arguments’ foundation in the basic racist belief in black inferiority, Garrison’s appeals for emancipation and his methods for inspiring the white public to abolitionism were unattractive to black abolitionists, and as a consequence,
Building a new country takes bravery and courage. In this time period (when the U.S. was very trying to stand on its own) many famous political figures helped organize and support our country. One man was John Quincy Adams and he was going to be the president. He did not always possess the strength needed to keep our country going, but some great advice from his mom, Abigail Adams, helped. Adams used many rhetorical devices in her letter to her son to explain how trials and struggles can mold a man into a hero.
On December 8th, 1941 Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered a speech to the House of Representatives, Members of the Senate, the House Speaker, to the Vice President, and to the American people. Franklin spoke of the incident of the attack on Pearl Harbor the day after it occurred. Mr. Roosevelt was stern and concise. He spoke on the occasion of tragedy to inform the House and the American people what the Japanese have done.
Can money bring you happiness: many Americans believe that having lots of money can bring happiness? However one writer, Gregg Easterbrook, in his article, “The Real Truth about Money,” promotes that having a lot of money in your pocket doesn’t bring happiness in this world. He writes this article to persuade his audience that money doesn’t bring happiness. Easterbrook begins building his credibility with personal facts and reputable sources, citing convincing facts and statistics, and successfully employing Logical appeals; however, toward the end of the article, he attempts to appeal to readers’ emotions weaken his credibility and ultimately, his argument. In his article, Easterbrook starts his article by showing people how life has changed since the World War II and the Depression eras of life, and then he outlines that people that people spend lots of their time trying to keep up with the norms of life and draws the comparison that people who have higher income have depression or unhappy with themselves.
Although there a few modern examples of people with a ‘rags to riches’ story, namely Oprah Winfrey and Steve Jobs, the masses of people born into lower income households don’t commonly rise to the middle class. A recent study by Pew Charitable Trust signifies how important family wealth is, as the “median family wealth of those who made it to middle class was $94,586, while the median wealth of those stuck at the bottom was just $8,892” (Hargreaves 1). The higher a family’s financial capital is, the easier it is to invest in opportunities such as education, which increases income. Winston in 1984 observes how the proles are intelligent in their daily tasks, stating how "even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory” (Orwell 72).
Dr. D. Collin Wells was a professor at Dartmouth college, a private Ivy League Research University in New Hampshire, United States. Most of his papers are situated around sociological and anthropological contexts of which he also relates to the physiological and evolution of mankind and its civilizations and institutions. His paper, Social Darwinism, is shown in the American Journal of Sociology which contained an assortment of journals from various authors regarding analysis and research from all areas of the social sciences. Many of his ideas in his essay prove to be quite astounding in the sense that they tend compliment the writings of Alfred Russell Wallace and Charles Darwin, himself. In addition to that, some of the concepts discussed