Rhetorical Analysis: The Coddling Of The American Mind

Why We Fight, a 2005 documentary that was directed by Eugene Jarecki synthesizes multiple sources and uses various rhetorical techniques to raise questions about America’s motivations for combat historically and in the present day. In George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant, a british police officer experiences effects of Imperialism even as the oppressor in Burma during the time of British Imperialism. Although these two different work involves different situation, there is still an idea of imperialism that is running through. United States is acting as an imperialist country, trying to spread its policy throughout the world while Burma was going through British Imperialism. In the documentary, Why We Fight, Jarecki argues that the reason we

In Greg Lukianoff and Jonathon Haidt’s “The Coddling of the American Mind” issued in 2015 in The Atlantic, they claim that the new wave of “vindictive protectiveness” is infantilizing college students, as certain words, subjects, and ideas are being deemed as offensive. Lukianoff and Haidt assert that if universities continually shield students from these distressing topics, students will leave universities “thin-skinned” thinking pathologically and unprepared for the workforce.

Ethos appeals to ethics, and it’s a way of convincing someone about the credibility of the persuader. Whatever you read, whether it’s a news article, commercial, or a post on Instagram, you are evaluating the message for a sense of the character and the credibility of the sender. Our culture teaches us to be doubtful of these messages. Because of this, people strive to influence our opinions by building up their credibility.

According to How Writing Works the definition of the term “ethos” is, “the credibility of the writer.” Ethos can work in two ways, you can possess it, or you can earn it. Nansook Park earned her PhD in psychology and is a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, so her work it’s a given that she has experience in the field. From reading the whole excerpt it seems as though the target audience is the everyday American citizen. Park’s tone is more relaxed and sympathetic, which makes her and her arguments more relatable.

Douglas McGray discusses different ways that being more cultivated could benefit the United States in his article, “Lost in America” in an attempt to convince education officials to incorporate more foreign language and history classes into their curriculums. In the article he explains the different way the United States has neglected foreign language, and how they can benefit from investing money and time into foreign language. Several examples are presented showing the actual importance of language diminishing in the United States education system. McGray wants the education officials to realize that foreign language should be valued more if the U.S. wants to have better access to overseas opportunities. In the article “Lost in America” by Douglas McGray the effective use of satire, irony,

Ethos is known as credibility or ethical appeal. Ethos refers to the speakers’ character, as it would appeal to the audience. We tend to believe a person who we see as a credible

Buddhists and Stoics from the past always believed in reducing attachments, thinking more clearly, and finding release from emotional torments (Lukianoff and Haidt 6). Today, many college students believe in the opposite. In the article, “The Coddling of the American Mind,” Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt discuss the new surge of microaggressions, trigger warnings, and policy changes being made on college campuses throughout the United States. College students who are attempting to block themselves from all offensive matters and are having people punished for microaggressions are, in my opinion, ridiculous. I believe the use of cognitive behavioral therapy is the best way to handle triggers and offenses, and college students need to stop

Trigger words are common-throughout anyone’s daily life. Imagine this, an elderly women loses her husband of fifty years. The man kept a four leaf clover in his pocket at all times for good luck. Did the world completely eliminate four leaf clovers from the world to accommodate her loss? No, not at all— the elderly women had to mentally prepare herself to handle the mental distress that could come. Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt in wrote an article in September of 2015 titled, “The Coddling of the American Mind.” This article covers overall mental health mostly in American college students. The students demand security from words and ideas that are uncomfortable in the learning environment. Lukianoff and Haidt cover every aspect concerning the views through the students, therapist, professors, and even the general public. There is a serious epidemic of micro-aggressions, trigger words, and an over-use of vindictive protectiveness. The two author’s ideals stated within are realistic, however, getting to the conclusion is a bit hectic and spastically placed throughout.

“A movement is arising, undirected and driven largely by students, to scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense” (Lukianoff and Haidt 44). Colleges are sheltering their students from words and ideas that students do not like or are found to be offensive. Affecting their education and cognitive skills, scientists are warning colleges to refrain from coddling the students and allowing other viewpoints to be spoken. People are speaking their minds, saying their own views; however, some people are over sensitive and take these viewpoints offensively. In the article “The Coddling of the American Mind,” Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt successfully argues using rhetorical questions, specific examples, and affective visuals that protecting college students from words and ideas deteriorates their education and mental health.

Cognitive distortions are said to be the ways in which our brain convinces us of something that is not true. College students experience cognitive distortions more often than none. The cognitive distortions in which college students experience would include the feeling of being a failure per not doing as well as you thought you did on a test, the rules we mentally make for ourselves, or negative global labeling. Cognitive distortions are believed to make us believe that information presented to us is rational and accurate when its goal is to make us continue to feel bad about ourselves. In the article, “The coddling of the American mind”, the authors, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt examines what they believe in the fact that professors are protecting students’ minds through warnings of offensive materials, which they believe encourages students to believe that it is damaging and dangerous to discuss certain aspects of our history (2015). College students endure these and many other cognitive distortions, but we are often made to believe that these distortions are acceptable simply because students’ minds are allowed to become more open to new ideas and new people due to the toning down of the perceptual state of mind to outrage and discomfort (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2015).

In “Bring Back Flogging”, Jeff Jacoby addresses the problems within America 's criminal justice system. He gives many reasons why imprisonment simply does not work, and suggests that corporal punishment should be used as an alternative. Published in the Boston Globe, a newspaper well known for being liberal, Jacoby provides a conservative view and directs his argument towards those who strongly support imprisonment and view corporal punishment to be highly barbaric and inhumane. However, in order to shed light on our current situation, Jacoby discusses the dangers that we face though our criminal justice system a nd shows concern that imprisonment is doing more harm than good. In effect, Jacoby looks to the past for solutions, and

“A movement is arising, undirected and driven largely by students, to scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense” (Lukianoff and Haidt 44). Some colleges shelter their students from words and ideas that students do not like or are offensive to them. However, unless colleges want to affect their education and mental health, colleges need to refrain from cocooning the students and support students to speak and hear different viewpoints freely. Most people speak their minds, saying their views; however, some people are oversensitive and take these viewpoints offensively. In the article “The Coddling of the American Mind,” Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt successfully persuade their audience

Democrat or republican? You have always just chosen what you believed, right? Well, the choice you make could actually be based on how your brain functions! In How Politics Breaks Our Brains, and How We Can Put Them Back Together, Brain Resnick uses studies and experiments, strong credible figures, and a weak personal life experience to argue his claim that people have a partisanship side of them that is built into the brain. This causes decisions to be made on a biased mind. These points give a shaky but over-all strong argument that the general audience can agree with.

In our advertisement for Feeding America, my group appealed to our audience of classmates and Ms. Buescher through the relatability and necessity of proper nutrition. My group, consisting of Irene, Nia, and myself, spoke about hunger because we realized the importance of a proper diet and how our audience could understand the urgent necessity for hunger relief in America. Our audience may not have originally understood the scale of hunger in America, so we provided a statistic to show that one out of every eight people face hunger. This and other devices, such as the image, additional statistics, and textual explanation, were used to persuade the audience to donate to Feeding America.

Pathos appeals to the reader’s emotions by using emotional stories and imagery. Pathos strategies are often used to grab and hold the reader’s attention. Emotional or personal stories give the reader an opportunity to emotionally relate to the story, and allows them to be emotionally connected. An emotionally connected reader is more interested in the story that a reader who is not emotionally connected.