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Summary Of A First Amendment Junkie By Susan Jacoby

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In “A First Amendment Junkie,” Susan Jacoby argues that the First Amendment cannot be selectively applied. Susan Jacoby is an established columnist from The New York Times, and has experience working for other distinguished publications including The Washington Post. Her primary audience for this piece is New York citizens. “A First Amendment Junkie” was first published in 1978, and argued that the First Amendment is all inclusive. Jacoby’s judgement is sound, and her use of logos, pathos, and ethos further reinforce this point. Jacoby’s uses an example to demonstrate how selectively applying the First Amendment shows has unintentional and unconstitutional consequences. Jacoby reinforces the importance of upholding the First Amendment using …show more content…

The most powerful analogy in the text is the comparison of women and pornography shops to concentration camps and nazis. This analogy demonstrates how some individuals view the severity of the need for First Amendment censorship, but also brings to mind that the Nazi march through concentration camps was not censored, despite its far more violent nature in comparison to the existence pornography (17). This analogy is an effective way to help the reader understand how some individuals feel about pornography, and why they believe it should be censored. That being said, it does not help prove the point of those individuals, but rather is used to help develop Jacoby’s argument that the First Amendment is all inclusive, regardless of personal opinion. Jacoby has two specific uses of statistics within the text. The first, less influential statistic is the price of a magazine on page 18. The second, more notable statistic is when she mentions the age range of children viewing movies containing adult content in theaters (19). The age of the children in box-office lines helps paint a picture for the reader and better establishes a mental visualization of what is happening in the scene. This is an effective use of statistics, and it also ties into imagery. Incorporating two separate rhetorical terms into one coherent …show more content…

Some of the most powerful uses of pathos in “A First Amendment Junky” involve creative imagery; in other words, the author’s attempt to make the reader visualize something. One previously mentioned use of imagery is when Jacoby uses the statistics of how young some members of the box-office line for an adult film are, “I was even more shocked to see parents standing in line with children between the ages of 10 and 14,” and she continues, “I simply don’t know why a parent would take a child to see such a movie” (19). Jacoby seamlessly turns a statistic into a mental scene of what the line looks like. She also effectively uses this as a transition into her next point. Another use of imagery can be found on page 17, where Jacoby references a specific street, 42d street, which would likely trigger an image in the minds of her target New Yorker audience. This use of imagery is not very effective for myself, as I am not familiar with New York; however, I suspect that this imagery would be effective for a reader who understands the New York landscape. These two examples, as well as others within the text, add up to create an unavoidable personal and emotional

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