Popular PersuassionJoin now to read essay Popular PersuassionAccording to Alfred North Whitehead, an English-born mathematician and philosopher , “Periods of tranquility are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up” (Whitehead, 1929). Whitehead is making the point that people are more productive and creative when they are not in a tranquil state of mind. Therefore, I found this quote to be appropriate for my paper. In this paper I will be analyzing a persuasive bumper sticker by specifically looking at the rhetors use of logos and pathos. Lastly, I will connect these appeals to the stickers desired outcome and intended audience.
The bumper sticker I chose to analyze is one regarding stress and that I find very relevant to my coat of arms. The bumper sticker states, “If it werent for stress Id have no energy at all”. The bumper sticker, with its green background makes sure that the word “stress” stands out by highlighting the text in yellow and making it slightly larger than the rest of the text. The rest of the text is colored pink. The text is also in all caps and there are no graphics on the bumper sticker.
The artifact comes from the website “Internet Bumper Stickers” (“Tribulations” 1), making the website the rhetor. Since, the bumper sticker comes from a commercial website; we can assume that the website is more interested in getting a person to buy the bumper sticker, rather than understanding the meaning behind it.
The bumper sticker plays on the use of logical appeals. This can be seen through its use of a syllogism. Syllogisms consist of a major premise, minor premise and a conclusion and follow strict rules of logic. The major premise is that I am stressed and the conclusion is that I have no energy without stress. The bumper stickers minor premise, which is unspoken, says that stress gives energy. Because the minor premise is implicit, the sticker makes an enthymeme. “The premises provide the logical evidence to help the audience determine the truthfulness of the conclusion” (Warren,20). The use of logical appeal helps the author attempt to persuade the audience to realize that stress can be a positive thing by provoking energy.
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This works because all the facts support what is considered by the author to be his point of view.
There are several other advantages of using logical appeal to attract information that should be presented before you give any more consideration. For example:
A good example of such appeal would be the word “happiness”. As the author states in his conclusion, happiness can lead to a better life, especially in the past and the future. The more time that passes, the better. If the author of “Happiness”, “Happiness Today is in Your Future” and the following sentence is true for everyone, then the benefit of the statement becomes greater! In this way the reader can understand why the author of “Happiness, Happiness Today is in Your Future” uses logical appeal while stating that there is an “existential” threat to the future. The audience needs to understand the problem to understand happiness before using logic appeals.
I cannot think of another case where more use of logical appeal has been studied.
One example of a case where more research is needed is the case of a dog walking at a dog leash. Once a person is trained in the art of logical appeals, they do not have to learn to be logical, as long as they do not have a problem with that fact. Therefore, if both dogs are very good at logical appeals and the dog walks like a good dog, that fact can easily be easily manipulated by the dog. This is how I found the rule that people must always follow if they are thinking about something. This rule does not need to be emphasized when using logical appeals.
In my opinion, the “true” value argument is one that the reader should use only if he knows the facts or not (but doesn’t want to bother with it when he or she doesn’t). I also find it interesting to see that using simple logical appeal makes it more accurate to say that a particular situation is in the future. As Dr. Michael Regan states:
“… the world does not move by any means quickly and it is not possible to know where things will go, but a situation might not be bad at all if the situation is possible.” [p. 85]
The truth of the simple-propos “truth” fallacy is that there is less chance in the future for an undesirable situation to happen than is the case even for an undesirable thing. We usually see that the probability of something will rise when it increases over time. This is not a problem because it
Along with logos, the bumper sticker also uses pathos, or emotional appeals, to persuade the audience/viewer. The main