Everywhere we turn, some one is trying to persuade us- to buy their product,to vote for their candidate, to adopt their policy, to agree with their opinions. An attempt to do this on an organized or large scale, aiming at large numbers of people, is called propaganda. When we see the harmful effects of propaganda, we become fearful of it, but it is not always harmful.Advertising is one form of propaganda; writing our opinions to newspapers is another. Propaganda is harmful when unscrupulous persuaders try to take advantage of people who are not equipped to "see through" the techniques being used, who are not being careful to distinguish factual evidence from opinion,or to question the source and reliability of the facts.
We have already examined the ways facts can be selected and slanted, even when the writer is being careful no to lie or invent facts. Unfortunately,unscrupulous propagandists do lie and invent facts. We have already seen the importance of word choice in reflecting a writer's attitude and his wish to influence the attitude of the reader. Now we will try to become more aware of the ways we are being appealed to, the ways LOGICAL FALLACIES(that is, faults in logic) are used by those who wish to cloud our logical thinking processes. To be ware of these commonly used techniques is to be armed against them.
This is the best short story I've read in a long time. In "Love Is a Fallacy," Max Shulman demonstrates a wit and clarity of language that I find lacking in most modern writing (mine woefully included). The thesis of this story is that a good lawyer's wife must be "beautiful, gracious, and intelligent," and as a first year law student, the narrator sets out to make such a wife. Seeing as how it is "easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly smart girl beautiful," the author bargains for his roommates girl, who possesses the first two necessary traits, and tries to instill the third. His lessons in logic go terribly awry.
We have already examined the ways facts can be selected and slanted, even when the writer is being careful no to lie or invent facts. Unfortunately,unscrupulous propagandists do lie and invent facts. We have already seen the importance of word choice in reflecting a writer's attitude and his wish to influence the attitude of the reader. Now we will try to become more aware of the ways we are being appealed to, the ways LOGICAL FALLACIES(that is, faults in logic) are used by those who wish to cloud our logical thinking processes. To be ware of these commonly used techniques is to be armed against them.
This is the best short story I've read in a long time. In "Love Is a Fallacy," Max Shulman demonstrates a wit and clarity of language that I find lacking in most modern writing (mine woefully included). The thesis of this story is that a good lawyer's wife must be "beautiful, gracious, and intelligent," and as a first year law student, the narrator sets out to make such a wife. Seeing as how it is "easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly smart girl beautiful," the author bargains for his roommates girl, who possesses the first two necessary traits, and tries to instill the third. His lessons in logic go terribly awry.
No comments:
Post a Comment