Rhetoric

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/opinion/17males.html?n=Top/Opinion/Editorials%20and%20Op-Ed/Op-Ed/Contributors


This Is Your (Father’s) Brain on Drugs

By Mike Males


I really enjoyed this article because it showed a different perspective in regards to drugs and mental abilities. I guess that the article to which he responded too was about teens and how bad they are. It is common to criticize others but to avoid or ignore your own problems and mistakes and that is why I enjoyed it so much, because not only teen have problems, middle-agers do too!

The majority of rhetoric used was logos but since I have to talk about other sub categories of rhetoric, I’ll show different examples.

“youths are being maligned to draw attention from the reality that it’s actually middle-aged adults — the parents — whose behavior has worsened.”

This statement uses blame to parents, who behave worst than their children and if you’ve read the whole article, you’ll know that he is also blaming some scientists for making misleading assumptions about worsened behaviors. In the other category, it uses Ethos to sustain it.

“18,249 deaths from overdoses of illicit drugs in 2004, up 550 percent per capita since 1975, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics.”
This statement uses Logos to create a powerful convincing line and blames middle-aged people, who have been setting an incorrect example to us, the teens. It uses the present to blame them and clearly, the argument is supported by amazing facts.

Basically, the rest of the article uses the same format as the one stated in the previous quotes. It shows facts that prove wrong the writer of the original article.

“Strangely, the experts never mention even more damning new “discoveries” about the middle-aged brain, like the 2004 study of scans by Harvard researchers revealing declines in key memory and learning genes that become significant by age 40.”

This quote evokes values and is found in the present tense. It blames but also wonders why does people don’t do it if they know it. I sincerely think its incredible, to be blaming all the teens without focusing on the adults, which have a stronger impact in cultures.

I came to a conclusion; that the vast majority of things in life contain a slight bit of rhetoric and that’s why its very important. I also found that If you want to say something and convince people, you have to use all the kinds of rhetoric available.