Wendy AP Language

‘A Silent Future’

Dogmatism: “Anyone with a brain knows that…”

“…anyone with common sense wouldn’t dare to do that.”

Franklin D. Roosevel’s First Inaugural Address

Bandwagon: “We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline…”

http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres49.html

“Our new president should eat a heaping helping of spinach”

Jerry Haas

Either/Or, Ad Hominem: “President Obama can be a Popeye and open up the spinach that will recharge our American ingenuity and spirit of success, or he can side with those liberal Blutos who continue to enable the ‘eat now, pay never’ scheme of Wimpy.”

“Schools chief search could have been better”

Ad Hominem: “Should they, however, be among the people making an appointment to a superintendent’s office that clearly must be occupied by a change agent? Could they recognize a candidate with the vision, talent, and skills to improve the school district’s graduation rate and integrate the public schools into the communitywide effore to address a 30 percent poverty rate?”

I would say that the most common fallacy in these few examples would be ad hominem or dogmatism.  It is human nature to avoid the real argument and simply find faults in the person making the argument, therefore making them less credible.  It takes a lot less thinking to insult someone than it does to address the real problem, and to make others take them less seriously, than to make an appealing argument of your own.

There were many fallacies that were not found in these four pieces, but out of the ones in our book, the fallacy that I think is used the least, or most easily discernable, is a hasty generalization.  Many of the other fallacies can be used to the author’s advantage in their writing, or are disguisable so that the reader is not suspicious.  But hasty generalizations are stereotypes, and a writer using hasty generalizations is probably called out on that most of the time.

To the audience, a fallacy is basically what stands out as shaky information.  A piece of information may get the reader’s attention and may raise questions about the logic of the writer and their credibility.  Sometimes, fallacies can be used effectively, if used in the right tone or situation.  In the end, it is up to the reader to decide whether the writer’s evidence is solid and their techniques effective, or if their words are shady and questionable.

It seems to me that Shafer really does not understand the point of creative non-fiction, if he has even heard of the term.  He thinks that David Sedaris should not be able to truthfully call himself a non-fiction writer, because supposedly makes everything up and without that wouldn’t be funny.  Creative non-fiction writers’ stories are not bogus, simply exaggerated in order to better make a point or make it more interesting.  Just because an author changes the setting from Georgia to California does not really make any difference in the whole meaning of the story.  I find Shafer’s article to be slightly ignorant.  He believes humorists do not need “latitude” to make things funny.  Okay, maybe if everyone had an experience like falling into a “55-gallon drum filled with human excrement and urine” regularly, writers would not have to stretch the truth.  I don’t think Shafer realizes the point of creative non-fiction.  It is not to have every detail right on, but to make it into a story.  Its not like Sedaris is saying that monkeys are flying into his bedroom.  However, he may make up some dialogue that shows the personality of the character or something along the lines of that. Think about when something happens to you, usually a funny experience.  When you go tell someone, you may embellish some of the facts but it doesn’t change the overall idea of your story.  You are making it more interesting for you audience.  Embellishments and exaggerations, setting changes and dialougue, are all plainly used to make what might be a brief experience into an interesting story.  Something that entertains your audience, but tells of your experiences in life and what it may have done to you or the impact it had on you.  Truth and exaggeration can clearly be used together effectively.  Yes, every single detail may not be one hundred percent true, but the experiences are always emotionally accurate.