Hey, it's Jasmine. For some reason there was an error when I tried to post the first time, so I'll try to remember what I wrote (which could be difficult...).
In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson makes a much more logical argument than Patrick Henry does in his "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech. The most famous sentence of the Declaration is: "All men are created equal...they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." He goes on to say that governments are formed to protect these rights, and if they fail to do so, people have the right to rebel. This is directly based on Locke's ideas from the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment emphasized the importance of reason and also made people skeptical of authority and traditional ideas. Thus, during the Neoclassic era, people were much more skeptical of the king and Britain's motives and, at the same time, they were more open to change.
Jefferson appeals to colonists' logic by demonstrating how the king's actions did not follow any logic. He makes the king seem like a hypocrite. He discusses how the king was really FOR slavery but promised to free slaves if they supported the British. Jefferson says that this doesn't make any sense - the king can't pay off "former crimes committed aginst the liberties of one people (the slaves), with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another (the colonists)." By making the king's logic seem flawed, he thus allows the colonsits to conclude that their logic must be correct. He also describes the king's wrongdoings in much more detail than Henry did. His justification of breaking away from Britain is based on: taxation without representation, the restriction of American trade by Britain, the loss of traditional rights like trial by jury, and the Quartering Act. This long list of grievances would have served as evidence supporting the revolutionary cause.
Jefferson also appeals to emotion through his use of words. He uses strong "snarl" words, for example: "He (the king) has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people...taken captives on the high seas." Did these phrases remind anybody else of pirates? I think this was Jefferson's purpose, to make the king seem like a pirate who could destroy their lives and homes, thus appealing to fear, too. Lastly, Jefferson uses action verbs to make it seem like the king is physically performing all the horrible actions. It's as if the king is physically burning their towns, etc.
What do you guys think? Which method do you think was more effective - appealing to reason or appealing to emotion and fear?
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2 comments:
Hey, it's Erin.
I thought what Jasmine said about how Jefferson portrayed the king's logic as flawed to prove that his logic was right was interesting. I think there's a propaganda technique called the straw man, where you set up someone else's argument for them (who's against you) and subsequently pick it apart to show just how right you are. All you really prove is that the purposefully flawed logic that you picked out is indeed flawed, not that you are right and someone else is wrong.
Anyway, distractions aside, I think that how effective appeals to emotions/fears versus reason depends on the audience, but I think that overall, emotion, and specifically fear, is a powerful motivator in any case. We talked a bit about this today. The point of distopia literature is to scare people into action to prevent something. That something might not even be real. But people respond. It's similar to Jonathan Edward's sermon. People were terrified. Of course, that didn't work in the long run, so maybe fear is a powerful and quick motivator, but only as long as there is something to fear, while reason stays longer.
Hey this is Cristy.
I agree with Erin. I think that fear is a powerful motivator for the short team but reason is more of a long term motivator as emotions can subside. When you are in a crowd hearing a sermon, speech, declaration etc. You are more likely to be moved by the emotion that you get out of the words, you won't be writing down reasons and evidence. So again I agree with Erin that it really depends on the audience. With a nationalist audience when you are trying to get them to do something ex. "go out and get the redcoats!" you will use emotion. When you are gaining support for a general cause like independence or trying to demoralize the enemy I think reason is effective. However, I believe Jefferson was so skilled that he used both reason and emotion heavily. When we read this hundreds of years later we can still see logic (or the fabricade of logic? ) and feel emotion. But both are obviously strong techniques used in propaganda to influence the audience.
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