Rhetorical Analysis First Paper

Kevin (Kyoo Sang) Jo

Professor Glen McClish

RWS 600 First Paper

4 October 2013

Introduction

Through the first several weeks of class, we have discussed a number of dimensions of rhetorical issues. These include Aristotle’s logs, ethos, pathos, Toulmin’s model, and so on. As a part of this paper, I will analyze two texts according to the aforementioned characteristics of rhetoric, “In Praise of Idleness,” by Bertrand Russell, and “Stanford Commencement Address,” by Steve Jobs. I think that discussing the rhetorical similarities and differences between these two texts is very interesting and meaningful because they have different features in many respects. “In Praise of Idleness” is a very logically written argument published in a monthly magazine, while “Stanford Commencement Address” is an oral speech targeted to the specific audience, college graduates. These differences will give us a good chance to identify specific rhetorical strategies and structures by comparing the two texts.

“In Praise of Idleness” (henceforth IPI) is a short essay about “work and leisure” by Bertrand Russell, who was one of the most famous philosophers in the world. This essay shows a different perspective of work unlike the common idea of it. Just as someone defines philosophy as making obvious things unfamiliar, Bertrand Russell rethinks a previous belief in work by stepping back. He finally comes to praise idleness not work in this essay. This new idea enticed me to read the whole text one time. I was told that “the early bird catches the worm” from my young age and I have believed that so far. However, Russell exposes me as well as the audience to a new outlook on work and leisure. He strongly argues that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work.

“Stanford Commencement Address” (henceforth SCA) is a very famous fifteen-minute speech that Steve Jobs delivered at Stanford University’s commencement in 2005. He died in 2011, but he left behind more than a successful company and an iconic status. Especially, he is known as a charismatic leader who possessed great speaking and presenting skills. SCA shows his persuasive speaking well. In this address, he encouraged the Stanford graduates to pursue their passions. Graduates as well as a lot of people sympathized with his thesis, “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

Audiences

In IPI, Russell does not mention the specific audience explicitly. As he explains in the preface of the book including this essay, he tried to take a different view on social issues that we are likely to overlook. This essay originally was introduced in Harper’s Magazine before being published in a book with other texts. Given this fact, the audience could be the public, especially educated people who are interested in social and political issues. On the other hand, Russell probably tries to reach employed workers as a target audience who believes that work is virtuous. This is because he consistently delivers the message that belief in the virtuousness of work has done great harm to the modern world and the morality of work is also the morality of slaves.

In SPA, a target audience is definitely obvious, the Stanford graduates. It is common that the graduates have not only joy of graduation but also fear of leaving college. Jobs talks about his true story of college as if he is a mentor. This real storytelling is a good strategy in addressing many young people outdoors. He also speaks in very simple and concise sentences to the audience. This helps the audiences to maintain attention to the speaker.

Logos

First of all, I will discuss how the author uses logos in his writing by identifying the components of Toulmin’s model. Russell made use of logos well, for the most part, with his use of examples and historical explanation. This is because this essay was planned to pursue the audience logically. Russell’s thesis and grounds are summarized according to Toulmin’s model as follows:

l  Claim: Work is not virtuous any longer.

l  Data: Work is unpleasant, while leisure is pleasant.

l  Warrant: Pleasures are the virtue that we should pursue for happiness.

l  Backing:  Epicureanism, hedonism, and utilitarianism.

l  Rebuttal: However, our social organization requires us to work more than necessary.

l  Qualifier: None.

The key point that Russell argues is that work is not the aim of life. If so, people will enjoy work. But, in general, workers try not to work if they can do it. Only those who let others to do work praise value of work. He really wants people to be able to pursue pleasant, valuable, and interesting activities independently. That is why he praises idleness. His argument is based on the fact that new technology results in industrialization that can give us more idleness and leisure as he stated, “Modern technique has made it possible to diminish enormously the amount of labor required to secure the necessaries of life for everyone.” However, he points out that reality is very different by stating, “Instead of that the old chaos was restored, those whose work was demanded were made to work long hours, and the rest were left to starve as unemployed.” He explains effectively that belief in the virtuousness of work is one of main reason for such situations. And he also emphasizes that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work.

As I mentioned above, the author uses examples and historical comparison to reinforce his argument. He gives an illustration of the manufacture of pins in order to explain the reason why working hours should be reduced. If everybody still works eight hours in spite of the invention of machines which can produce twice as many pins, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are fired. Also, he finds an origin of the morality of work by comparing historical circumstances from primitive communities to the post-industrial period. He explains that “From the beginning of civilization until the Industrial Revolution . . . The small surplus above bare necessaries was not left to those who produced it, but was appropriated by warriors and priests. . . . This system persisted in Russia until 1917, and still persists in the East; in England, in spite of the Industrial Revolution, it remained in full force throughout the Napoleonic wars, and until a hundred years ago, when the new class of manufacturers acquired power.” He also insists that “Much that we take for granted about the desirability of work is derived from this system, and, being pre-industrial, is not adapted to the modern world.”

Basically, logos is not dominant in Jobs’ SCA. On the contrary, pathos is more emphasized because it is addressed to the Stanford graduates and it should move their hearts. Nonetheless, I identified his simple thesis according to Toulmin’s model as follows:

l  Claim: Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

l  Data: You want to live doing what you really want to do.

l  Warrant: Whoever stays hungry and foolish in a life can find out what he or she wants to do.

l  Backing: Faithfulness, sincerity, and devotion.

l  Rebuttal: None.

l  Qualifier: None.

Jobs simply points out that the most important goal is to find what you love and pursue it. Also, he says that to do that, you should stay hungry and stay foolish.

Ethos

Russell’s ethos lies in the fact that he was one of the most influential intellectuals in the twentieth century. He was also a philosopher who published over 40 books and well-known writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950. He also remained politically active almost to the end of his life. Due to this background, Russell’s ethos is already strong. In addition, the wide range of knowledge he expresses in the whole passages reinforces especially his ethos as well as logos. He provides various examples based on his extensive knowledge to support his arguments. Moreover, he defines key terms to proceed with his argument. These strategies play an important role to build the author’s credibility with the audience because without it, the audience is less inclined to trust the author or accept the argument presented to them. For example, to emphasize that present leisure is sacrificed to future productivity, he states, “I read recently of an ingenious plan but put forward by Russian engineers, for making the White Sea and the northern coasts of Siberia warm, by putting a dam across the Kara Sea. An admirable project, but liable to postpone proletarian comfort for a generation, while the nobility of toil is being displayed amid the ice-fields and snowstorms of the Arctic Ocean.” To explain that the virtuousness of work is enforced by small privileged classes, he defines work as follows: “First of all: what is work? Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.” He defines a certain concept of term as his own word. These examples show the author’s high intellectual level, which entails his authority.

Like Russell’s ethos, Jobs’ successful life and his impressive accomplishment as the CEO of Apple Company helps to support his ethos. Jobs’ ethos can be found in many places. His truthful and frank comments give the author credibility. For instance, he expresses his emotion honestly by stating, “It was pretty scary at the time,” “It wasn’t all romantic,” “How can you get fired from a company you started?” and “It was devastating.” He also enhances his ethos when stating his argument in a decisive tone as follows: “So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future”; “You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever”; “I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did”; “You’ve got to find what you love”; and “So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.” These tones of command serve as a function to strengthen the author’s authority. In addition, he develops his ethos by describing his confidence in his work and achievement. It can be found in several points of his speech: “And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.” “We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.” “Pixar went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.” This is proof of his strength and also a form of his ethos.

Pathos

In IPI, Russell starts by saying, “Satan finds some mischief for idle hands to do.” This is a pathetic appeal which leads to the audience’s sympathy by initiating with familiar words. Russell often uses rhetorical questions to appeal to the audience’s sentiment. For example, he states that “Can anything more insane be imagined?” and “But what will happen when the point has been reached where everybody could be comfortable without working long hours?” He also describes the answer that is not likely to happen as if it is real. For instance, he says that if you ask him what he thinks the best part of his life, he is not likely to say: “I enjoy manual work because it makes me feel that I am fulfilling man’s noblest task, and because I like to think how much man can transform his planet.” In addition, he induces the audiences to have same thought as his by suddenly changing the subject of sentences into “we.” I found that the last paragraph includes the following statement: “Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security of all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish forever.” This makes the audience agree with the author’s argument in spite of themselves because the subject, “we,” includes the audiences themselves.

While speaking to the Stanford graduates, Jobs uses love and loss as universal emotions common to all humans. Jobs’ emotional anecdotes enforce his argument as pathos. He starts his life story with an account of his birth and adoption as follow: “It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption.” His inclusion of such an emotional story shows that even a student with undesirable background can reach success. He creates an emotional connection with the audiences through his repeated hardship. For example, when he got fired from a company he started, he states that “What had been focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.” He also says that “About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. . . . My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die.” This emotional tone associated with his anecdotes moves the audience.

Conclusion

IPI of Russell is a very logical and persuasive argument. Russell criticizes the virtuousness of work from his own perspective and insists on leisure’s importance. Therefore, his “Idleness” does not mean just idle, in other words, to do nothing. Rather, it means idle to enjoy leisure. His argument is well supported by definition of terms, cause-effect strategy, and comparison by examples. However, I see definition of work into two categories as an oversimplification. It can be regarded as means to strengthen his logical development. Also, if the author suggests how to make our lives idler, it will be more helpful to make the argument persuasive because we still live in the society that forces us to work harder. In addition, Russell stresses the positive aspect of leisure by separating work and leisure. He supposes that leisure is the contrary concept of work. Therefore, he argues that we should reduce work to obtain more leisure. On the other hand, we can try to rethink work not as means for profits but a goal for pleasure. If so, we can pursue work for pleasure and it does not need to distinguish work from leisure. I think that a really good example can be found in Jobs’ life. Jobs followed his heart and spent much time doing work he really wanted to do.

Jobs’ words in his speech are very simple and elegant, as when he said, “That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.” The audiences understand his address easily because his sentences are clear and concise. Conciseness is more efficient in address rather than in a written essay because the audience has difficulty concentrating on the speech in circumstances such as open spaces. Jobs uses emotional anecdotes appropriately to show his own character and history. His speech is structured consistently with the three topics he introduced. Jobs convinces the graduates to use their intuition and follow their hearts to become happy through his use of blunt and straightforward statements as when he said, “You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” Some interesting findings are that he uses the same words in repeated patterns. For example, when he talks about “death,” he states, “don’t waste it living someone else’ life. Don’t be trapped by dogma. . . . Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice.” Whenever he speaks in repeated patterns, his words gets stronger. On the whole, the ethos, logos, and pathos he sets up show his character and eligibility to be giving the graduates advice about their lives. The quote he remarked, “Stay hungry, stay foolish,” is remembered for a long time.