Our Concern Over 'Indecency' Is Misguided spoke to an increasing indifference to sex and violence as a nation. It talked about how many parents made an uproar over a naked dead woman in the TV show "NYPD Blue" and the lack of appropriate television broadcasted during prime time. As a society we have become blind to the extreme violence to which we are exposed. It criticizes the people who are promoting legislature on the subject to protect children when parents are really the ones to blame because they let their children watch these shows. Written by a husband and wife pair, both of which are Harvard professors, for Time magazine, the article was well researched in order to back up their opinions. The piece was written to criticize the people who would make laws to stop the proliferation of inappropriate content when it is really the fault of the culture. If people want change, legislation will not make people act differently. The people have to believe in the cause themselves. The article was written for an American audience and also one that would rather write than take action. This article in particular used a point-counterpoint method of argumentation. It stated the opposing viewpoint in quotations the other side were likely to say, such as the “government can insist on a certain modicum of decency.” The article replies to this claim that the government cannot and should not need to govern such matters. This article was set up in more of a Toulman argument structure than classical. This allowed the authors to better be able to refute the points made by the opposing side, reminiscent to Socrates' method of argumentation. These authors were convincing as they aptly assessed the opposing arguments and dismissed them with facts and analysis of their own.
As the Zeitoun was incredible, I read my independent reading book fairly quickly. I wrote the post for it a few weeks ago. Here is the link to that post.
No comments:
Post a Comment