To persuade his audience, Michael Moore used rhetoric strategies to show the audience how dangerous guns are. The main techniques that Moore used included pathos, ethos, and logos. By the use of these three rhetoric strategies, his argument against guns became stronger and more persuasive.
Pathos is a rhetoric technique used throughout the entire video. This is the emotion based argument. Moore travels to Columbine to show the audience the pain and suffering the town went through after the shooting. He also brought in two victims from the shooting, which touched the audience's hearts even more. This was a strength because by getting the audience emotionally connected, they are more likely to be persuaded that direction.
Along with emotion comes ethos. Ethos is the argument of values. Throughout this video, gun laws were the main topic. Moore discussed with a variety of people about their views on guns and how safety regarding guns should be handled. This topic comes with infinite answers because every person has different morals and values. To be persuaded by Moore, one's values of guns must match Moore's. This is a strength, but could be considered a weakness, depending on the audience.
Logos uses facts as an argument and was the strongest strategy Moore used. Straight facts are hard to argue with. There is no way around the facts of the number of people killed by a gun a year in America. Moore discussed shootings that occurred and showed people the hard facts about America and how violent we are compared to the rest of the world. Hopefully this became a reality check for the United States.
I really like how you pointed out that "straight facts are hard to argue with." Although a person may not agree to the fact that gun control laws should be strengthened or weakened, there is no way getting around the cold, hard facts. Moore can try as hard as he can to achieve the audience's attention through someone's values, but it is very hard to change a belief that someone has grown up with. I think that his use of facts and logic solidified his argument and made it more believable. Whether a viewer is all for gun control or completely opposed to it, no one can ignore the statistics Moore included. It truly was an eye-opener.
ReplyDeleteHey Dan! I did not write about the same topic as you so it was interesting to see what you wrote about. I did not think about all the rhetoric he used. When reading your post, I could clearly see he used all three main rhetoric strategies, Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. I was very much persuaded by his movie, most likely because he really emphasized on using all three strategies, which I didn't know until reading your blog post. So thank you for opening my eyes to this.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you took what Moore stated in his documentary and evaluated how it was able to be so successful in terms of rhetoric. When speaking of ethos, you stated, "This topic comes with infinite answers because every person has different morals and values." (the topic being gun control.) I thought you couldn't have said that any better because there are so many different opinions on this issue and no one is to say what is right and what is wrong. You ended your blog by saying you hoped that this was a reality check for the United States and I think for anyone who watches this, it would be simply because Moore did such a good job on the issue.
ReplyDeleteHi Dan! I did the same question as you so it was interesting to see how we connected different rhetoric terms with his arguments. I also used ethos, pathos and logos as rhetorical devices but I like how you mentioned in the second paragraph about the two victims being used as a pathos rhetorical device. I agree that adding these two deaths in made the situation feel more real and definitely affected the audience’s views. Also, I like how you and Chloe talked about “facts are hard to argue with” because they tell the truth. They have sources to back them up and people can’t argue with them. I think this was very important for Moore’s argument to have that solid backbone that people had to agree with even if they didn’t support his main argument.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with you that Moore definitely exhausted the use of logos, pathos, and ethos throughout the film. Pathos I believe was one of his strongest tools. By showing raw videos, interviewing people close to Columbine and Flint, and finding victims, Moore was able to connect people to the film on an emotional basis. His logos was also powerful. When he showed the gun related deaths in countries, and we were so much higher than everyone else I was amazed. I didn't know we had that many more deaths from guns compared to other countries, and it definitely raised the question of why. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteI think you made three very good points, Danielle. Michael Moore used the three central rhetorical strategies extremely well in the film. He was very shrewd in his actions, he provided evidence that nobody could refute. I think that the fear culture in America is growing, and that the American public could use a bit of logos themselves. It would be logical to eliminate the cause of the fear: the guns. People are grabbing guns to defend themselves, but this just adds more volume to the problem. When you referenced the reality check that America needed, I agree. I believe that the people should be able to own a hunting rifle, but not a fully automatic submachine gun. This is overkill, nobody uses those to kill deer. They simply compound the murder problem in America.
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