Freshman 15

This isn't a finished piece of writing; it's just the skeleton of what I'd do with the "Commonly held assumptions" assignment.

First, the assignment:

Select a commonly-held assumption and present an argument against it.

Notice what's contained (and implied) here:

• Everyone else (or at least a lot of people) thinks this one is true.
• Their argument isn't necessarily so.
• An argument implies that maybe there's some other material that I'm not even bringing out.

Now for my "commonly-held assumption" (against which I'm arguing):

The "Freshman 15" is a bad thing.

Definition work necessary: The "Freshman 15" is the fifteen pounds that a college freshman (not a high school freshman) is alleged to gain during the freshman year.

Where did we get this?

• Observations of friends, etc., showing that people actually are gaining weight (and some of it is fat).
• Magazine articles (particularly in magazines aimed at girls?) about avoiding the flab.
• The "bad thing" part comes from our culture's fascination with the body—whether it's the Abercrombie male with the incredible abs or the fashion magazine girl who weighs 98 pounds, we set up unrealistic goals for ourselves.

Parts of my opponent's argument that might be correct:

• Many freshmen do eat too much pizza, beer, and other junk food because they are away from parental supervision.
• Stress causes overeating.
• Without required gym classes and with a lot of homework, physical exercise is often forgotten.
• Gaining fat is often a poor idea—and fat gained by young people often stays put for the rest of their lives.

Soft spots in their argument:

• Freshmen are 18 years old or so, and are still growing. Compare a fit high school basketball player with a fit college player and you'll see more muscle, broader shoulders, and usually more height.
• The taller boys may put on another inch in height before their sophomore year.
• Some college students become more active in sports, etc., and gain pounds of muscle.
• "Normal" is a very tricky word when applied to height/weight.
• A normally-built woman of 25 or so has a different shape from a normally built woman of 17. Usually the difference is in general shape and (yes) a few moderate fat deposits that give the mature woman a more rounded, less bony appearance. This is not a bad thing (from a health point of view).
• Considering the amount of stress a college freshman has, perhaps a little comfort food (which is always high-calorie) is a better alternative to depression and/or other ways of dealing with stress.

Those Grade Appeals

It's time again for the grade appeals. They always fascinate me because the student often does everything possible to guarantee that I won't be receptive. Here's an example of a last-ditch appeal:

mr. allen i missed class on wensday due to my job i had to fill out these papers and turn them in be wensday or eles i would not have a job yes bad excuse but the truth and then i had to work from 4 till 10 and was unable to email you from work sorry. i had the paper done the final porfolio just wondering if you wanted me to email it to you or to drop it off in your mail box i am trully sorry for the inconvinis and i did not mean for this to happen came up at the last min and i have to have this joe other wise no school next year. i was wondering if too you could send me the topic for the inclass wrighting so i could make that up if i am alowed i really can not afford to miss this i can not get lower then a B in this class for i will lose my exceptince into usf next year im very sorry that i missed class and will do anything to get this B pleas email me back and tell me what to do i will do anything email you paper or drop off right extra papers
thanks

Ethos

In classic argumentation, we discuss whether the writer is believable. That's ethos. Is this the sort of person who should be believed? Or, to look at that sample above, should this student get the "B" he requested? (Keeping in mind that this student had just finished his second semester of college English.) By his own admission, he has fouled up his schedule and not fulfilled the requirements. If this is his best work (keeping in mind that he's asking a superior for a favor, so he should be trying his hardest), I really don't feel that he's nailed down the content of the course.

Logos

This is the part of an argument where the writer gives reasons for the argument. It's the "show, don't just tell" part. This would be the place for a student who has done well in previous work to point out that he's a great student and just needs a final small favor. This student hadn't done very well at all in previous work. In class (when he attended) his behavior was disruptive, and his writing had terrible grammar and an obnoxious in-your-face assertiveness that didn't win it any friends. The student really has no factual argument to fall back on.

Pathos

This is the emotional side of the argument. The student makes a real try to get the reader's emotions on his side, with apologies and an appeal to the student's dire situation. Unfortunately, pathos will not carry an argument such as this one. When you're asking a teacher to change a policy, you need to bring everything good that you have—this should be the best writing you do in the semester.

Is Ethnocentrism Racism?

In "Making The Case For Teaching Our Boys To ... 'Bring Me Home A Black Girl,'" Audrey Edwards attempts to deflect the criticism that her attitude is racist. She claims that there is quite a difference between being "racist" and "ethnocentric." (Actually, she puts the distinction in the mouth of a source, Gwendolyn Goldsby Grant, on this matter—a good strategy to put some distance between oneself and a potentially damaging comment.) So there are two "what is it?" questions here: Is ethnocentrism racist? Is Edwards' attitude pure ethnocentrism?

Racism goes beyond simply recognizing racial differences. Informally, at least, it is not too difficult to make some harmless generalizations about race: Africans have dark skin; Asians are often less hairy than Europeans, and so forth. None of this means much, and nobody ever got too upset about the assertion that few Asians or Africans are naturally blond. There always seems to be something deeper in racism: a claim that in the categories that count—intelligence, dignity, and basic humanity—race determines who has "got it" and who hasn't. Much like the schoolyard bully, the racist makes claims to appear superior by denigrating those "lower beings." Adolph Hitler gives us the paradigm: "If I can send the flower of the German nation into the hell of war without the smallest pity for the shedding of precious German blood, then surely I have the right to remove millions of an inferior race that breeds like vermin." He gives us both sides of racism, the "flower of the German nation" with its "precious German blood" and below these wonderful Germans, the "inferior race that breeds like vermin." Note the comparison: Germans are flowers and the others are rats, mice, and cockroaches. Friedrich Otto Hertz, a sociologist and historian who left Germany and settled in England in 1938, adds, "At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when He brought some people into being."

There we have a basic definition of racism: We're good, and you're a mistake. We're flowers and you're cockroaches. Most of the racist manifestations you can think of probably derive from this frame of mind. Flowers and cockroaches shouldn't use the same water fountain. We don't belong in the same end of the bus. During the 1930's, railroads in the South had "Jim Crow cars"—minimal coaches with wooden benches for black riders. Why should they deserve the plush seats reserved for the whites if they are some lower form of life anyhow? The whole emphasis of the racist formula "separate but equal" was on the separate part. And the point of that was that lower forms were being separated from higher.

How does ethnocentrism fit into this definition? To begin with, the concept of ethnic group is very fuzzy, but usually refers to a shared culture, language, or religion ("Ethnic group"). The "centric" part is probably going to cause trouble. Galileo had to contend with thinkers who supported the geocentric model of the universe (everything revolves around the earth). Nearly everyone has had an egocentric roommate or coworker (everything revolves around me). Putting all this together, an ethnocentric point of view says everything tends to revolve around my culture, language, or religion.

To some extent, we all are ethnocentric. Jokes abound concerning tourists who go to foreign countries and yearn for "normal" food. It's not surprising when a down-home country type (such as my uncle) listens to Beethoven and wonders when we will get to hear some "good" music. No matter what I do about it, I'm probably going to always be white, male, Midwestern, and somewhat true to my religion and upbringing. There is a very thin line, though, between "I'm judging the whole world according to my culture," and "Your culture falls short because it isn't like mine." There's another thin line between "Your music and food aren't as good as mine" and "You aren't as good as I am." Stepping over that line is the move from "ethnocentric" to "racist."

In Edwards' article, Grant makes the point that "to want to be with people who share your values, religion and culture is very normal" (342). So far, so good. Even when nobody is forcing anybody, immigrants will tend to settle near folks like themselves. Most American cities have an Italian section, a Polish section, and so forth. When my brother-in-law, a good German Catholic, announced that he was marrying a good Catholic girl, there was a family uproar. The girl was Italian. Never mind that both families had been in the USA for at least two or three generations. Normal is "we want to be with people we understand."

Leaving aside the question of whether culture and skin color are equivalent, much of Edwards' article is focused on affirming the value of being black. This is the point of her comments about the beauty of black women. This is the point of reinforcing the self-image of black children. Substitute "Hispanic" or "Asian" for "Black" in these statements, and you get pretty much the same message: "we're good and we need to believe in ourselves." Nothing blameworthy about that.

Then there's Valerie Williams: "I want to have grandchildren who look like me [...] I don't want to be sitting around the dinner table at Thanksgiving feeling I have to bite my tongue" (Edwards 344). Why would she bite her tongue? She would be looking at the offspring of her good black son and a white woman who feels "superior to a former slave." Williams assumes (and Edwards quotes her with approval) that all white people are racists. Because racism is an attitude that puts one in the same villainous category as Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan, obviously there is something wrong with all those terrible white women. It is not an attitude of a few oddballs, either. "[T]here's not a White person in America who doesn't feel superior to a former slave," says Williams (Edwards 344). It's a racial characteristic of whites. Something really terrible is wrong with white people, all of them.

We get the feeling from Williams (and Edwards) that when wealth passes out of the hands of the black entrepreneur who originally earned it and gets laid at the feet of white women, something bigger than a sharing of community property has happened. Those white women do not deserve it. There is the intimation that a white woman would never think of marrying a wealthy black man for any reason except to get his money.

So where does this leave us? Is ethnocentricity a variety of racism? Probably not, in its pure form. Learning about the heroes of one's own cultural heritage, celebrating one's own cuisine, participating in one's own religious observances, and wanting to feel comfortable with a spouse who is generally from the same culture are all very normal. Wikipedia's root definition, though, strikes at the heart of the problem:

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture. Ethnocentrism often entails the belief that one's own race or ethnic group is the most important and/or that some or all aspects of its culture are superior to those of other group. ("Ethnocentrism")

It's much too easy to slip from "we're pretty good" to "there's something wrong with you," which is the root of racism, and Audrey Edwards (with those disparaging comments about white women) steps over the line. Her form of ethnocentrism really is racism.

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Works Cited

Edwards, Audrey. "Making the Case for Teaching Our Boys to ... 'Bring Me Home a Black Girl.'" 75 Arguments: An Anthology. Alan Ainsworth, ed. Boston: McGraw, 2008. 340-44.

"Ethnic group." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 9 Mar 2008, 18:25 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 11 Mar 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ethnic_group&oldid=197044792>.

"Ethnocentrism." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 10 Mar 2008, 05:13 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 11 Mar 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ethnocentrism&oldid=197168631>.

Hertz, Friedrich Otto. "Friedrich Otto Hertz quotes." Find the famous quotes you need, ThinkExist.com Quotations. ThinkExist. 10 Mar 2008 <http://thinkexist.com/quotes/friedrich_otto_hertz/>.

Hitler, Adolph. "Adoph Hitler quotes." Find the famous quotes you need, ThinkExist.com Quotations. ThinkExist. 10 Mar 2008 <http://thinkexist.com/quotation/if_i_can_send_the_flower_of_the_german_nation/198051.html>.

Progress on Ethnocentrism

A prewriting

I've got this great quotation from George Bernard Shaw: "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."

The dictionaries aren't much help at this point, and quoting them will simply result in a very short paper. The online Merriam-Webster gives for "Ethnocentric:"

characterized by or based on the attitude that one's own group is superior

My Apple computer's Oxford New American Dictionary gives

evaluating other peoples and cultures according to the standards of one's own culture

I'm also thinking of that "-centric" suffix. Galileo had to deal with the geocentric theory of the solar system (the earth is the center of everything). Many of us have had egocentric coworkers or roommates (I am the center of everything). Following this, "ethnocentric" would be "my ethnos is the center of everything." (Which leaves aside the question whether a race is the same thing as an ethnos.) Is it just that my race is mine? Of course, I think as I do because I am me—I can't easily think as a woman or a child or an Eskimo. In that sense, I'm always going to be egocentric and ethnocentric, but that doesn't appear to be what Williams and Edwards are getting at. Should I take my ethnos to be the standard by which everyone else is judged?

The essential corner gets turned when I move from "we're pretty good" to "there's something wrong with you" (and perhaps around another corner: "you're so substandard that I don't want you around me").

There's a lot of ground to be covered here. Which option?

• My grandma's Cornish pasties were really good.
• My grandma's Cornish pasties were the best food in the world.
• Those Finnish pasties just don't measure up.
• Finns don't deserve to even MAKE pasties because theirs are so terrible!
• Don't you dare bring one of those disgusting Finns into my presence.

Pondering a Definitional Argument

Think of this as "getting ready." I wanted to actually write one of these definitional arguments to give you a pattern or model.

First Thoughts:

I began with the word "gourmet." It's interesting, because the dictionary meaning (yes, I know that it's really dull to begin with the dictionary) is either "a connoisseur of good food" or "food suitable for a gourmet." I thought that would be a fun word to work with because of such things as gourmet cat food and frozen gourmet meals. I remember working for a restaurant where "gourmet sauce" came in a can and was poured over things like pork chops to make them "gourmet." Odd little questions came up:

• Does "gourmet" have to be cooked fresh or to order? Is it possible to have a "gourmet" can of soup?
• Does "gourmet" have to be rare? Can a place like Olive Garden (or even McDonald's) be truly gourmet?
• Does it have to be weird? Snails and quail eggs and odd French fungus that grows underground? How about beans and franks? A hot dog and a Coke? Can those be gourmet?

This all ran aground, though. I really couldn't think of a good reason to write this paper. I just didn't give a hoot whether a Big Mac is gourmet or not.

Second Thoughts:

I can't quite let go of Audrey Edwards. Her sex-therapist source, Gwendolyn Goldsby Grant, makes a distinction between being ethnocentric and being racist (342). This, at least, sounds more important than pondering whether Wolfgang Puck soup is truly gourmet. Is it possible to be strongly in favor of one's own race without being racist? Where's the line? And is it racism to tell one's son that he must marry within the race? There's a song in the Broadway Musical Avenue Q called "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist." Seems to be true too. Maybe this is where I begin.

Equivocation on Gay Marriage

OK, so this isn't really a writing sample, per se. Think of it as a response to Andrew Sullivan's article (and to those who write against his position).

Equivocation is an argumentative fallacy that uses a word in two different senses to create the impression of proof where none exists. Here's an example:

• Nothing is better than cheesecake.
• Breadcrumbs are better than nothing.
• Therefore, breadcrumbs are better than cheesecake.

(No, I didn't come up with that example myself. It's pretty good, though.)

The confusion comes because "nothing" is being used in two different senses. In the first statement, it means ne plus ultra: cheesecake is the highest that can be obtained. Top of the heap. No foods above it on the list. In the second it means "lack of food." Having breadcrumbs is better than being totally devoid of food.

Now to apply the equivocation idea to gay marriage. We often hear that allowing gays to marry will "destroy marriage." Well yes, it will, but not in the sense that some people imagine.

Marriage has already been destroyed a lot—at least in the sense that our previous definition has been replaced by a newer one. Parents no longer arrange the marriage of their minor children in order to unite two political units. Fathers no longer sell their daughters to the highest bidder. We no longer assume that a man can have multiple wives at the same time. More recently (certainly within the 20th century in America), there was a time when a husband could hold a wife in an undesirable marriage by refusing to grant her a divorce. All of these definitions have been destroyed, and the new paradigm is a more democratic union between two equals, not a master/subordinate relationship.

But when people hear that allowing gays to marry will "destroy marriage," they often take it to mean that heterosexuals will stop marrying, that existing marriages will become more unstable, and that in general people will hold marriage in lower esteem.

Sorry—that's already happened, courtesy of easy divorce, acceptance of unmarried couples living together and producing children, and a general feeling that marriage ties one down too much. Gays didn't do it.

And that easy equivalence of "redefining who may get married" with "make the whole marriage institution less viable" just doesn't hold. It's equivocation.

Quick Link for Fallacies

The Nizkor Project (a website dedicated to refuting Holocaust Denial Theories) has this helpful page discussing Fallacies of Argument. It's tempting to work my way through the Audrey Edwards article and see how many of the 42 fallacies are present in her short article, but I think I'll resist the temptation. I do intend, however, to write a short response to her article and post it here.

Informal Definitional Argument

This isn't a formal Definitional paper, just a few thoughts that might turn into one.

When I was a boy, I was, like many boys, fascinated with cars. I often spent my pocket money on car magazines, so I remember the discussion about whether certain cars were "true sports cars." Chevrolet had their first Corvettes out, and Ford was selling its first Thunderbird (which shows just how old I am, since I was obviously reading magazines in 1956), so the automotive purists were debating whether these new cars could be called "sports cars." This, of course, led to the question, "What is a true sports car?"

• Two seats? (No. Several very unsporty cars, such as the Plymouth Business Coupe were two-seaters.)
• Built low to the ground? (How low is "low"? There were some pretty low Studebakers.)
• Floor shift? (Many European economy sedans had floor shift at the time.)

The purists were really trying to somehow keep out the Corvettes and Thunderbirds, but let in the MGs and Triumphs. They finally hit on door handles! If you look at pictures of old MGs, Triumph TR2s and Morgans, none of them had door handles. They had canvas tops and flimsy side curtains, and the driver was supposed to simply push that side curtain open, reach inside, and open the car with the inside door handle. That's what made it a sports car! You couldn't lock it. The Corvettes and Thunderbirds offered genuine hard tops, roll-up windows, and lockable doors.

Then Triumph (whose credentials as a sports car were unquestioned) came out with the TR3. It had more power and DOOR HANDLES!

Looking back, it's interesting that the definition never focused on the car's abilities or purpose. Cars such as the early BMWs and Volvos (which routinely won road rallies) couldn't be called "true sports cars" because they had rear seats, heaters, and door locks. It was all focused on a tiny bit of trivia.

Make It Go Faster by Yelling

The scene is actually quite common. It requires three players, minimum: the intractable object (flowers, furnace, or traffic light), the desperate person who needs some action now, and the amused (or frustrated) bystander who realizes that all the noise and action on the part of Desperate won't make anything happen more quickly. Consider these scenes (all from my personal experience in the past month):

A teenager who is frustrated at not being able to perform a tricky Nintendo jump yells at the TV screen and throws the controller against the wall. (Will a broken controller make the jump more effectively?)

A friend who was borrowing my apartment thought it was too cold, so he pushed the thermostat up to 80 to make it warm up faster.

Frustrated by my slow pace on the Interstate (only 70 in a 65 zone), the driver behind me flashes his lights, zooms around, cuts in front of me, and exits—so he can wait at a red light at the end of the off-ramp.

This is all a version of the old saying, "A watched pot never boils." With a given amount of heat, that quantity of water will take the same amount of time to boil, whether you are standing there yelling at it or doing something else entirely. Some things just are what they are (to borrow a cliché). The genius Japanese programmer who made the Nintendo game doesn't know (or care) about the kid's frustration, and neither does the game itself. It's made to do what it does, waiting for the exact sequence of keystrokes so that jump will execute. My electric baseboard heat is either on or it's off. Set it to 70 or set it to 90—it will cover the ground between 65 degrees and 70 in exactly the same time. And speaking of 65 and 70, the guy who drives an Interstate like a NASCAR race can rarely shave more than a few seconds off his trip because most of us travel about the same speed and we keep getting in his way.

We would like to believe we can intimidate the world into cooperation. It seemed to work when we were kids on the playground, so we keep trying it. Citizens yell at helpless government employees at the Welfare Department when a claim has been denied. Mothers yell at principals and school board members when their kids fail courses. But ask yourself whether it really works. When was the last time a baseball coach got an umpire to change a call?

For my part, I try to act the role of the Amused Bystander. When the computer (or video game) doesn't do what I want, I stop and take a second look. I ask how things like furnaces and stoves work, so I know whether to hope for more action if I change the setting. And I use the toilet before I leave work, so that extra nanosecond on the Interstate really doesn't matter very much to me.