Arguments, arguments, arguments galore

After reading the first 5 chapters of Everything’s an Argument, it seems that arguments are indeed everywhere and present in everything I do. Being the college student I am, I made a trip to Wal-mart this weekend to stock up on cleaning supplies, water, and the main part of the college student diet, junk food. As soon as I began to peruse the candy isle, the thought “hey, that’s an argument” kept occurring in my mind every time I looked at the candy selection. Bright colors and various flavors, all trying to convince me to buy that certain kind of candy. One bag of candy caught my eye as soon as I walked down the isle making my assessments. There was nothing special about the candy in general; they were simply little pieces of hershey’s chocolates. But the part that caught my eye was the fact that the candy was wrapped in pink aluminum with breast cancer ribbons printed on them. The bag was pink too and the words “Support the Fight against Breast Cancer” flashed brightly at me. I noticed this certain bag of candy because I saw that this bag used Pathos as a way of making its argument. It appealed to people’s emotions and feelings about breast cancer, trying to urge them to buy the candy as a way of supporting the cause. It seemed that the candy was trying to get me to connect with it. In the end, I stuck with M&M’s, due to its ethos argument. To me, M&M’s have a certain credibility because they have been around for so long and almost everyone in the world knows about them. They have a certain reputation, which I trust will provide me a good sugar rush.

Moving past the candy isle, I drifted towards the magazines. As I rifled through Cosmogirl, the ads showed me even more signs of pathos. Armani ads screamed sex, drawing out emotions in its readers. Product (red) ads urged us to buy certain products in order to help fight aids in Africa. Interest stories warned teenage girls, like myself, about the dangers of doing drugs. All of these things used emotion to build bridges with readers. The ads strive to draw out a certain emotion in a person so that they will buy those products. The connection created through the use of pathos makes up many arguments in the food industry. As I stood at check out, I wondered how many more things in my life I considered “mindless” would prove to be making an argument in some way or form.