Rhetoric has three main forms: ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos is an ethical appeal. If a speaker has ethos, then he is credible and trustworthy. Pathos is an emotional appeal. If a speaker uses pathos, that means he gets an audience to sympathize with him. Logos is logical appeal. If a speaker uses logos, he uses reason to get an audience to agree.
Posner says, "Advertising or other features of a market economy[—]lead people to buy things they don't really want." I think this is true, if by "really want" he means "need." Logically, a consumer might not need something. However, when an advertiser seems credible and appeals to emotions, then the person may be convinced to get something he THINKS he needs. In reality, logically, he doesn't need it at all.
I think this is evident when you see an advertisement for something you "didn't realize you needed." For example, people have survived just fine in (hood-less) jackets that can be worn on top of hoodies when it's raining or snowing (and you need a hood). But when North Face came out with a hooded fleece, many people thought they needed it.
They didn't. They were surviving fine without them. But advertisers use lots of pathos and ethos to convince people that they need things that they logically don't need. If that hooded fleece was needed, then the consumer would have realized the need before seeing the commercial!
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Considering the power of advertisers to convince consumers that they need things they really don't, are you willing to go as far as Kennedy and claim that educational institutions, such as law schools but also American colleges and universities, operate by "teaching students that they are weak, lazy, incompetent, and insecure?"
ReplyDeleteWhat significant distinctions would you make between advertisers and educators? If there are none to speak of, what similarities could be used to characterize each approach?