In Political Literacy in Composition and Rhetoric, Donald Lazere calls for revival of NCTE resolutions in the 1970s for teaching the “critical reading, listening, viewing, and thinking skills necessary to enable students to cope with the persuasive techniques in political statements, advertising, entertainment, and news,” and explores the reasons these goals have been eclipsed in composition studies over recent decades. Obstacles to those goals have included the emphasis in the profession on basic and first year writing at the expense of more advanced study in argumentative rhetoric, and on the privileging of students’ personal writing over critical study of both academic and political discourse. Lazere further argues that theorists who legitimately champion students’ pluralistic local communities sometimes fail to recognize that liberal education can enable students to grow beyond their home cultures to critical awareness of national and international politics. Finally, he argues that the fixation in recent composition studies on liberally-inclined students and communities “on the margins” has eclipsed attention to the conservative conformity long prevalent in mainstream American society and education. His proposals for curriculum and pedagogy seek to introduce students to a more highly-informed, cogent, and open-ended level of debate between the political left and right.
This book offers a critical introduction to the media as well as a “self defense” against the “spin” of politicians, advertising, and assorted propagandists. Its interdisciplinary application of principles of critical thinking and argumentative rhetoric can be incorporated into a diverse range of college courses, including communication, journalism, rhetoric, and media criticism. Lazere offers a basic guide to and critique of the semantic complexities of terms such as liberal, conservative, left, and right as well as related words like democracy, freedom, capitalism, and socialism. He provides student guides for understanding opposing viewpoints between conservative and liberal polemicists on controversial issues in current politics and media, such as the nation’s wealth gap, including the rhetoric of economic arguments and the use and interpretation of statistics. His book offers insights into understanding the positions behind many other well-publicized debates in American society - from women’s rights to racial attitudes to the role of government. Lazere provides students with tools for understanding and argumentation, showing how to recognize logical fallacies, verbal slanting, and emotional appeal through connotative language - and how to discern intentions behind political and other advertisements. In contrast to most textbooks’ approach to logical fallacies that assumes they result only from unintentional lapses in reasoning, this book confronts the hard truth that real-life arguments frequently are tainted by deliberate deception. Chapter 3 surveys various influences on political bias in the media, while Chapter 4 examines special pleading, conflicts of interest, invective, smearing, and hype—as propagated by sources like lobbies, public relations agencies, think tanks, advocacy, and political advertising.
Presenting a thoughtful justification for the left in American education, Donald Lazere argues that to teach students rhetoric and critical thinking, key components of a humanist education, educators must discuss and teach students to grapple with the conservative bias in academia, the media, and politics that is considered to be the status quo.
This brief edition of a groundbreaking textbook addresses the need for college students to develop critical reading, writing, and thinking skills for self-defense in the contentious arena of American civic rhetoric. Designed for first-year or more advanced composition and critical thinking courses, it is one-third shorter than the original edition, more affordable for students, and easier for teachers to cover in a semester or quarter. It incorporates up-to-date new readings and analysis of controversies like the growing inequality of wealth in America and the debates in the 2008 presidential campaign, expressed in opposing viewpoints from the political left and right. Exercises help students understand the ideological positions and rhetorical patterns that underlie such opposing views. Widely debated issues of whether objectivity is possible and whether there is a liberal or conservative bias in news and entertainment media, as well as in education itself, are foregrounded as topics for rhetorical analysis.
This rhetoric-and-reader textbook teaches college students to develop critical reading, writing, and thinking skills for self-defense in the contentious arena of American civic rhetoric. This edition is substantially updated for an era of renewed tensions over race, gender, and economic inequality—all compounded by the escalating decibel level and polarization of public rhetoric. Readings include civil rights advocate Michelle Alexander on "the new Jim Crow," recent reconsiderations of socialism versus capitalism, Naomi Wolf’s and Christine Hoff Sommers’ opposing views on "the beauty myth," a section on the rhetoric of war, and debates on identity politics, abortion, and student debt. Designed for first-year or more advanced composition and critical thinking courses, the book trains students in a wealth of techniques to locate fallacies and other weaknesses in argumentation in their prose and the writings of others. Exercises also help students understand the ideological positions and rhetorical patterns that underlie opposing views, from Ann Coulter to Bernie Sanders. Widely debated issues of whether objectivity is possible and whether there is a liberal or conservative bias in news and entertainment media, as well as in education itself, are foregrounded as topics for rhetorical analysis.
Lazere's [book] is heaven-sent and will provide a crucial link in the chain of understanding how conflicts are structured and, most importantly, how they can be rationally addressed - a healthy antidote to the scepticism that has become so pervasive in academic life.' Alan Hausman, Hunter College This innovative book addresses the need for college students to develop critical reading, writing, and thinking skills for self-defence in the contentious arena of American civic rhetoric. In a groundbreaking reconception of composition theory, it presents a comprehensive critical perspective on American public discourse and practical methods for its analysis. Exercises following the text sections and readings help students understand the ideological positions and rhetorical patterns that underlie opposing viewpoints in current controversies - such as the growing inequality of wealth in America and its impact on the finances of college students - as expressed in paired sets of readings from the political left and right. Widely debated issues of whether objectivity is possible and whether there is a liberal or conservative bias in news and entertainment media, as well as in education itself, are foregrounded as topics for rhetorical analysis.
In Political Literacy in Composition and Rhetoric, Donald Lazere calls for revival of NCTE resolutions in the 1970s for teaching the “critical reading, listening, viewing, and thinking skills necessary to enable students to cope with the persuasive techniques in political statements, advertising, entertainment, and news,” and explores the reasons these goals have been eclipsed in composition studies over recent decades. Obstacles to those goals have included the emphasis in the profession on basic and first year writing at the expense of more advanced study in argumentative rhetoric, and on the privileging of students’ personal writing over critical study of both academic and political discourse. Lazere further argues that theorists who legitimately champion students’ pluralistic local communities sometimes fail to recognize that liberal education can enable students to grow beyond their home cultures to critical awareness of national and international politics. Finally, he argues that the fixation in recent composition studies on liberally-inclined students and communities “on the margins” has eclipsed attention to the conservative conformity long prevalent in mainstream American society and education. His proposals for curriculum and pedagogy seek to introduce students to a more highly-informed, cogent, and open-ended level of debate between the political left and right.
This book offers a critical introduction to the media as well as a “self defense” against the “spin” of politicians, advertising, and assorted propagandists. Its interdisciplinary application of principles of critical thinking and argumentative rhetoric can be incorporated into a diverse range of college courses, including communication, journalism, rhetoric, and media criticism. Lazere offers a basic guide to and critique of the semantic complexities of terms such as liberal, conservative, left, and right, as well as related words like democracy, freedom, capitalism, and socialism. He provides student guides for understanding opposing viewpoints between conservative and liberal polemicists on controversial issues in current politics and media, such as the nation’s wealth gap, including the rhetoric of economic arguments and the use and interpretation of statistics. His book offers insights into understanding the positions behind many other well-publicized debates in American society—from women’s rights to racial attitudes to the role of government. Lazere provides students with tools for understanding and argumentation, showing how to recognize logical fallacies, verbal slanting, and emotional appeal through connotative language—and how to discern intentions behind political and other advertisements. In contrast to most textbooks’ approach to logical fallacies that assumes they result only from unintentional lapses in reasoning, this book confronts the hard truth that real-life arguments frequently are tainted by deliberate deception. Chapter 3 surveys various influences on political bias in the media, while Chapter 4 examines special pleading, conflicts of interest, invective, smearing, and hype—as propagated by sources like lobbies, public relations agencies, think tanks, advocacy, and political advertising. Key features of the text:
Most aspects of our private and social lives—our safety, the integrity of the financial system, the functioning of utilities and other services, and national security—now depend on computing. But how can we know that this computing is trustworthy? In Mechanizing Proof, Donald MacKenzie addresses this key issue by investigating the interrelations of computing, risk, and mathematical proof over the last half century from the perspectives of history and sociology. His discussion draws on the technical literature of computer science and artificial intelligence and on extensive interviews with participants. MacKenzie argues that our culture now contains two ideals of proof: proof as traditionally conducted by human mathematicians, and formal, mechanized proof. He describes the systems constructed by those committed to the latter ideal and the many questions those systems raise about the nature of proof. He looks at the primary social influence on the development of automated proof—the need to predict the behavior of the computer systems upon which human life and security depend—and explores the involvement of powerful organizations such as the National Security Agency. He concludes that in mechanizing proof, and in pursuing dependable computer systems, we do not obviate the need for trust in our collective human judgment.
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