Week 11_4/5/16_Politically Incorrect

Iowa State is too Politically Correct

The article I chose to write about discusses the idea that maybe Iowa State University may be too politically correct. My rhetorical analysis will give a brief description of the ideas present in the article itself and the context, and will then discuss the audience, author, purpose and the use of ethos, pathos and logos.

The article talks about diversity, discrimination as well as sustainability. The author is lobbying for the idea of the free discussion of ideas and the importance that this holds in such a large and well known university. Charles Braun states that “some actions may offend people, even when no offense is intended.” This is relevant as often times people are too sensitive and often take things the wrong way.

This leads our discussion into the intended audience for this article. The author, Charles Braun uses interesting language in the way that he presents the ideas for the article. Being an older gentleman also says a lot about who he is. He states one idea very boldly and says that “…we should appreciate our right to be annoyed, instead of attributing malice where none exists.” While I would not use the term radical, he definitely has some ideas that would be considered controversial and some that would be considered daring. This describes a lot about his audience. Here he is assuming that his audience agrees with him on all or at least most of what he is saying. The audience of this is assumed to be at least college age, or most usually older than that. He went to school in the eighties, and therefore, it is assumed that many people would see the same problems that he is seeing with his alma mater. The way he writes, the intended audience would be someone who believes that there is a problem with media and the current way that there is a divide between what is acceptable and what is politically correct.

The purpose of this article is to convince the audience that there is a problem with the divide and difference between what the media portrays as right, and what is deemed as politically correct. Braun does a good job with this, giving many examples and playing with the emotions, values and logic of the audience. This leads into his usage of appeals.

Braun appeals to the logic of his audience with the example of why it is not acceptable to put up Christmas trees during the holiday season, but it is okay to leave a zodiac sign on the floor that many people have to walk over daily. He then appeals to the emotions of the audience by showing the difference between loving your body, with the pirate example and the sex change idea. Braun also appeals to the values of the audience by the free condom example and showing that the university assumes that the students there are incapable of controlling themselves and can only shoot for second best.

Overall, Charles Braun did a good job at centering his ideas on his intended audience with his use of appeals, general context and use of examples. This is defiantly a problem that needs to be addressed.

Braun, Charles. Iowa State is too Politically Correct. Iowa State Daily. Web. NP. April 2016