Read the following pages and do exercise 1 and 2.
When we analyze an argument, we take into account the claims it makes and how it supports those claims with evidence. We try to identify the writer or speaker's assumptions. Other considerations include how effectively the argument may use causal analysis or analogy, how well selected and developed are its examples, along with other strategies employed by the writer or speaker to win over the audience.
Let's consider a few examples. We begin with an excerpt from an essay by Mark Twain, "Corn-Pone Opinions."
I am persuaded that a coldly-thought-out and independent verdict upon
a fashion in clothes, or manners, or literature, or politics, or religion,
or any other matter that is projected into the field of our interest is a most rare thing-if it has indeed ever existed.
A new thing in costume appears-the flaring hoopskirt, for example-
and the passers-by are shocked, and the irreverent laugh. Six months later everybody is reconciled; the fashion has established itself; it is admired now and no one laughs. Public opinion resented it before; public opinion accepts it now and is happy in it. Why? Was the resentment reasoned out? Was the acceptance reasoned out? No. The instinct that moves to conformity did the work.
It is our nature to conform; it is a force which not many can successfully resist. What is its seat? The in-born requirement of self-approval. We all have to bow to that; there are no exceptions. Even the woman who refuses from first to last to wear the hoopskirt comes under that law and is its slave; she would not wear the skirt and have her own approval, and that she musthave, she cannot help herself.
But as a rule our self-approval has its source in but one place and not elsewhere-the approval of other people. A person of vast consequences can introduce any kind of novelty in dress and the general world will presently adopt it-moved to do it in the first place by the natural instinct to passively yield to that vague something recognized as natural instinct to passively yield to that vague something recognized as authority, and in the second place by the human instinct to train with the multitude and have its approval.
Analysis of Twain's Corn-Pone Opinions
The claim of this passage-its central idea-is stated in the first sentence. The words "a coldly-thought-out and independent verdict" suggest a person who knows and expresses his own views, irrespective of the views of other people. That kind of independent thinking, says Twain, is "rare."
That's his claim. The remainder of the passage provides supporting evidence in the form of examples, largely from the world of women's fashion, although Twain extends his argument to religion and politics, suggesting that those domains are also influenced by "fashions" of thought and belief.
Those clothing fashion examples, of course, are just that-illustrations of Twain's claim about the power of fashion more broadly in our lives. But his argument needs firmer support than mere illustration. This Twain provides with a bit of analysis, a psychological explanation about "why" we follow fashion and the opinions of the majority rather than going our own independent way.
This, Twain suggests, is because in addition to our own approval, we crave the approval of others. In fact, he suggests that the approval of others supersedes our own. Twain attributes this need and this craving to the "natural instinct" to yield to authority and the "human instinct" to follow the multitude and "seek its approval." We tend to conform to what others do. We cede to them our autonomy.
Exercises
1. How persuasive do you find the argument of "Corn-Pone Opinions?" Why?
What additional evidence might you bring to further support it? What evidence might undermine Twain's argument?
2. How does the following passage from another part of Twain's essay support the central claim he makes in the first and longer excerpt?
"A man is not independent and cannot afford views which might interfere with his bread and butter. If he would prosper, he must train with the majority; in matters of large moment, like politics and religion, he must think and feel with the bulk of his neighbors or suffer damage in his social standing and in his business prosperities. He must restrict himself to corn-pone opinions-at least on the surface. He must get his opinions from other people, he must reason out none for himself, he must have no first-hand views."
To what extent does the claim in this excerpt extend or deepen Twain's previously articulated claim? What kind of supporting evidence for the claim does this second passage provide? To what extent are you persuaded by it?