Friday, March 3, 2017

Logos is an appeal to an audience's sense of reason by the use of logic, which is why President Johnson made use of it in relation to the newly signed Civil Rights Bill. The headline of the newspaper contains two claims: the President signed the bill, and he made a TV appeal related to it. In both of these actions by the President he uses logos to support his pleas. The first component of him signing the bill into law is very straightforward with its logos; the items contained within the bill are now law, and it is logical to follow the law. To not follow just laws are an unreasonable act, so by signing the bill into law, he is making an appeal to American citizens to simply be reasonable. The second claim the paper makes, that the President went on TV to appeal against hatred, also contains logos even though it might outwardly seem to be entirely pathos. The logos of this comes from the fact that it is illogical and unreasonable to hate, so by the President reminding the American people of this, he is employing logos. Although there is more to the story than just headlines, one can clearly see how the President was trying his best to ask Americans to use their better judgement and not act with hatred and malice, but instead with reason.

2 comments:

  1. I enjoy the simplicity of your explanation but I believe you can go into more depth. Dig beyond the headline and the basic actions of the president. Mention the more there is to the story which you bring up in the last sentence. Also I'm not sure if you noticed, but you forgot to put a title. Other than that you applied logos to the text just fine.

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  2. I think your argument is good but could really be strengthened by some outside information. The countless times Johnson talked to MLK to appeal to his own logos first, then he had to convince the american public. At this time, there was a large percentage of the population he needed to convince.

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