Reading this article made me a little mad. It reminded me of an essay I wrote when I attended Camden County College. It was for Comp 1 and about gay rights. I’m a straight A student, so when this essay came back with a big fat B on it, my heart dropped into my stomach. Maybe this professor, I believed, was just too old and conservative to see things from a democratic standpoint. But there is a difference between writing a persuasive essay and shoving your view down someone else’s throat.
In my essay, there was a line I wrote that went something along the lines of, “It’s a wonder gay people have any rights,” or, “I’m surprised gays have any rights at all.” I don’t have the back-up file, so I can’t know for sure. But my professor had underlined this line many times. There are many lines from this article that I can bring to your attention that come off as abrasive and one-sided.
1. “That they do not yet offer to insert it, prechewed, into our mouth is only because they have found no profitable way to do so.”
2. “And the business of the cosmeticians of advertising is to persuade the consumer that food so produced is good, tasty, healthful, and a guarantee of marital fidelity and long life.”
3. “The industrial farm is said to have been patterned on the factory production line. In practice, it looks more like a concentration camp.”
To make yourself credible, you are supposed to carefully weigh/examine both sides of a story. And these are just a few lines. Sound abrasive? Read the whole article, The Pleasures of Eating, here. I’m sure any World War II Jewish victim can tell you that being overcrowded in a field of cabbage is not as torturous as the agony he or she received in a concentration camp.
Ok, I’m getting a little bitter, but you get my drift. It’s not that I disagree with this article. I think it’s important to learn the seven steps of what one can do to eat responsibly. I just disagree with the way Wendell Berry wrote the article. Calling the American people lazy and passive isn’t the best way to get them to take action.
In my essay, there was a line I wrote that went something along the lines of, “It’s a wonder gay people have any rights,” or, “I’m surprised gays have any rights at all.” I don’t have the back-up file, so I can’t know for sure. But my professor had underlined this line many times. There are many lines from this article that I can bring to your attention that come off as abrasive and one-sided.
1. “That they do not yet offer to insert it, prechewed, into our mouth is only because they have found no profitable way to do so.”
2. “And the business of the cosmeticians of advertising is to persuade the consumer that food so produced is good, tasty, healthful, and a guarantee of marital fidelity and long life.”
3. “The industrial farm is said to have been patterned on the factory production line. In practice, it looks more like a concentration camp.”
To make yourself credible, you are supposed to carefully weigh/examine both sides of a story. And these are just a few lines. Sound abrasive? Read the whole article, The Pleasures of Eating, here. I’m sure any World War II Jewish victim can tell you that being overcrowded in a field of cabbage is not as torturous as the agony he or she received in a concentration camp.
Ok, I’m getting a little bitter, but you get my drift. It’s not that I disagree with this article. I think it’s important to learn the seven steps of what one can do to eat responsibly. I just disagree with the way Wendell Berry wrote the article. Calling the American people lazy and passive isn’t the best way to get them to take action.