According to the back of it, the book I'm reading is about how we reason to make political decisions and how we should be reasoning. However, only some of my book talks about this. During these parts, the author seems very intelligent and I agree with him. The rest of the book is horribly tainted by bias. The author attmepts to explain conservative and progressive ideals, yet I hardly trust what he says because he is so obviously biased toward the extreme left. One of the arguments he makes, is that the left to right scale is a bad metaphor because it makes people on the far side look like extremests. Upon reading this, I immediantly thought, "well, of course, you think that way, you are an exteremest." He may have been right, but the bias made me doubt it. However, if you strongly believe that your opinions are not bias, but correct, isn't it best to share with everyone what you strongly believe to be the only truly democratic (read progressive ideals) and warn them against those that are a threat to democracy (read conservative)? Surely, it would be wrong to defend the opposing position and let the threat to democracy spread. Yet by doing so, you lose credibility with many people. So, I was wondering, how much and when should bias or personal opinions be put into writing and how much do we need to try to see the other side?
~Becca LaRosa
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I believe that writing should inform the reader of the author's opinion, but not overwhelmingly so. The necessity of "seeing the other side" relates directly to the "devil's advocate" that we were talking about in class today. There needs to be SOME aspect of the opposing side in an argument for it to be fair. Sure, the author can still strongly believe in his opinion, but a part of him must be the devil's advocate and consider the other side also.
ReplyDelete-Audrey
Didn't Hayakawa talk about judgment and that seeing things from all points of view makes you an unbiased person? I think for some writing, proposing all the points of view is the best. By giving arguments from all sides will educate the reader best. However, for other writings, such as persuasive essays, presenting one side is best. And if the writer can utilize devil's advocate without messing up his claim, it would prove very effective. Just like when we were talking about the Toulmin Model today, using opinion is good for writing. But sometimes, I agree with you Becca, too much opinion can make you incensed at the author.
ReplyDelete-- tori