1A Week 10 Spring 2020
Essay Assignment 4 due May 18. Be sure to have at least 2 sources and an MLA Works Cited page.
Option A
See Monica Lewinsky Ted Talk video “The Price of Shame” and John Oliver video on “Public Shaming” and develop an argumentative thesis about what type of shaming is good for society and what kind of shaming cannot be defended. Consult Conor Friedersdorf essay “John Oliver’s Weak Case for Callout Culture.”
Sample Outline:
Outline for Refutation Model Essay
Paragraph 1: Outline John Oliver's argument for "callout culture." This is another expression of “cancel culture” in which shaming morally condemns a person, stripping that person of credibility. Sometimes this condemnation is justified; other times it is not. Sometimes this condemnation is part of a social media feeding frenzy in which people want to get on the bandwagon more than they want to listen to all the facts. Sometimes people are over eager to be social justice warriors.
Paragraph 2. Outline Friedsorf's critique of Oliver's argument supporting "callout culture."
Paragraph 3: Develop a thesis that refutes either Oliver or Friedsorf by refuting 4 flaws in their argument.
Paragraphs 4-7: You're taking a baseball bat and knocking down each flaw, one at a time. This is called a refutation essay structure. It is one of the most satisfying and easily organized essay structures that exists.
Because each paragraph is a sort of counterargument, you don’t need to tag on a counterargument-rebuttal at the end of the essay.
Paragraph 8: Conclusion, a powerful restatement of your thesis.
Option B
Read Kajsa Elas Ekman’s essay “All surrogacy is exploitation” and write an argumentative thesis that supports or refutes her claim. Consult “Against Commercial Surrogacy” by Rachel Lu.
Suggested Outline:
Paragraph 1: Introduce the subject of surrogacy with an attention-getting surrogacy nightmare scenario. There are too many to count, so just choose one or two for your introduction.
Paragraph 2: Transition to your thesis in which you agree or disagree with Kajsa Ekis Ekman's essay "All Surrogacy Is Exploitation." Your thesis should include 4 reasons that support your thesis.
Paragraphs 3-6: Supporting paragraphs
Paragraph 7: Counterargument-rebuttal
Paragraph 8: powerful restatement of thesis for conclusion
Option C
Develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the human inclination for staying within the tribe of sameness as explained in David Brooks’ “People Like Us.” Consult Vice video about social media and tribalism; also consult Brian Klaas video on how tribalism in social media is undermining democracy. Also consult the role of Backfire Effect and tribalism.
First Sample Outline for "People Like Us" and Tribalism
Paragraphs 1 and 2, your introduction: For your introduction, get your reader's attention by contrasting your tribe with a tribe you would never belong to. You should be very specific and use humor to get the reader's attention. You might write about hipsters, jaded Millennials, yoga fanatics, foodies, survivors of some dysfunctional unit or other. You can come up with the term of the tribes involved.
You might even address our society's separation by looking at hooligans, hobbits, and Vulcans.
Or you might carve out a new tribe: Ashamed Rich Kids who wear hobo dreads and, avoiding bathing, pretend they're homeless even though you recently saw them driving a Mercedes to their palatial estate.
Paragraph 3, your thesis: Write an argumentative thesis.
Paragraphs 4-7 would be your supporting paragraphs.
Paragraph 8 would be your counterargument-rebuttal paragraph
Paragraph 9 is your conclusion.
Second Sample Outline for Refutation of Tribalism
Paragraph 1: Outline David Brooks' essay and explain the appeal of tribalism, that is to say living in communities of "people just like us."
Paragraph 2: Transition to your thesis: Argue that while tribalism offers comfort and belonging, one must face that tribalism is larded with liabilities that compel us to reject tribalism in favor of cosmopolitanism, the belief that we are members of the world, not a closed tribe.
Paragraphs 3-6: Analyze the liabilities of tribalism.
Paragraph 7: Counterargument-rebuttal
Paragraph 8: Powerful restatement of your thesis for conclusion to achieve pathos.
Option D
Develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the claim that community college should be free. Be sure to have a counterargument section. For research, use Rahm Emanuel’s “A Simple Proposition to Revive the American Dream” and Jay Mathews’ “Maybe tuition-free community college comes at too high a price” and any other relevant sources such as “Here’s the downside of making community college free” by Bruce Sacerdote, “Community College ‘free-for-all’: Why making tuition free would be complicated,” by Dick Statz, “Economists find free community college can backfire” by Jill Barshay, “When Community College Is Free,” by Juan Salgado, “For community colleges, free college has its costs,” by Liz Farmer, and “The potential disaster of free community college” by Biana Quilantan.
Sample Essay Outline for "Should College be Free?"
Paragraph 1, Introduce the crisis of college education costs pricing struggling people out of a necessary education and the proposal by some to offer free community college.
Paragraph 2, Transition to a thesis that argues for or against free community college with 3 supporting reasons.
Paragraphs 3-5 are supporting paragraphs.
Paragraphs 6 and 7 are separate rebuttal-counterargument paragraphs
Paragraph 8: conclusion is powerful restatement of thesis
Default Setting Essay Template for 1,000-word essay
8 Paragraphs, 130 words per paragraph, approx. 1,000 words (1,040 to be exact)
Paragraph 1: Attention-getting introduction
Paragraph 2: Transition from introduction to argumentative claim (thesis)
Paragraphs 3-5: Body paragraphs that give reasons for supporting your claim.
Paragraphs 6 & 7: Counterarguments in which you anticipate how your opponents will disagree with you, and you then provide rebuttals to those counterarguments.
Paragraph 8: Conclusion, an emotionally powerful re-statement of your thesis.
Make sure to include a Works Cited page.
Sentence Fragments for the Perplexed
The two most frequent grammar errors in college essays are sentence fragments and comma splices. Professors at Cal State and UC throw away or flunk essays with 3 or more such errors.
Sentence fragments are incomplete sentences presented as if they were complete sentences.
Moreover, they are incomplete thoughts presented as dependent clauses or phrases.
A dependent clause or a phrase is never a complete sentence unless the writer deliberately uses the fragment for emphasis. We call this a stylistic fragment. Professors never assume that students are writing stylistic fragments.
Example of Stylistic Fragment:
My coffee maker broke this morning, then the toilet got clogged, then the shower nozzle broke, then I received a letter saying I was six months overdue in my cable bill, and then my girlfriend emailed me to say she wanted “to take a breather.” Such is my crappy life.
Technically, the passage should read like this:
My coffee maker broke this morning, then the toilet got clogged, then the shower nozzle broke, then I received a letter saying I was six months overdue in my cable bill, and then my girlfriend emailed me to say she wanted “to take a breather,” such is my crappy life.
Fragments don’t one or more of three things:
One. Subject
Two. Verb
Three. Complete thought.
Here is a short complete sentence that has all three:
Fish swim.
Here is a long dependent clause that is a fragment:
Whenever I watch the movie Spiderman and eat popcorn with my girlfriend during warm summer evenings
Whenever I watch the movie Spiderman and eat popcorn with my girlfriend during warm summer evenings, we argue about whether or not we should add parmesan cheese to the popcorn.
Types of Fragments
Dependent clauses:
Whenever I drive up windy mountains,
Because I have craved pizza for 14 months,
Unless you add coffee to your chocolate cake recipe,
which is currently enjoying a resurgence.
Phrases
Enamored by the music of Tupac Shakur,
Craving pesto linguine with olive-oil based clam sauce,
Flexing his muscles with a braggadocio never seen in modern times,
Lying under the bridge and eating garlic pepper pretzels with a dollop of cream cheese and a jug of chilled apple cider,
To understand the notion of Universal Basic Income and all of its related factors for social change in this disruptive age,
Running into crowded restaurants with garlic and whiskey fuming out of his sweaty pores while brandishing a golden scepter,
The Most Common Type of Fragments from My Students:
Tag-Alongs at End of Sentences
Examples
I won't entertain your requests for more money and gifts. Until you show at least a modicum of responsibility at school and with your friends.
I won't consider buying the new BMW sports coupe. Unless of course my uncle gives me that inheritance he keeps talking about whenever he gets a bit tipsy.
I can't imagine ever going to Chuck E. Cheese. Which makes me feel like I'm emotionally arrested.
I am considering the purchase of a new wardrobe. That is, if I'm picked for that job interview at Nordstrom.
Human morals have vanished. To the point at which it was decided that market values would triumph.
Sentence Fragment Exercises
After each sentence, write C for complete or F for a fragment sentence. If the sentence is a fragment, correct it so that it is a complete sentence.
One. While hovering over the complexity of a formidable math problem and wondering if he had time to solve the problem before his girlfriend called him to complain about the horrible birthday present he bought her.
While hovering over the complexity of a formidable math problem and wondering if he had time to solve the problem before his girlfriend called him to complain about the horrible birthday present he bought her, Jerry contemplated dropping his math class.
Two. In spite of the boyfriend’s growing discontent for his girlfriend, a churlish woman prone to tantrums and grand bouts of petulance.
In spite of the boyfriend’s growing discontent for his girlfriend, a churlish woman prone to tantrums and grand bouts of petulance, he bought her an engagement ring.
Three. My BMW 5 series, a serious entry into the luxury car market.
My BMW 5 series, a serious entry into the luxury car market, is in the shop.
Four. Overcome with nausea from eating ten bowls of angel hair pasta slathered in pine nut garlic pesto.
Overcome with nausea from eating ten bowls of angel hair pasta slathered in pine nut garlic pesto, Jerry decided to run ten laps around the track.
Five. Winding quickly but safely up the treacherous Palos Verdes hills in the shrouded mist of a lazy June morning, I realized that my BMW gave me feelings of completeness and fulfillment.
Six. To attempt to grasp the profound ignorance of those who deny the compelling truths of science in favor of their pseudo-intellectual ideas about “dangerous” vaccines and the “myths” of global warming.
To attempt to grasp the profound ignorance of those who deny the compelling truths of science in favor of their pseudo-intellectual ideas about “dangerous” vaccines and the “myths” of global warming is to go down a rabbithole of anxiety and despair.
Seven. The girlfriend whom I lavished with exotic gifts from afar.
The girlfriend whom I lavished with exotic gifts from afar dumped me.
Eight. When my cravings for pesto pizza, babaganoush, and triple chocolate cake overcome me during my bouts of acute anxiety.
Nine. Inclined to stop watching sports in the face of my girlfriend’s insistence that I pay more attention to her, I am throwing away my TV.
Ten. At the dance club where I observed my girlfriend flirting with a stranger by the soda machine festooned with party balloons and tinsel.
At the dance club where I observed my girlfriend flirting with a stranger by the soda machine festooned with party balloons and tinsel, I realized I needed to make some changes in my life.
Identify the Fragments Below
I drank the chalky Soylent meal-replacement drink. Expecting to feel full and satisfied. Only to find that I was still ravenously hungry afterwards. Trying to sate my hunger pangs. I went to HomeTown Buffet. Where I ate several platters of braised oxtail and barbecued short ribs smothered in a honey vinegar sauce. Which reminded me of a sauce where I used to buy groceries from. When I was a kid.
Feeling bloated after my HomeTown Buffet indulgence. I exited the restaurant. After which I hailed an Uber and asked the driver for a night club recommendation. So I could dance off all my calories. The driver recommended a place, Anxiety Wires. I had never heard of it. Though, it was crowded inside. I felt eager to dance and confident about “my swag.” Although, I was still feeling bloated. Wondering if my intestines were on the verge of exploding.
Sweating under the night club’s outdoor canopy. I smelled the cloying gasses of a nearby vape. A serpentine woman was holding the vape. A gold contraption emitting rose-water vapors into my direction. Contemplating my gluttony. I was suddenly feeling low confidence. Though I pushed myself to introduce myself to the vape-smoking stranger with the serpentine features. Her eyes locked on mine.
I decided to play it cool. Instead of overwhelming her with a loud, brash manner. Which she might interpret as neediness on my part.
Keeping a portable fan in my cargo pocket for emergencies. When I feel like I’m overheating. I took the fan out of my pocket, turned it on, and directed it toward the serpentine stranger. Making it so the vapors were blowing back in her face.
“Doesn’t smell so good, does it?” I said. With a sarcastic grin.
She cackled, then said, “Thank you for blowing the vapors in my face. Now I can both enjoy inhaling them and breathing them in. For double the pleasure. You are quite a find. Come home with me and I’ll introduce you to my mother Gertrude and her pitbull Jackson. I’m sure they’ll welcome you into our home. Considering what a well-fed handsome man you are.”
***
Part 2 of Week 10: Surrogacy Debate
Essay Option:
Read Kajsa Elas Ekman’s essay “All surrogacy is exploitation” and write an argumentative thesis that supports or refutes her claim. Consult “Against Commercial Surrogacy” by Rachel Lu.
Outline for Surrogacy Debate
Paragraph 1: Introduce the subject of surrogacy with an attention-getting surrogacy nightmare scenario. There are too many to count, so just choose one or two for your introduction.
Paragraph 2: Transition to your thesis in which you agree or disagree with Kajsa Ekis Ekman's essay "All Surrogacy Is Exploitation." Your thesis should include 4 reasons that support your thesis.
Paragraphs 3-6: Supporting paragraphs
Paragraph 7: Counterargument-rebuttal
Paragraph 8: powerful restatement of thesis for conclusion
Typical Surrogate Dynamic
The Hill chronicles the heart-breaking case of Melissa Cook.
One. What is a typical surrogate mom situation?
A woman hits about 40 because she's worked during that time, she has a lot of financial resources, and she realizes she's too old to bear a child, so she seeks a younger, less financially endowed woman.
The dynamic of power is someone with money buying someone's body and that body belongs to someone of modest financial means.
An aside: Just like the documentary we saw on temporary work, whenever we're short on financial resources we find ourselves vulnerable to sacrificing our bodies to survive.
I'd rather be a surrogate mother than work in a chicken farm.
The total cost is $80,000, and this includes psychological evaluations. However, in India, the total cost is $10,000.
Causes to be Alarmed About Surrogacy:
One. high-risk multiple pregnancies
Two. Tech is getting more advanced resulting in scenarios for which we have no legal precedent. For example, the law can’t accommodate triplet situations very well.
Three. Lack of screening parents
Four. Class disparity
Five. Lack of regulation and oversight
Six. We have no long-term studies on the psychological effects of being a surrogate mother who gives up the baby to paying parents, but I would venture to say depression could very well be expected. It turns out that children of surrogates do suffer higher depression than most.
Netflix
Follow This: "Whose Embryos?"
As we read in "Who Becomes a Surrogate?":
In the United States, statistics show that surrogates fall into the average household income category of under $60,000. About 15 to 20 percent are military wives. Some are single women. Those who are married have husbands who support paid surrogacy; surrogacy is obviously not something you can hide, or withstand with a spouse who is not on board emotionally. They have health insurance. They get paid well—the surrogacy fee paid directly to surrogate mothers who work for CSP (Center for Surrogate Parenting) runs from $20,000 to $30,000 per pregnancy, tax-free. Experienced surrogates often command higher fees; as in any position, experience counts. Of the women who serve as surrogates for CSP, roughly 35 percent repeat the experience; in the U.S. there is no limit to the number of times a surrogate can carry for-profit babies.
Two. What are the typical steps at attempting pregnancy?
First, the husband and wife have a doctor implant their embryo in a surrogate's womb.
If step one doesn't work, step two is combining the husband's sperm with a surrogate's egg (a donor egg) and implanting into another surrogate's womb.
In the case of Dr. Patel, she increases the chances of success by implanting "about five embryos at a time, aborting fetuses if they numbered more than two."
Three. What common abuses exist in the surrogate market?
See "Surrogate Motherhood: A Violation of Human Rights"
See "Commercial Surrogacy Is a Rigged Market in Wombs for Rent"
See "Reject Commercial Surrogacy As Another Form of Human Trafficking"
See this essay about surrogacy and child abuse.
See this essay about allegations of an unfit father.
Four. What are some ways people might defend surrogacy?
Surrogacy provides a moral solution if safeguards are met. However, one may counter-argue that the legal safeguards are too vulnerable to be upheld.
Surrogacy is evil, but in poor countries it can be the lesser of two evils where families otherwise would make no income. Some may counter-argue that the monetary benefits are short-term and are cancelled by the long-term harm done to the surrogate mother who is often forced into surrogacy by her father.
Surrogacy is sometimes done by a loving family member, a sister, a cousin, for two examples, and the final result is joy for all concerned. Some may counter-argue that these cases are the exception, not the rule, and we shouldn't make policies based on rare occurrences.
Comma Splices
A comma splice is joining two sentences with a comma when you should separate them with a period or a semicolon.
Incorrect
People love Facebook, however, they don't realize Facebook is sucking all of their energy.
Corrected
People love Facebook. However, they don't realize Facebook is sucking all of their energy.
Corrected
Though people love Facebook, they fail to realize Facebook is sucking all their energy.
Incorrect
Patience is difficult to cultivate, it grows steadily only if we make it a priority.
Corrected
Patience is difficult to cultivate. It grows steadily only if we make it a priority.
Corrected
Because patience grows within us so slowly, patience is extremely difficult to cultivate.
You can use a comma between two complete sentences when you join them with a FANBOYS word or coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so).
Correct
People love Facebook, but they don't realize Facebook is sucking all of their energy.
To Avoid Comma Splices, Know the Difference Between Coordinating Conjunctions (FANBOYS) and Conjunctive Adverbs
Examples
Jerry ate ten pizzas a week. Nonetheless, he remained skinny.
Jerry ate ten pizzas a week, but he remained skinny.
Barbara didn't buy the BMW. Instead, she bought the Acura.
Barbara didn't buy the BMW, yet she did buy the Acura.
Steve wasn't interested in college. Moreover, he didn't want to work full-time.
Steve wasn't interested in college, and he didn't want to work full-time.
I don't want you to pay me back the hundred dollars you owe me. However, I do want you to help me do my taxes.
I don't want you to pay me back the hundred dollars you owe me, but I do want you to help me do my taxes.
I don't want you to pay me back the hundred dollars you owe me, but I do, however, want you to help me do my taxes.
I feel that our relationship has become stale, stagnant, and turgid. Consequently, I think we should break up.
I feel that our relationship has become stale, stagnant, and turgid, so I think we should break up.
Students hate reading. Therefore, they must be tested with closed-book reading exams.
Students hate reading, so they must be tested with closed-book reading exams.
Review Comma Splice and Sentence Fragments
Identify the comma splices and fragments below:
I buy my pants on eBay. They are “gently used” from nonsmoking homes. I find this way of shopping superior to brick and mortar stores. Where the fitting room floors are filthy with dirt and rubbish. The fluorescent lighting in the mirrored room is so hideous my reflection looks more like an anemic nightmare. Nearby, babies scream. I feel like I’m not so much in a clothing store but more in an overcrowded county health clinic. In the fitting room, I feel cold and vulnerable, there may be hidden cameras. I become paranoid that I’m being filmed or that a nurse will enter the room and give me a vaccine shot in the rear.
This aversion to going to stores like Target, Costco, and other big chains is part of a larger personality problem. A revulsion toward crowds, as a result, I don’t like busy restaurants, amusement parks, loud birthday parties, and the like. Some people ascribe agoraphobia, a fear of crowds, as the culprit. But I take issue with this. I don’t have a fear of crowds, I have enough confidence in my physical presence. I am a former Olympic Weightlifting and bodybuilding champion during my teen years. Even as I navigated through my thirties, forties and fifties, I stayed in shape by avoiding sugar and flour and exercising regularly in my garage with kettlebells. At 58, I stand at six feet and weigh exactly 200 pounds, my high school “fighting weight.” I feel I can handle myself in a crowd, I fear no one. The problem isn’t fear, rather, I experience unpleasantness among large groups of people. The environment is too loud, too cacophonous, and too chaotic for me to process all the noise. I am anxious, unsettled, and unable to concentrate on anything so that I withdraw into my turtle shell and brood.
My disposition is highlighted because I am the father of twin nine-year-old girls, and they sometimes attend birthday parties, their school’s annual “Daddy-Daughter Dance,” carnivals, and other functions that I cannot tolerate. When there is a school dance or carnival my daughters want me to attend, I persuade them to go with their mother or to not go at all. As a consolation, I offer to take them to Yogurtland, afterwards, I will buy them whatever they want on Amazon. These bribes may sound ethically dubious, but they help preserve my sanity. Which is seriously threatened by large groups of people.
About ten years ago, I tried having social media accounts as a way of connecting with people, but I ended up deleting those accounts due to an anxiety and depression that was just as acute as being in a crowded amusement park. In some ways, social media was worse. I had a special problem with married couples curating their mutual affection, showing themselves kissing each other at the beach, at a restaurant, at some party or other. Their cloying praise of each other was so clearly a facade failing to conceal their misery underneath that I started getting turned off by love itself. I’d look at these curated lives on Facebook and want to shake a giant jar of Prozac over a bowl of mint chip ice cream.
"John Oliver's Weak Case for Callout Culture" in The Atlantic by Conor Friedsorf
Friedsorf begins with good introduction hook, clear argumentative thesis, and compelling arguments:
On the most recent episode of Last Week Tonight, an HBO show that often sounds as if The Daily Show and The Rachel Maddow Show had combined their writers’ rooms, John Oliver dedicated his monologue to public shaming.
After a brief survey of excesses culled from local television-news reports, the host said, “You may be expecting me to say that all public shaming is bad, but I don’t actually think that.” In his estimation, “misdirected internet pile-ons can completely destroy people’s lives.” But if public shaming is “well directed,” then “a lot of good can come out of it. If someone is caught doing something racist or a powerful person is behaving badly, it can increase accountability.”
The balance of the segment did not substantiate his thesis.
As an example of the phenomenon’s ostensible upside, he alighted on Tucker Carlson, shamed most recently for resurfaced remarks that he made while talking to a shock jock. “He publicly called Iraqis ‘semiliterate, primitive monkeys,’ compared women to dogs, and basically said that Warren Jeffs, who is serving a life sentence for the sexual assault of his underage brides, wasn’t that bad,” Oliver observed. “Tucker refused to apologize, and all week long there have been trending hashtags like #BoycottTuckerCarlson.”
The case is “a good example of an internet pile-on being merited,” Oliver continued, setting forth these standards: “He’s a public figure, he made his comments publicly, they are appalling, and he’s standing by them.” Those are relevant, defensible metrics. (My own assessments of Carlson are here, here, here, and here.)
Friedsorf's Argument #1: Shaming Doesn't Achieve Anything: It doesn't move the needle:
But it does not follow that public shaming achieves “a lot of good” or “accountability.”
In The Stranger, Katie Herzog argued that Carlson’s public shaming “may have made the public shamers feel good,” but that it “accomplished precisely nothing.” He did not apologize. He’s still on the air. His ratings aren’t lower.
What was accomplished?
It’s possible that the shaming’s overall societal effects were negative. Offensive remarks that would’ve been lost to memory were resurfaced in a way that perhaps upset some Iraqis, women, or victims of statutory rape, among others. The fact that Carlson declined to apologize while suffering no consequences perhaps undermined anti-bigotry taboos and surely did not strengthen them.
Counterargument to Argument #1: Sometimes shaming does work; sometimes it doesn't. CF is making an oversimplification. Shaming worked against Louis C.K. and Bill O'Reilly who worked at Fox News was ousted for his abusive behavior toward women.
Oliver next turned to the parents caught bribing their kids’ way into college. “I’ve got no problem making fun of the parents doing that or the guy who ran that service,” he said. I don’t have a problem with such jokes either—though some of the parents weren’t public figures and it isn’t clear if they’re standing by their actions, so the aforementioned standards weren’t all met.
“Where it gets more complicated is with the kids,” the host continued. “How much is it fair to make fun of them? Well, I would argue one of them, Olivia Jade, is a public figure. She has nearly one and a half million followers on Instagram and has worked with all these companies. She has actively made money off her brand as a fun, relatable college student.”
He proceeded to show a video in which Jade talks about her lack of interest in attending classes. “Even before what we learned this week, that was a little tone-deaf,” he said. “Though not quite as tone-deaf as this sponsored post that she made for Amazon, in which she’s decorated her dorm room at USC with the letters OJ. And if you don’t see the connection between the letters OJ and USC,” he concluded, “maybe it should cost half a million dollars to get you in there.”
OJ are her initials, and O. J. Simpson attended USC.
It isn’t clear that Jade knew about her parents’ objectionable actions or that she would stand by them. Oliver nonetheless thinks she’s a justifiable target, because she’s a “public figure,” based on Instagram followers, and because she’s “tone-deaf,” having put her initials in a USC dorm room without recognizing a second meaning to those letters, connected to an event that occurred years prior to her birth.
Argument #2: John Oliver doesn't have a consistent definition of what he considers "shame-worthy"; as a result, Oliver shames teenagers whose culpability in immoral behavior is somewhat dubious.
I’m not taking a position on whether Oliver’s jokes were out of bounds, only observing that he didn’t actually apply a consistent “shame-worthy” test. Calling a teenager dumb isn’t doing any good or adding any accountability to the world.
Counterargument #2: CF is using a Straw Man by saying Oliver called the teenage girl "dumb"; such a claim sounds worse than observing that Oliver pointed out the teen girl's inane behavior. Did Oliver call her "dumb" or did he simply point out how a girl of privilege abused that privilege by taking up a position at a high-tier college? Is such an observation out of bounds?
“Now, I’m comfortable making those jokes. Am I comfortable with the whole internet piling on her? Honestly, that kind of depends on how and for how long,” Oliver said. “If it’s death threats and vile comments, then of course not.”
But aren’t vile online comments, at the very least, inevitable when an HBO host marshals his writers’ room to heap scorn and contempt on a teenager for laughs?
“If it defines her forever, that seems unfair,” he said. “The window for making fun of her is probably closing.” But isn’t being mocked by a major television show a determinant of how long a scandal defines a person?
Argument #3: Oliver "sneaks in" (a sign of poor judgment) the short window standard that says during the open window (blood in the water for the sharks of the Twitter Outrage Machine) we have a license to be as mean as possible. Why? Because soon the window will close; however, after the window closes, the damage exacted upon the victim remains.
In any event, Oliver snuck in another shaming standard: a window for mockery that closes relatively quickly.
“That is the difficult thing here,” he continued. “When joining in a pile-on, there’s a lot to take into account. When millions of people all feel the need to weigh in and do it potentially for years, the punishment can be vastly disproportionate to the offense. And perhaps the best example of this is Monica Lewinsky.”
The host admitted that he participated in Lewinsky jokes that he now regrets. Then he resurfaced a series of old Jay Leno jokes about the sex scandal.
“Those jokes have not dated well in any sense of the word,” Oliver said. “And they’re pretty rough, especially coming from a guy who just this week complained about late-night TV, saying he’d ‘like to see a bit of civility come back.’”
At that point, the segment took a turn.
In the middle of a monologue acknowledging that he had engaged in unjustified shaming in the past and arguing that we all ought to do better now, Oliver proceeded to shame Jay Leno for hypocrisy.
“You know, like that time he did a bit with a fake book about Lewinsky titled The Slut in the Hat,” Oliver said, suddenly righteously indignant. “And if that’s what he means by civility, may I offer my new book, Oh the Places You Can Go Fuck Yourself, Jay Leno?! Look! Look how civil I’m being! Look how civil this is.”
One could argue that Oliver was holding Leno “accountable” for jokes he told in the 1990s that now seem cruel and unfunny. But Oliver could’ve criticized the old jokes while still treating Leno as he treats himself: as an imperfect but not malign comic who told jokes that are regrettable in hindsight.
Surely Leno ranks low on any list of evil forces in American society. He doesn’t warrant a “Go fuck yourself,” delivered here for the supposed hypocrisy of making uncivil jokes on a subject and then, a quarter century later, in a polarized moment, yearning for more civility.
And whether one feels love, disdain, or indifference toward The Tonight Show under Leno, it was arguably more civil on average than Last Week Tonight.
Indeed, Oliver regularly goes the “Go fuck yourself” route, and it isn’t because profane shaming does “a lot of good” for society—it’s because it’s popular. The conflict-hungry internet ate up the segment; it circulated with a telling headline that is often attached to viral Oliver clips: “John Oliver Destroys Jay Leno’s ‘Civility’ Plea With Clips of His Disgusting Monica Lewinsky Jokes.” Last Week Tonight depends on a formula that includes a villain, a punching bag, someone to “destroy,” so that audience members can feel that they’re part of a morally and cognitively superior in-group, perennially exasperated by malign idiots in the out-group. (The formula’s genius: Virtue-signal charmingly with mistake theory, then go viral with conflict theory.)
Counterargument to Argument #3: I concede CF's point that Oliver's satire is often vicious, unforgiving, and over the top, but that is the nature satire. Satire exists and is effective and entertaining because it has big and sharp teeth. CF wants to dull John Oliver's teeth, which in effect would take away Oliver's livelihood. Some might submit that CF is being a bit of a snowflake in his manufactured "offense" of Oliver's brutal satire.
Argument #4: Oliver's moral indignation and self-righteousness collapse under the hypocrisy of his "dubious" and "maximalist contempt."
The show excels when a subject warrants anomalous opprobrium. But the show sometimes tries to shoehorn dubious material into the template of righteous, indignant, maximalist contempt.
Giving Leno the indignant treatment is no unforgivable sin. Comedians have thick skin, and maybe they’re owed some of what they dish out. But Last Week Tonight does an awful lot of segments that begin as a nuanced look at a complex matter, only to devolve into finger-pointing. The show indulges the fantasy that what ails us would be fixed … if only we could take that malign, hypocritical idiot and “destroy” him.
The same self-serving fantasy causes millions to dramatically overestimate the amount of good that public shaming can do.
Counterargument to Argument #4: Indeed, I will concede CF's point that Oliver fails to meet any kind of moral purity test with his over-the-top "maximalist contempt" style satire; however, on a larger point, Friedsorf delivers a logical fallacy that fails to convince us of Argument #4, namely, the moral equivalency fallacy: The moral bankruptcy of the people lambasted by John Oliver is far more egregious than Oliver's smaller moral lapses.
We can be snowflakes and cry over the cruelty of satire, as Friedsorf would have us do, or we can look at brutal satire as a necessary tonic for the world's nonstop effluvium of BS that needs to be called out.
I'd rather live in a world with Oliver's caustic, sometimes morally inconsistent satire than Friedsorf's muted, defanged, timid, milquetoast, polite criticism.
Conventional Toulmin Structure Essay Outline
Paragraph 1: Outline John Oliver's argument for "callout culture."
Paragraph 2. Outline Friedsorf's critique of Oliver's argument.
Paragraph 3. Develop an argumentative thesis with 3 reasons to support your thesis.
Paragraphs 4-6: Your supporting paragraphs
Paragraph 7: Counterargument-Rebuttal
Paragraph 8: Conclusion, a powerful restatement of your thesis
Outline for Refutation Model Essay
Paragraph 1: Outline John Oliver's argument for "callout culture."
Paragraph 2. Outline Friedsorf's critique of Oliver's argument for "callout culture."
Paragraph 3: Develop a thesis that refutes either Oliver or Friedsort by refuting 4 flaws in their argument.
Paragraphs 4-7: You're taking a baseball bat and knocking down each flaw, one at a time.
Paragraph 8: Conclusion, a powerful restatement of your thesis.
April 27 Essay #3 due on turnitin. See Monica Lewinsky Ted Talk video “The Price of Shame” and John Oliver video on “Public Shaming” and develop an argumentative thesis about what type of shaming is good for society and what kind of shaming cannot be defended.
April 29 Will will go over surrogacy debate. Homework #15: Read David Brooks’ Atlantic essay “People Like Us” and explain why we gravitate people who share our values.
May 4 We will go over “People Like Us” and watch two videos about social media and tribalism from Vice News and Brian Klaas. If we have time, we will go over surrogacy essay topic. Homework #16: Write 200-word paragraph that explains the free community college debate covered by Rahm Emanuel’s “A Simple Proposition to Revive the American Dream” and Jay Mathews’ “Maybe tuition-free community college comes at too high a price.”
May 6 Go over free community college debate. Your homework #17 for next class is to read Harlan Coben’s argument from “The Undercover Parent” and in 200 words argue if spyware is a reasonable and compelling safety measure that parents may need to use for their children’s computers. Homework #18 is to read P-2 Semicolons and take the practice tests. Explain your confidence in using semicolons.
May 11 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write first half of your essay. Go over Homework #18. Your Homework #19: Read P-5 Quotation Marks, take the 5 Practice Tests, report your scores, and explain your confidence level.
May 13 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write second half of your essay. Go over Homework #19.
May 18 Essay 4 Due on Turnitin.