Dwelling in Possibilities Analysis
Rhetorical Analysis Is our youth doomed? Mark Edmundson begs this question in his essay, “Dwelling in Possibilities. ” His essay explains how the lives of young people have changed drastically over the years. Edmundson, professor at the University of Virginia, says his students are constantly “going” and that they never stop; they never settle in fear of missing something great. In lieu of this, Edmundson says that they are, “victims of their own hunger for speed” (Edmundson2).
He also adds that his students, and young people in general, use today’s technology to be “everywhere at once” (watching a movie, instant messaging, talking on the phone, and glancing at a textbook) and are therefore, “not anywhere in particular” (Edmundson 3). Edmundson’s uses a very unique style of rhetoric. He does not point fingers at anyone in particular for causing the problem, and he does not come across as harsh or aggressive. Instead, Edmundson asks the readers, particularly his fellow professors, to see a trend in society that often goes unnoticed.
Although Endmundson purposes no solution to the problem, he uses personal observations, experiences, famous authors’ texts, and renowned poets’ works to successfully make readers understand his viewpoints. Not proposing a solution is the only element of persuasion that Mark Edmundson’s essay lacks. He does an excellent job making the reader aware of the problem: college students “go, go, go” and never have time to stop and reflect on themselves and life.
However, instead of informing his fellow professors on what they should do to change this problem, he leaves it up to them to figure it out themselves. Edmundson identifies contributors to the problem as: color television, computers and wireless internet, ADD medications, music, energy drinks, and action sports among others. With all of this mentioned, the closest the author gets to proposing a way to eliminate these factors is stating that he no longer allows laptop computers in his classroom.
It could be debated that this lack of solution is beneficial to Edmundson’s essay and that it goes well with his friendly and very “non-bossy” style. But, again, that is debatable and an author can never go wrong by proposing a solution when writing to persuade. Besides omitting a solution, Edmundson does an excellent job persuading his readers, especially with the use of references. Most writers, when writing to persuade, include facts and statistics to support their viewpoint. Edmundson, however, refers to authors, and very famous ones at that.
This is a very successful method because his whole argument has to do with the lack of culture, art, and writing, in today’s youth. Referencing these authors really helps the reader to sense where he is coming from and helps them to sense his passion for literature. Some of the authors referenced include: Thoreau, Immanuel Kant, Gertrude Stein, Nietzche, Lord Byron, Wordsworth, and Emerson. One reference, in particular, serves as an excellent example of how Edmundson’s references are successful in getting his point across.
He compares youth to the contrasting Byron and Wordsworth, Byron to how his students are today, and Wordsworth to how it ought to be. He states that Byron “wished to never be bored,” as does today’s youth (Edmundson 11). Edmundson also mentions, “students now are Romantics- of a Byronic sort,” and that, “he would have adored their world of fast travel, fast communication, and fast relationships” (Edmundson 11). In contrast to Byron and today’s youth, Edmundson says that Wordsworth is, “the explorer of inner space, is deliberate, slow, ponderous…” (Endundson 10).
This reference to Byron and Wordsworth is perhaps the best support the author uses in conveying his ideas for two reasons: first, it in itself is literature (which Edmundson says is lacking in student’s lives), and second, it serves as a common ground and relatable topic for his audience, his fellow professors. Just like his choice to reference literature and not facts, Edmundson turns to personal experiences and self-observations rather than establishing ethos in a way that most persuaders would.
He mentions to the reader that he is “a slow person from the generation of one kind of Coke, three TV stations, one mom and one dad,” and trusts that this establishes proper ethos (Edmundson 11). He tells of personal experiences, such as running into a student on the University of Virginia lawn, to give examples of his ideas to the reader. In the case with the student on the lawn, he says that the student spent his summer doing an internship, traveling to six countries in Europe, visiting family and friends at home, and recording a rock CD.
Edmundson, in contrast, had written five drafts of a chapter for his book about Sigmund Freud. Telling of this account allows the reader to actually see the change in youth, upon which is essay is based. The account of the student on the lawn, allows the reader to compare their students today, packing as much into their summer as possible and not allowing time for thought, to his generation, slow moving with a lot of time for self-reflection and thought. Edmundson also refers to a friend of his that has kept a journal for 40 years.
This journal, which his friend calls a “life thickener,” is unheard of to his students. He adds that they would see his friend as “a medieval monk, laboring over his manuscripts, someone with a radically pre-postmodern feel for time” (Edmundson 2). This example allows the reader to further see how today’s students are different from the more cultured, slow paced students of Edmundson’s day by conveying to the reader that his journal-writing friend seems foreign to his students. Also allowing the reader to evaluate their own lives and compare it to their students.
These, and other examples like these, allow for a unique, but very successful, persuasion essay. “Dwelling in Possibilities” is a very unique, example of rhetoric because its author proposes no solution to the problem he presents. The author, Mark Edmundson, writes to his fellow professors at his own college, the University of Virginia, as well as other colleges across the nation and his main point is this: students today are too caught up in the newest “things” and trying not to miss anything that they have no time to reflect and realized who they are.
This, he conveys to his fellow professors, is not necessarily their fault, but it is their job to fix. In terms of the logos aspect of persuasion, Edmundson refers to various authors of major novels and poetry instead of using statistics and facts. For the ethos aspect, he speaks of his own personal experiences and observations. Also, Edmundson is no accusatory or aggressive in his tone and maintains a certain respect for students.
However, instead of proposing a direct solution to the problem at hand, Edmundson uses subtle ideas and opinions to assist the reader in creating his or her own solution, but this aspect of the author’s essay does not hinder it from being effective. Mark Edmundson cares deeply about the subject he presents in his essay and, with the correlation of his unique logos and ethos, successfully persuades the reader to acknowledge the problem of current students’ lifestyles.
