1. The Rhetorical situation
“Natural Man” by Lewis Thomas

2. Putting it all together
When we read ANY piece of writing, we must assess the rhetorical situation of the piece to figure out not only what the text is saying, but what the text is DOING.
What the text is DOING is called rhetoric- the means by which the author is trying to sell the reader his/her point. The reader must assess the rhetorical situation for every piece.
We assess the rhetorical situation by establishing SOAPSTone, and understanding the author’s means of persuasion (the rhetorical triangle- ethos-logos-pathos).
Only after we do this, can we EVALUATE the author’s effectiveness

3. Identify the Claim

4. Claim
“The degree to which we are all involved in control of the earth’s life is just the beginning to dawn on most of us, and it means a revolution for human thought.”

5. Concession of counterargument

6. “The oldest, easiest to swallow idea was that the earth was man’s personal property, a combination of garden, zoo, bank vault and energy source, placed at our disposal to be consumed, ornamented or pulled apart as we wished. The betterment of mankind was, as we understand it, the whole point of the thing. Master over nature, mystery and all, was a moral duty and social obligation.”

7. Refutation

8. “We still argue the details, but it is conceded almost everywhere that we are not the masters of nature that we thought ourselves; we are as dependent; we are as dependent as the leaves or midges or fish on the rest of life. We are a part of the system. One way to put it is that the earth is a loosely formed, spherical organism, with all its working parts linked in symbiosis. We are, in this view, neither owners, nor operators; at best, we might see ourselves as motile tissue specialized for receiving information…”

9. Speaker

10. Some automatic ethos because of his role as a researcher at Harvard Medical School
Connection: “we”- “an enormous committee”- “we are all involved”- “general agreement we had it wrong.”
Sincerity- builds his sincerity through his word choice (diction)
Experience- the metaphors that he uses for our symbiosis to the earth convey a depth of knowledge of biology and our relationship to the planet.

11. Occasion

12. Published in 1974 (21st century)
Environmental revolution was beginning- there were conflicting and changing views on attitudes towards our planet.

13. Audience

14. Those who are sympathetic to the author’s position- his use of “we” and “us”
A high level of education to understand some of the biological jargon

15. Purpose

16. To help people understand the symbiosis between our attitudes toward the earth and continued human existence.

17. Subject

18. Not concrete
Environmentalism

19. Tone

20. Tone 1: disquieting, disturbing, inconclusive, moral, obligation, dismaying, unsettling, obliged, despairing, subjugating, arrogance, invaded
Tone 2: indispensable, wonderment, delight, discerned, fragility, vulnerability
Based on these sets of words, what is the tone in each set?
Where does the tone shift?

21. Ethos

22. Pathos “We need eachother” “We are the nervous system for the earth.”
“Here we are, practically speaking, 21st century mankind, filled to exuberance with our new understanding of kinship to all the family of life, and here we are, still 19th century man, walking bootshod over the open face of nature, subjugating and civilizing it…if there were such a thing as a world mind, it should crack over this.”
“…perhaps algae have bad moments about what they may collectively be doing to the world of clams.”
How do we identify PATHOS? Word choice aims to evoke specific emotional response

23. Logos
“No matter, there is still the underlying idea that we cannot have a life of our own without concern for ecosystem in which we live, whether in majesty or not. This idea has been strong enough to launch the new movements for the sustenance of wilderness, the protection of wild life, the turning off of insatiable technologies, the preservation of “whole earth.”
-LOGOS is concrete: cause and effect; facts, statistics, or data. Less connotative word choice.

24. Homework
We just analyzed the rhetorical situation of the article. You have written a rhetorical precis for the article. NOW, write a body paragraph in which you evaluate the effectiveness of the article based on the author’s use of ethos, pathos, and logos. Use textual evidence to support your ideas.