Syllogism: Appeal to Fear: A specific type of appeal to emotion, the argument is made by creating or instilling fear of the opposing party. The target individual is persuaded to agree to your point by subtle or
obvious threats. > Example of a obvious threats: Public
executions of criminals, to put fear in the populace to not do the
same.
This is a deceptive argument, because it’s appealing to someone’s fear of the unknown, and not on facts.
Latin Name: Argumentum ad baculum, or argument based on threat. Argumentum ad metum, appeal to fear.
Fallacious:
This means of ‘reasoning’ is fallacious because rather appealing to facts of a situation; you are rather appealing to fears within a person, hoping that their fears will work in accord with your whishes.
Two of My Own Examples:
#1 – Boss talking to employee
Boss: “I know you have filled your log book for this week, but if you don’t take this extra shift you’re fired”
-Appealing to the employee’s fear of being fired, the employer ‘forces’ him
to take the extra shift.
#2 – Scare tactic
“I hope you don’t like your bike to much, because if you tell anyone, its mine.”
-Appealing to fear of loosing his bike, the target won’t tell anyone.
Media Example:Yes I Quoted STAR WARS!!!
[R2-D2 and Chewbacca are playing the holographic game aboard the Millennium Falcon]
Chewbacca: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgh
C-3PO: He made a fair move. Screaming about it can't help you.
Han Solo: Let him have it. It's not wise to upset a Wookiee.
C-3PO: But sir, nobody worries about upsetting a droid.
Han Solo: That's 'cause droids don't pull people's arms out of their sockets when they lose. Wookiees are known to do that.
Chewbacca: Grrf.
C-3PO: I see your point, sir. I suggest a new strategy, R2: let the Wookiee win.
-Appealing to having their arms ripped out of their sockets, the two droids
let Chewie win. "Let the Wookie win" is some of the best advice given in
Star Wars. After all, it is much healthier to be a loser than to be an armless winner.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Likewise the journey of a hero begins with a single act of kindness. Their journey may take years or even just days. It can lead them to unexpected places, forcing them to rub shoulders with the people they serve. Their actions may save lives, or can make them to hate the ungrateful populace pushing them towards the ‘dark side’.Throughout M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable, the archetypes used create a unique idea of one’s place in society and the actions one must go through to find it, for better or for worse.
A hero is “a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal”. (Random house) In Unbreakable, that hero is undisputed Bruce Willis’s character David Dunn. David through his many deeds of valor proved that he is able to known as a ‘hero’. Subconsciously David whishes to help, he chose to become asecurity guard, he chose to help others. He chose to help protect what others valued most even though what he valued most, his marriage, was in shreds. He put others before himself. Others came before his own personal safety, to such an extent that he rushed into a home to save the trapped family, even knowing that the invader had already killed the father.
David also sacrificed what he loved most, football, so that Audrey (his wife) could be happy. David did everything he could so that others, not himself, could be happy and content.David wished no harm on good people, he served to protect them. There is no question: David Dunn is the hero in Unbreakable.
On the other hand Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), is the essence of evil through the film. By his hands thousands perished due to his ill deeds. He himself purposely destroyed a plane, de-railed a train and setting fire a hotel. A villain is “a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime”. (Random house) Elijah is both malicious and devoted to wickedness, by his deeds and actions it is clear that he is the villain in the movie.
Every person has a journey, or path to follow, hero or villain alike. This journey revels to one the role they are going to play on this world’s scene. This role could lead to be the cause of a thousand deaths, or to being a savior to a handful. All must take such a similar journey in a variety of degrees, there is no holding out, all must conform.
David’s journey was simple: becoming what he really was, a hero. The first steps of his journey, ironically, was not taken by himself but rather by Elijah. Without Elijah’s prompting, David would have never have questioned his unusual existence. Elijah planted the seeds of doubt in David’s head, and time made it grow. David begin to ‘learn’ his abilities, and by his son’s believe in him was able to put it towards practical usage.David’s son was prove of two things.First: we all need to believe in something or someone; we all need someone to be there for use. We all need a sturdy mountain, to keep us rooted in this hectic time. Second: we in turn need to be believed in order in to become great. How true that is! To keep ourselves sane we must believe in something that is greater then ourselves, something or someone that can and will fix all our problems. But in hand, we must be believed in, in order for us to rise to our greatest potential.
“Do you know what the scariest thing is? To not know your place in this world, to not know why you're here.”(Elijah Price, Unbreakable) Elijah’s path was altogether different from anyone else’s. From a young age Elijah had always been the social reject. Mocked and ridiculed for him being different, he was fugitively pushed into an isolated corner. Everyone in that corner has asked the questions: Why? What is my purpose for being here? Elijah was no different. His journey, his quest was to find his purpose here on Earth. Being drawn to comic books, he begin to think in line with what he read an saw. That we all have a purpose, there are always roles that we play, and guidelines that we play by.That one has to find their inner person. Elijah chose to find himself and his role in society.
Elijah’s journey made a villain out of a boy.He reasoned that if there was himself on one end of the spectrum, one that can brake with ease, there must be one on the other end, one that cannot be broken. So he set about cause deeds of destruction, trying to find that one soul survivor, one that can walk away from a crash without a scratch. He found his man, in David. As it turned out they were “on the same curve, just on opposite ends.” (Elijah Price, Unbreakable) By finding David, Elijah found himself.
“Now that we know who you are... I know who I am - I'm not a mistake! It all makes sense, in the comics you know who the arch villain is going to be? He's the exact opposite of the hero! And most time's they're friends like you, and me. I should've known way back when you know why David?! Because of the kids! They called me Mr. Glass.”(Elijah Price, Unbreakable)
To find one’s place can be a long deadly road to follow. Sacrifices need to be made either on the individual or upon others. One must find his/her place and status in society in order to be a able to function as a citizen. In Unbreakable, that journey was made by both Elijah and David alike, although their paths intersected, they had different destinations. By identifying the hero and villain one can clearly see the struggles that has to be undergone. Only when we find our postion in this world, will our lives be truly complete, then a hero can be born.
“A hero is more than a person, a hero is a belief. A belief that, against impossible odds, the world can be saved—and that the world is still worth saving. Heroes inspire that belief in us. They renew our faith and give us that most precious of all gifts—hope. The world needs heroes. That's why, when a true hero arrives, the world will honor him.” (Halo 3 Commercial: "Museum")
Joseph Dunn: Do you think you could beat up Bruce Lee? David Dunn: No. Joseph Dunn: I mean, if you knew karate? David Dunn: Nope. Joseph Dunn: What if he wasn't allowed to kick, and you were *really* mad at him? David Dunn: No, Joseph.
Thesis: In line with Robert A. Heinlein’s ‘controversial classic of military adventure’ Starship Troopers, man is unique in that we are savages hidden under layers of conditioning, yet ‘human’ enough to stand as an united front.
Reason: Humans are savages hidden under eons of built up social conditioning, needing a set of rules to live their lives according to.
Example: “Man is what he is, a wild animal with the will to survive, and (so far) the ability, against all competition. Unless one accepts that, anything one says about morals, war, politics – you name it – is nonsense. Correct morals arise from knowing what Man is – not what do-gooders and well-meaning old Aunt Nellies would like him to be.” (Heinlein, 186)
Example: “Train up a boy in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it. – Proverbs XXII: 6” (Heinlein, 108)
Example: “He shall rule them with a rod of iron. – Revelations II: 25” (Heinlein, 41)
Example: “I do not understand objections to ‘cruel and unusual’ punishment. While a judge should be benevolent in purpose, his awards should cause the criminal to suffer, else there is no punishment – and pain is the basic mechanism built into us by millions of years of evolution which safeguards us by warning when something threatens our survival. Why should society refuse to use such a highly perfected survival mechanism? […] As for ‘unusual,’ punishment must be unusual or it serves no purpose.” (Heinlein, 115)
Reason: Man is ruled by their false pretense of morality.
Example: “The tragic wrongness of what those well-meaning people did, contrasted with what they thought they were doing, goes very deep. They had no scientific theory of morals. They did have a theory of morals and they tired to live by it […], but their theory was wrong – half of it fuzzy-headed wishful thinking, half of it rationalized charlatanry. The more earnest they were, the farther it lead them astray. You see, they assumed that Man has a moral instinct. […] You have a cultivated conscience, a most carefully trained one. Man has no moral instinct. He is not born with moral sense. You were not born with it […]. We acquire moral sense, when we do, through training, experience, and hard swear of the mind.” (Heinlein, 117)
Example: “What is ‘moral sense’? It is an elaboration of the instinct to survive. The instinct to survive is human nature itself, and every aspect of our personalities derives from it. […] But the instinct to survive […] can be cultivated into motivations more subtle and much more complex than the blind, brute urge of the individual to stay alive” (Heinlein, 118)
Example: “But all moral problems can be illustrated by one misquotation: ‘Greater love hath no man than a mother cat dying to defend her kittens.’ Once you understand the problem facing the cat and how she solved it, you will then be ready to examine yourself and learn how high up the moral ladder you are capable of climbing.” (Heinlein, 118)
Example: “The basis of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to group that self-interest has to individual. […] Society […] told them endlessly about their ‘rights’. The results should have been predictable, since a human being has no natural rights of any kind.” (Heinlein, 119)
Reason: Humans are unique in that once one of our members is in danger; all join in the ‘fight’ to save that one.
Example: “Our behavior is different. How often have you seen a headline like this? – TWO DIE ATTEMPTING RESUCE OF DROWNING CHILD. If a man gets lost in the mountains, hundreds will search and often two or three searchers are killed. But the next time somebody gets lost just as many volunteers turn out.
Poor arithmetic . . . but very human. It runs through all our folklore, all religions, all our literature – a racial conviction that when one human needs rescue, others should not count the price.
Weakness? It might be the unique strength that wins us a galaxy.” (Heinlein, 223)
Example: “How think ye? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and go-eth into the mountains, and seek-eth that which is gone astray? – Matthew XII: 12” (Heinlein, 261)
Other:
“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly . . . it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. – Thomas Paine” (Heinlein, 78)
I must admit I was weary to read this book due to the negitive feed back from the movie, but the movie is nothing like the book! The book is great. This is my thesis:
"In line with Robert A. Heinlein’s ‘controversial classic of military adventure’ Starship Troopers, Man is unique in that we are savages hidden under layers of conditioning, yet 'human' enough to stand as an united front."
