12.3: The "Pathetic" Essay
- Page ID
- 199346
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When most people hear the word "pathetic," they think of something sad, sorrowful, or incompetent. According to the Oxford Historical Thesaurus, in the late 1500's, pathetic meant "expressing or arising from passion or strong emotion." By 1900, the term had come to mean "miserably inadequate; of such a low standard as to be ridiculous or contemptible." Why did the meaning change?
Some believe that, because emotional expression and compassion were historically associated with the female, emotional appeals in patriarchal societies became associated with weakness. (For an interesting time, check out the roots of the word "hysterical.") Others attribute this denigration of emotion to the abuse of emotional appeals; since abuse of emotion can manipulate audiences, some view emotional appeals as suspect or even unethical. Still others believe that logic and rationality are the pinnacle or argument, and since emotional appeals lack reason, they are inherently fallacious.
>Noted USC neuroscientist Antonio Damasio disagrees: "feelings are not just the shady side of reason...they help us to reach decisions as well" (qtd. in Lenzen). He further states: "rather than being a luxury, emotions are a very intelligent way of driving an organism toward certain outcomes" (qtd. in Star). Dale Carnegie once said that "when dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion." Damasio concurred: "We are not logical machines who feel; we are feeling machines who think."
Most students think of academic papers as extremely dry treatises that rely only upon logic and reasoning. Here is where we need to remind ourselves that although persuasion relies heavily upon logic and critical thinking, persuasion is not limited to logic and critical thinking. A ton of research exists that points to the effectiveness of emotional appeals in persuasion. So what does pathos look like in an argumentative paper?
- Do you use expressive descriptions of people, places, or events that help the reader to feel or experience those events?
- Do you include vivid imagery of people, places or events to help the reader to feel like he or she is "seeing" those events?
- Brief personal stories or anecdotes can make the reader feel a connection to, or empathy for, a person being described.
- Emotion-laden vocabulary can put the reader into a specific emotional mindset.
- Do you use information that will evoke an emotional response from the audience?
- Does your writing appeal to the values and beliefs of the audience?