Recently in Arguments Category

Attention Whole Foods Shoppers ~ Robert Paarlberg - Foreign Policy

In this article, published in June 2010, Robert Paarlberg, Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College, argues against the assumption that organic foods are better for the planet and for the world's population. He writes, "In Europe and the United States, a new line of thinking has emerged in elite circles that opposes bringing improved seeds and fertilizers to traditional farmers and opposes linking those farmers more closely to international markets. Influential food writers, advocates, and celebrity restaurant owners are repeating the mantra that "sustainable food" in the future must be organic, local, and slow. But guess what: Rural Africa already has such a system, and it doesn't work." Does Paalberg raise some good points? How convincing is Paalberg's argument, in your opinion?  

This Time Is Different ~ Thomas Friedman - The New York Times

Who is really to blame for the largest oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico?  Columnist and well known author, Thomas Friedman, turns to his friend, Mark Mykleby, for the answer. Mykleby writes, "This isn't BP's or Transocean's fault. It's not the government's fault. It's my fault. I'm the one to blame and I'm sorry. It's my fault because I haven't digested the world's in-your-face hints that maybe I ought to think about the future and change the unsustainable way I live my life." Does Mykleby make a good point, in your opinion? Read more in Friedman's June 11^th, 2010 op-  ed piece.  

Why Our Campuses are NOT safer without Concealed Handguns

According to their website, "Students for Concealed Carry on Campus [SCCC] is a national, non-partisan, grassroots organization composed of more than 43,000 college students, professors, college employees, parents of college students, and concerned citizens who believe that holders of state-issued concealed handgun licenses should be allowed the same measure of personal protection on college campuses that current laws afford them virtually everywhere else." In this article, the SCCC provides a point by point refutation to the arguments put forth by an anti-gun rights student organization called Students for Gun Free Schools (SGFS).

Why We Must Ration Health Care  ~ Peter Singer - The New York Times Magazine

Famous ethicist, Peter Singer, begins his argument on rationing health care like this, "You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much?"

Singer continues, "If you can afford it, you probably would pay that much, or more, to live longer, even if your quality of life wasn't going to be good. But suppose it's not you with the cancer but a stranger covered by your health-insurance fund. If the insurer provides this man -- and everyone else like him -- with Sutent, your premiums will increase. Do you still think the drug is a good value? Suppose the treatment cost a million dollars. Would it be worth it then? Ten million? Is there any limit to how much you would want your insurer to pay for a drug that adds six months to someone's life? If there is any point at which you say, 'No, an extra six months isn't worth that much,' then you think that health care should be rationed."

Marry Him! The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough ~Lori Gottlieb - The Atlantic

In this extremely controversial article, Lori Gottlieb writes, "My advice is this: Settle! That's right. Don't worry about passion or intense connection. Don't nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling "Bravo!" in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year. (It's hard to maintain that level of zing when the conversation morphs into discussions about who's changing the diapers or balancing the checkbook.)"

Child Man in the Promised Land ~Kay Hymowitz - City Journal 

In this humorous, yet critical commentary on the lifestyle choices of today's young males, Hymowitz argues that men in their 20's and 30's drift within a state of eternal boyhood. While our popular culture has embraced and promoted this lifestyle, Hymowitz suggests that it is ultimately an unsatisfying way of life. She writes, "Not so long ago, the average mid-twentysomething had achieved most of adulthood's milestones--high school degree, financial independence, marriage, and children. These days, he lingers--happily--in a new hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance. Decades in unfolding, this limbo may not seem like news to many, but in fact it is to the early twenty-first century what adolescence was to the early twentieth: a momentous sociological development of profound economic and cultural import. Some call this new period "emerging adulthood," others "extended adolescence"; David Brooks recently took a stab with the "Odyssey Years," a "decade of wandering."

"But while we grapple with the name, it's time to state what is now obvious to legions of frustrated young women: the limbo doesn't bring out the best in young men."

Dawn of the Digital Natives

By Steven Johnson

The Gauridian Feb. 7th 2008

According to a study for the National Endowment for the Arts, as our culture focuses more on electronic media, reading is dangerously on the decline. In this article, Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad Is Good For You, challenges the NEA study by suggesting that on-screen literacy is not factored into the study. To Johnson, this omission is preposterous. He writes, "Odds are that you are reading these words on a computer monitor. Are you not exercising the same cognitive muscles because these words are made out of pixels and not little splotches of ink?... And of course we are writing more, and writing in public for strangers: novel readers may have declined by 10%, but the number of bloggers has gone from zero to 25 million."

Duty and the Beast: Animal Experimentation and Neglected Interests

D. Benatar, 2000 

From the Department of Philosophy, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

I take it that the moral dilemma many people feel about animal experimentation is that they value its benefits yet simultaneously recognise that these benefits are at considerable cost to animals. The question then becomes: Do the benefits outweigh the costs? Glib answers to this difficult question are frequently offered from both sides of the animal experimentation dispute. For many opponents of animal experimentation, the answer is obviously negative. For many animal experimenters and their defenders, the answer is obviously affirmative.

"Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King, Jr. 

A rhetorial analysis of the letter by Houston Community College System

"While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas...But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here." April 16, 1963

"How It Feels to Be Colored Me"

Zora Neale Hurston (1891 - 1960)

first published in The World Tomorrow, May 1928

"I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother's side was not an Indian chief. I remember the very day that I became colored."

Search engines like Google have made it infinitely easier to access information quickly, but how is the Internet changing our brains - our ability to read, focus and think? What might we have to give up in exchange for easy information? In this article, Nicholas Carr argues that there is more at stake than we may realize.  

An Animal's Place ~ Michael Pollan - The New York Times Magazine

Author, activist, and professor of journalism at the University of California, Michael Pollan, has written a voluminous collection of articles and books on agricultural sustainability and the dangers of modern day food production. In his 2002 essay, titled, "An Animal's Place," Pollan argues that meat eating has become an ethical issue in the face of what are now very common, but undeniably brutal, farming practices. He writes, "The industrialization-and dehumanization-of American animal farming is a relatively new, evitable and local phenomenon: no other country raises and slaughters its food animals quite as intensively or as brutally as we do." In this article, Pollan struggles to find an ethical solution in which his love of meat can coexist with his conscience.