Undiscussed Concept
An interesting concept I read about was appeal to pity. After reading the short description, this concept is pretty sneaky and underhanded. It puts your audience in a position where they feel awkward or bad if they do not comply or agree with the premise. The appeal to pity is also manipulative like the appeal to fear. If you let your emotions get the best of you and are very gullible, then you are the best candidate for this appeal. Appeal to pity is great to use when you know your audience can easily relate to the issue. For example, if someone was giving a speech about domestic violence to a group of women who have experienced domestic violence, then they would be easily swayed if the arguer said that everyone should know self-defense to protect themselves. Along with the speech, the arguer showed pictures of battered women with black eyes and x-rays of dislocated joints and broken body parts. These instruments aid into the appeal to pity because the women relate and feel the same exact pain they see in the pictures. Assume in a hypothetical situation, these women were defenseless and did not know how to fight. After going through their traumatizing experience, they would want to know self-defense to have a piece of mind.
I found the appeal to pity to be an interesting topic as well. I feel that this is used, not only in advertising, but in conversations that occur every day. It's common for someone to seek pity for themselves from others to maybe, make them feel a bit better during their current problem or traumatic situation. On the other hand, I feel that pity can as be used as a half-hearted emotion that some use to their advantage. Your example regarding a speech about domestic violence to a group of domestic violence survivors was an example that was really well thought out seeing as pity is probably easier to appeal to or give to a person if you yourself have experienced the same thing.
ReplyDeleteThe concept of an "appeal to pity" is definitely an interesting topic that is evident all around us in our daily lives. As you said, pity is common for someone to seek from others to help them cope with a bad/traumatic experience. Your example of battered, helpless women being convinced to take self-defense classes was a very powerful one as an "appeal to pity" can be an extremely effective approach to certain people. It is a manipulative tactic and is catered to the more gullible people out there. All in all, your post was very informative and easy to understand.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that a lot of these appeals to emotions are indeed very sneaky! You never think of someone who seems to be trying to help (as in your domestic violence example) as trying to fool you. But everyone wants their point to be the biggest and best in this world, and so a lot of these seemingly helpful organizations use these tools to get what they want out of us by playing on our emotions. Maybe that’s why big organizations such as PETA are under such scrutiny and distrusted to much by people.
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