In Richard Florida's essay "The Transformation of Everyday Life," he uses a variety of techniques to get the point across that there have been many subtle yet important social and cultural changes in American over the last century. Florida ultimately comes to the point that these changes occur, for better or worse, because we want them to, in logical and rational ways. Florida's overall style is one of informal, yet insightful and interactive, communication with the reader, allowing them to make the discoveries of the essay along with him.
In the essay, Florida attempts to describe the primary reasons for the major changes in culture and technology in the past 100 years. He theorizes that, instead of these changes being unwanted, they have been spurred by our desires to make life easier and more equitable, and these solutions come about as a result of creativity. This creativity permeates all aspects of culture, even economics. We constantly seek to put together and rearrange new aspects of culture in order to make things easier and figure out what works better. Culture creativity and business creativity go hand in hand, and this is what advances our society.
Florida's first rhetorical technique is to use an extended hypothetical sequence to provide a simple example the reader can follow. "Here's a thought experiment. Take a typical man on the street from the year 1900 and drop him into the 1950s. Then take someone from the 1950s and move him Austin Powers-style into the present day. Who would experience the greater change?" (p. 302). Later, he asks about the same hypothetical, but instead focuses on someone from the 1900s traveling forward to the 1950s. After that, he asks about the differences between the man from the 1900s and his experience of life today.
In between each scenario, Florida notes that each traveler going 50 years would not notice severe changes. While some of the subtle things would be different, the basics of everyday life would remain the same - the man from the 50s would still drive a car to work and watch television, for example. The man from the 1900s would still find similar divisions of labor and work hierarchy, and the same kinds of people in his social life. However, with the leap of a whole century, the man from the 1900s would be appalled at the casual style of the workplace, the dramatic advances in equal rights for women and minorities, and more. This incremental advancement in hypotheticals allows the reader, like the time travelers, to notice the slow development of change in American life. The way he describes the future scenarios for these travelers (always using "they" and placing their experiences at a distance) makes our now everyday culture seem alien and odd, emphasizing the breadth of change that has occurred in such a short period of time.
After this establishment of changing worldviews, Florida asks for the cause behind the shift. First, he establishes the idea that "most" (indicating authority or consensus) people think the changes are happening to us without their consent. Spending many long sentences on this reasoning, Florida then drops a bombshell on the reader with the simple sentence - "They're wrong" (p. 305). This simple, matter-of-fact and absolute declaration establishes the thesis for Florida's essay, and establishes that the rest of the essay will be about telling us why they are wrong.
Florida constantly uses the word "many" to attribute incorrect opinions to the majority. This establishes his beliefs, and the beliefs he is teaching to the reader, as the somehow-righteous minority. This also establishes to the reader that they are "in" on some kind of secret that the rest of the world does not know about the development of creativity in modern culture. This piques our interest, as we want to be involved in such a secret. Citing other important figures, like Max Weber, also lends legitimacy to his claims, and shows that there is precedent for this style of thinking.
Florida constantly cites his own experiences as an example, to present himself as an authority. Many examples deal with his "consulting work" where he talks to "business and political leaders" (p. 308). These examples are used to further connect him with the highest echelon of economic professionals, and makes him seem less like a fringe theorist. Finally, Florida ends the essay by linking this sense of creativity to our personal lives as well. By using creativity to "define ourselves," as he says, we link our identities to what creative things we consume and create - these new outlets for creativity then create the modern changes we see in our world today (p. 309). Florida, by linking his own expert experience to his theories, and starting the reader off with easy to follow and interesting hypotheticals, draws us into his ideas on creativity and lets us trust him to guide us through what we need to know.
Works Cited
Florida, Richard. "The Transformation of Everyday Life." Blair Reader 302-309.
