Andrew Delbanco, director of American studies in Columbia University, wrote an essay that transpired to define the purpose of receiving a college education. This was published during a time in recent American history where a college education is being reconsidered due to economic instability, globalization, war, and a continuing divide within American politics. His main argument is that college still matters, and he has three reasons to support this argument. One reason is for economic concerns, where the money spent would be worth the education, another states that it would educate people more about politics, and the last reason states that people would learn elements of life that would be beneficial to themselves. While Delbanco has legitimate reasons for arguing education is worth the attendance, his argument structure is weak when it is looked through the lens of ethos, pathos, and logos. This paper will analyze his argument through these three methods and understand how he is structuring his argument and where his weaknesses are.
Ethos would be establishing an argument based on good character, which would include good sense, good moral character and goodwill. Being a professor from a prominent university, Delbanco would seem to be the most suitable person to argue on behalf of choosing a proper education in a university. He is also trying to reach out the moral character of the audience by inspiring them to take a college education so that they can do better in the field of politics. He says that an “educated citizenry” would be the best way for a government “to flourish and endure,” (507). He goes on to write that the “best chance we have to maintain a functioning democracy is a citizenry that can tell the difference between demagoguery and responsible arguments,” (507). This is trying to strike a sense of responsibility to the audience of how they should be good citizens and good voters, which is catering to good moral character. He also tries to reassuringly touch upon the goodwill of his audience, as he implies that being educated is the right thing to do, and that it is a justified quest that would never end. He says that “one of the marks of an educated person is the recognition that it can never be adequately done and is therefore all the more worth doing,” (508). This would be the best weapon, in Delbanco’s opinion, to counter the bombardments of messages that people get through advertisements on who to vote for.
The pathos method of arguing uses the audience’s emotions to persuade them into agree with the writer’s subject matter, or otherwise arouse specific emotional reactions to statements made. Delbanco opens his essay with an emotional appeal to a frustrated student, as he says that “college means the anxious pursuit of marketable skills in overcrowded, under-resourced institutions. For others, it means traveling by night to a
a fluorescent office building or to a “virtual classroom” that only exists in cyberspace,” (505). This is supposed to elicit dismay in a reader who understand the monotony of the college experience when it is not ideal, but it is also used to build anticipation so that the reader can become intrigued in what would make college worth it despite feelings of anxiety that college can create. Further in his essay, Delbanco used an analogy of people smoking in order to make a point about how the money spent in college shouldn’t really matter. He says “reducing the incidence of disease by curtailing smoking may actually end up costing us more, since people who don’t smoke live longer and eventually require expensive therapies for chronic diseases and the inevitable infirmities of old age,” (507), although he does not quote who came up with this information. He is saying this as contrast to the train of thought that smoking would cause diseases and would end up costing people more due to treatment. A statement like this is meant to shock the reader, and elicit the feeling of surprise so that the reader can pay more attention to his argument. His main point in bringing up the smoking analogy was that “measuring the benefit as a social cost or gain does not quite get the point the best reason to care about college is not what it does for society in economic terms but what it can do for individuals,” (507). In essence, he uses the element of astonishment and idealistic hope to drive a point forward that the money spent on a college education, while very expensive, is worth it for the experiences of an individual and all that an individual can benefit from it.
Delbanco also uses the logos method in directing his arguments. He uses deductive reasoning as he starts his economic argument, where he states that the declining attendance at universities “apply disproportionately to minorities, who are a growing portion of the American population,” (506). He also mentions that students from affluent families are also more likely to be accepted into more prestigious universities than low-income students. He uses these specific statements to draw a conclusion that “since prestigious colleges serve as funnels into leadership positions in business, law, and government, this means that our ‘best’ colleges are doing more to foster than to retard the growth of inequality in our society,” (506). His essay will also sometimes be riddled with logical fallacies. For example, in explaining his last argument that college is meant to teach students liberal arts and expose them to the finer elements of life, he uses an anecdotal to appeal to the audience, by describing an alumnus who stood up to say that college gave him “an education that teaches to enjoy life,” (508). He uses this instance to argue philosophically about how an education that teaches the elements of enjoyment and wonder is a “hedge against utilitarian values. It slakes the human craving for contact with works of art that somehow register one’s own longings and yet exceed what one has been able to articulate by and for oneself,” (508). Going back to the smoking analogy that he used to describe the economic situation, that entire thread was a Texas Sharpshooter fallacy, where he would find a pattern in his philosophical argument about smoking in order to argue that the money spent on a degree would be beneficial for the individual. This is also done without actually discussing data and facts about the economics of a college education.
All in all, Delbanco makes interesting arguments that to many readers may seem to make sense. It seems to make sense that an individual should seek to get an education because it would improve political understanding, and that it would expose the student to many aspects about life that would otherwise not be available. It also makes idealistic sense that a person should go after a college education no matter the cost because of all the individual benefits. Delbanco uses all three methods of argument at his disposal for the essay, such as ethos, pathos, and logos. The essay appeals to the good moral character of the audience, and it also appeals to emotions of astonishment in order to persuade the reader to agree with his statements. Deductive reasoning was also used in order to use logic to persuade the reader into believing that this is a smart argument. However, there are logical fallacies that plague the paper, and any bit of scrutiny, analysis or cynicism would easily expose this.
Works Cited
Delbanco, Andrew. “A College Education: What Is Its Purpose?” College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be. 2012, pp. 505-509.
