Term Paper on "Jerry Mander & Patrick J. Hurley"

Term Paper 4 pages (1408 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Jerry Mander & Patrick J. Hurley

There are certainly bright, informed individuals who have read Jerry Mander's book, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television and see great social value in his narrative, albeit some of his assumptions and assertions defy logic. There are also those like critic Peter Sourian (the Nation, April 22, 1978) who view the author as a crackpot whose book is just a "feckless bibliography that is little more useful than a long pedigree for a hunting dog that can't hunt."

Sourian, a Harvard-educated professor of English, insists that Mander uses "flimsy and often unclearly described evidence" to support his contentions. And while this paper agrees with the tone of Sourian's presentation the paper will critique the logic of Mander's offering based on Patrick J. Hurley's book, a Concise Introduction to Logic. To begin with, Hurley (vii) writes that there are many good reasons to study and understand logic. One of those reasons, he explains, relates to the need to "construct sound arguments" for one's self, and to be able to "evaluate the arguments of others." The soundness of Sourian's book needs to be placed under close review.

A second reason Hurley gives for understanding logic - "on a broader scale" - is that by "focusing attention on the requirement for reasons or evidence to support our views, logic provides a fundamental defense against the prejudiced and uncivilized attitudes that threaten..." our society. Does television threaten our society? Or is Mander simply using his best

Looking at Mander's book from the perspective of Hurley, among the initial obvious weaknesses in Mander's approach several are found in Mander's "Illusion of Neutral Technology" (Mander, 43). Mander is building the case for his four arguments by making a number of inferential claims (Hurley, 14). Though his arguments in this series of six implicit inferences (claiming that there is a valid inference simply because the reader can discern a relationship between two statements in a passage) are meant to prepare the reader for the real "clout" of his thesis (the four arguments), the inferences are build upon a weak logical foundation: loosely associated statements. He is dealing with inferences here in which generalizations do not assure a truthful or believable conclusion. In fact sometimes his conclusion is in the premise, and the premise is built on a slippery slope.

On page 44 for example Mander states in his premise that "If you accept nuclear power plants, you also accept a techno-scientific-industrial-military elite." A group of friends just gathering to socialize could not build a nuke, nor could they properly deal with the highly radioactive waste, he posits. And because the military and the scientific community - and not the consumers of the electricity produced by the nuke - will be held accountable for the safe storage of the waste, therefore the conclusion to the premise must be true. But it's not. Nothing has been proven here and the example suffers from a weak analogy. The supposed chain reaction of his arguments just does not stand up to logic in the end.

Also on page 44, he writes about "mass production": if one accepts mass production, then one must accept that humans will be "...engaged in repetitive work" (this part of the premise is believable) and while at work these workers will be "...suppressing any desires for experience or activity beyond this work." This is a weak induction; yes, of course huge amounts of items will be produced and yes, Mander is right that a small number of supervisors will oversee a "much larger number of people." But he slips into those premises and conclusion the suppression of "any desires for experience or activity" outside of the factor. The premises do not support the conclusions.

And on page 45, Mander really stretches credulity in a huge way; if one accepts "the existence of advertising," then logically that same person accepts that this is a system that, among other things, is designed "...to dominate minds by interfering in people's thinking patterns." Outrageous is about the only adequate adjective for Mander's assertion that "No person who did not wish to dominate others would choose to use advertising..." (Mander, 45). He has a double negative in here, which… READ MORE

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