Analyzing Erik Kain's Essay 'In Defense Of Consumerism'
514 Words3 Pages
970468578 1/13/15 English 102I/11:30-12:20 Professor Chen-Johnson Critique Assignment #1 (“In Defense of Consumerism”) I believe that Erik Kain in his short essay “In Defense of Consumerism” had a strong argument for the most part. I took that his claim of the essay was somewhere along the lines of: “Consumerism is often misread and can be boiled down to values, and that maybe consumerism isn't that bad if we look at it from a different pair of eyes”. He gives multiple reasons for the claim that I interpreted above. These reasons are stated all from paragraph four through ten. Such as: even though we buy all these useless things that we don't need, somewhere down the line some needy family member gets a paycheck that keeps food on…show more content… Or how much of the economy rests on people buying things(311). Or how conforming to consumerism and actually buying that new car, couch, computer or whatever, may in fact help you.(310, 311) It just may truly make you happier. Erik Kain is defending consumerism in all of these claims and many more that I did not mention. In paragraph six, Kain talks about how people conform to consumerism so much yet they still protest against it all. “We even advertise these events online, probably via our new shiny Apple Macbook” (311). In this statement and paragraph as well, I think he is implicitly referring to how people are hypocritical a lot of the time when it comes to attacking consumerism. How we can say one thing and do another and that that has a strong grip on views of consumerism today. I think this is an important point and added a strong hand to this argument. He had many other strong points in the essay as well. In paragraph 2 he says: “Well let me be a defender of consumerism for a moment” (310). I believe this is a sign of a good rhetorical argument because he is analyzing both aspects of the issue. The side of most hatred on consumerism he analyzes and discuss for the majority of this short