April 29th, 2011
Rhetorical Essay
Leonoid Fridman in his essay “America needs its Nerds” claims that if
America keeps undermining its academic/intellectual achievements beneath social
achievement it will no longer be able to be considered a world class power.
Friedman’s purpose is to threaten the American people so they can start changing
their attitudes into prioritizing the achievement of knowledge and academic
excellence over social achievements and athletic ones. A sub purpose of his is also to
motivate “nerds” to not be ashamed of their intellectual curiosity, instead they
should be embracing it. He adopts an authoritative tone in order to aggressively
criticize the way Americans value social and academic achievements over
intellectual ones, to scorn American people for their prioritization so they feel
embarrassed and threatened to start valuing intellectual achievements more. In
order to get his point across with an authoritative tone he makes usage of
scholarly/academic diction, logos, and vivid imagery of the prototypical “nerd”.
In Leonid Fridman’s essay “America Needs Its Nerds” Fridman uses various
rhetorical strategies to convey his point, that being “nerdy” is not something to be
ashamed of, in fact, that in cultures outside the US, intelligence is something that is
highly valued and rewarded. Imagery, diction, and syntax are the three main
rhetorical strategies that Fridman uses in the first five paragraphs, although others
are present as well. The second paragraph is an excellent example of imagery,
because Fridman does not only give the definition of the word “geek,” he goes on to
further compare how, when we call a person a geek, it doesn’t have the meaning we
believe it does. The graphic imagery used to describe the definition, namely when
Fridman tells his audience that by calling someone a geek one is basically saying
that they enjoy biting the heads off of live chickens. Diction is another of Fridman’s
important strategies in the essay. His use of highly scholarly language shows his
audience that he is someone who is intelligent and proud of it, which adds to his
argument. Words such as “prestigious,” “ostracized,” and “idolized” all signify his
upper-level education, which also lends to his credibility. Last of the important
rhetorical strategies in this part of the essay is syntax. Sentence length is incredibly
important in this essay, because his use of long sentences creates a sort of flow,
which makes his short sentences, like “enough is enough,” both obvious and
important-sounding. His argument is strengthened by the presence of these
sentences, because it makes a point that the reader cannot miss. To conclude,
Fridman’s use of imagery, diction, and syntax strengthen his argument and convey
his point to the reader concisely.
In the portion of the essay following “Enough is enough” Fridman begins by
stating that nerds and geeks are “ashamed of who they are” and makes a statement
against this. He considers that in the United States, and very few other countries,
there is a sense of “anti-intellectualism.” By using this term, he implies that bullies,
or anyone who bothers nerds and geeks is only doing so because they consider that
being intelligent is a bad thing. In the first paragraph of this part the author uses
devices such as imagery and diction in order to persuade his audience that
April 29th, 2011
discriminating against smart people is wrong. One of the most vivid images is the
one of the nerd with thick glasses. Following the images that allude to the
personality and psychological situation of these discriminated high school “geeks
and nerds” and producing pity in the reader towards them the author goes on to use
concrete data to persuade the reader that this problem does not exist worldwide.
The author makes references to other industrialized nations, especially those in East
Asia, and to specific things such as salaries and professions. These sustain the
author’s point of view by pointing to the way that in Asia, “a kid who studies hard is
lauded and held up as an example to others.” The author then proceeds to
summarize his point by explaining that the United States and other “anti-intellectual
nations” are not going to be able to compete in the technology race against Japan
and other East Asian countries.
The academic diction, logos, vivid imagery, and varying syntax all ocnstruct
the authoritative tone which then persuades the American people to want to end the
embarrassment of academic excellence and to proudly pursue it instead. Now the
question is, will Americans step up to the plate and turn “nerds and geeks” into role
models.