“The Declaration of Independence”,
to me, was a wonderful work of literature. Honestly, I had never in my life read the entire thing because I was never
given the assignment to. I actually
really liked the work. The thing that really stood out to me was how logical it
was. "The Declaration of Independence" was the United States written formal
statement as to why they wanted to split away from Great Britain. The work was
literally a record of the reasons why they had the right to pull away and be
their own country. It was very persuasive to me, and i found myself agreeing with them many times.
Thomas Jefferson uses several affective techniques in this work to persuade
readers to his side and also to gain their understanding.
The
majority of the persuasive techniques described in the “Recognizing Propaganda
Techniques and Errors of Faulty Logic” article were describing ‘bad’ and ‘tricky’
ways to persuade someone. They weren’t really being described as good and effective way to persuade, and
to me, weren’t assumed to be used in a good way. Thomas Jefferson, however,
uses several of the techniques but the way he uses them appears to support his
argument well. His major argument was that the Colonies should break away from
Britain. He was trying to justify this. The main way he justified his reasons
was by using the propaganda technique of “Name Calling”. He attached a bad
feeling and name to King George, and listed off the unjustified things he
did that drove the Colonies to rebel, using words like “tyranny”, “refused”, “swarms”, and “harass”. An example of this was when Jefferson said, “He
has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the
lives of our people” (Jefferson 124). He goes on later and says that King
George is sending over armies to “complete the works of death, desolation, and
tyranny,” (Jefferson 124). Jefferson continues this listing of Georges unjustly
acts, and makes sure to leave nothing out. To me, King George does NOT sound like an
enjoyable guy, and that is exactly
what Jefferson wants. George was a
bad guy, and his cruelty to the colonies justified Jefferson’s want to split
from them.
There
were some other major propaganda tecniques I noticed as I read on that may or may
not qualify as faulty logic. Thomas Jefferson did not use specific examples. He
was very general about everything, and made everything seem like it had occurred
often instead of noting specific times when it did. For example, “He has dissolved
representative houses repeatedly” (Jefferson 123). Notice, he says ‘repeatedly’.
He doesn’t list off the different times the king did it, or who he did it to,
he just says ‘repeatedly’ and assumes everyone will know. In the same tokenJefferson also uses a technique
similar to “card stacking”. He tells all the bad occurrences and withholds every
good one, leaving the audience to assume that King George didn’t do anything good at ALL. And for all we
know, he might not have. Jefferson only repetitively mentions all of the
wrongful things George did, and with each event, the audience finds themselves appalled
by how terrible George was as a king.
In conclusion, “The Declaration of Independence” was successful at persuasion. If it hadn’t been, we might not be the free country we are today. Someone had to write it, and someone had to justify the reasons to split. This document was a logical listing of why the colonies had the right to pull away from great Britain, and Jefferson used several propaganda techniques like name calling and card stacking to get his point across and gain an understanding.
Jefferson, Thomas. "The Declaration of Independence."
Glencoe American Literature.
N.p.: McGraw-Hill, n.d. 82-85. Print.
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