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Fur Trade

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Submitted By alexivedo
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Take off that darn fur coat!

“Fur fashion conjures a strange rapport between humans and beasts; humans pose frequently in fur while their furry cousins often pose for extinction.”-Martin Dansky. Born Free USA is an animal rights organization that campaigns for animal rights, including stopping the use of fur as fashion. In a particular article, “The Cruelty of Fur Trim”, the organization talks about the evils of the fur trade business and why even purchasing just the trim is supporting the business. This piece was published December 12, 2002 on the Born Free USA website. The author of this piece is targeting those who are participating in fur fashion and those who protest it. In writing this article the author is hoping to convey to the audience the cruelty and acts of inhumanity that are part of the fur industry. This article is emotionally powerful and is backed by evidence; however, it does fall into many fallacy traps.

The author of “The Cruelty of Fur Trim” relies heavily on pathos appeals. The author describes how theses animals will often try and chew themselves out of a trap or go literally insane before they are killed. Instead of logically reaching out to the reader, the author is trying to appeal their sympathies. Hitting the pathos appeal can be very effective in persuading especially in the more emotional audience. On the other hand, this strategy can backfire when the audiences happens to be a more factual person. The author also uses terms like “body-gripping”, “body crushing”, “tiny and barren” to describe the cages that the animals are kept in before their pelts are extracted. The terms “horrific” and “suffering” can be seen throughout the article as well. These emotionally charged words paint a vivid picture in the reader’s mind that in unpleasant.

This article does present a good amount of evidence. Most of the evidence presented referenced some sort of a source but it was not specific. On example is “A recent national survey revealed that women and men ages 25-35 know little about trapping.” The writer noted that the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies conducted the survey but that was the extent of the information about the survey. To make this evidence stronger, the author should have explained who exactly were being polled, if a poll like this was done before, and how the polling was done. The writer uses phrases like “millions of consumers across North America” to talk about a number. However, this number can range from two million to 500 million, which is a significant difference. Another example of how the author was not making the best use of evidence is when they said, “According to producers, however, 90 percent of foxes raised on farms are killed for the fur trim market.” To make this evidence sufficient we need to know who are the producers and what exactly are they producing. Without being more specific with evidence, the author runs the risk of not being reputable.

Many fallacies can be found within the words of this article. Throughout the article the author uses many ambiguous words and phrases. A few that stand out the most are the words “powerful”, “activist”, and “consumer.” These are words that can have multiple meanings both denotatively and connotatively. The author should have defined the ones that can be defined and explain the intended meaning of the others. Having such ambiguous words can distort the message that is conveyed to different types of audiences. I also picked up on a slippery slope fallacy. The author explained how ignorance about animal cruelty has led to a staggering growth in the fur trim trade and that will lead to even more animals getting brought into the market. The author is basically saying that by not informing people about the fur trade that it will start on an uncontrollable incline. Instead of proposing disastrous outcomes, the author should explain the increase of the fur trade with evidence of why it is on the rise. I also caught a little bit of a red herring being used in part of the article. The article’s theme throughout has been about the cruelty of the fur trim trade and how it can be reduced. The author though deviated from its theme and started talking about the Chinese problem with animal cruelty. This topic is slightly relative to the article’s topic but it was not necessary and does not apply to the author’s thesis. These most of these fallacies weren’t too strong and they could have been easily avoided.

“The Cruelty of Fur Trim” did an adequate job of informing and possibly persuading the issue of animal cruelty used in fashion. The author made some mistakes in using fallacies to drive their point. They could have just as easily informed the reader without using cheap, easy words and phrases. The author was using a very strong pathos appeal while trying to express their ideas and opinions. Using pathos is a good tool and can be effective, but in this essay it was close to going to far. The author could have fixed this by balancing the pathos with more, good evidence. Personally, this article did have an impact on me and persuaded me towards the author’s opinion until I started going through it more closely. Even after finding the fallacies, they weren’t extreme enough to deviate me from agreeing with the author.

Works Cited

Browne, M. Neil, and Stuart M. Keeley.Asking the right questions: a guide to critical thinking. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2001. Print.

"The Cruelty of Fur Trim." Welcome to Born Free USA. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Oct. 2013. <http://www.bornfreeusa.org/articles.php?p=371&more=1>

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