Rocko402003’s Weblog

For almost two years now, since I have arrived in Austin, I constantly heard that I “needed” to go to Whole Foods Market.  There was a constant buzz from the locals that I knew here, and wondered what could be so great about this place.  Finally, after spending two years in Austin I made my way to the popular franchise.  Granted, had we not been assigned to visit the store for class, I may have never gone; a market that’s all about organic, all natural food products just didn’t catch my interest.  After spending time in the store, I finally realized what all the hype was about.

There’s no doubt that Whole Foods offers a wide variety of products that are all natural, organic, and healthy.  In fact, so much so that I have never in my life seen such an array of items like this, in one place, in my life.  I couldn’t help but to notice, though, that all of the products carried by Whole Foods came attatched with a hefty price tag.  For a while, I had heard people refer to it as “Whole Price,” and finally understood why.  The items that you were being pushed to buy that were supposed to be better for you, could easily dent your wallet.  Even though these products were high in price, it almost seemed as if every single product had a story attatched to it justifying a reason to buy the product so that you could ignore it’s cost. 

It sounds odd to say that the products in a supermarket utilize pathos to sell their product, but this was exactly the case at Whole Foods Market.  Almost every single product in the store had a backstory as to how it came to be, how the company rose from nothing but a smart idea, and how their goal was utimately the health of its consumers and the bettermant of mankind.  All of this back story from organic sodas, chips, toilet paper,  and even dog food, all so that you could buy their product.  By doing this the companies tried to identify with their consumer and sympethise with them in a way that you probably wouldn’t see on the mass produced products in most supermarkets.  This method is then furthered by whole foods by different stories at the ends of the isles blaring their mission statement as to how they care about their consumers, and why the merchandise that they carried was the best to buy because of how much they cared.  I realize how repetative this sounds, and the truth is, that’s what the entire store felt like, one huge repetative statement after another.  You become so focused on these stories and they establish credibility for the product that, irnically, you get sucked into to wanting to buy the product, despite the price. 

If everything is an argument, then what makes it credible, hold the power to change people’s opinions, and still make a point?  I knew before hand that utilizing ethos and pathos in an argument could turn into a volatile combination if they aren’t used correctly; once I started reading more into the chapter in Everything Is An Argument, on logos, I wondered what kind of an impact on argument these 3 elements could have if they were all combined together.   Once I started thinking about it, though, I realized that I see examples of these combinations all the time, both good and bad.  When you have a credible source (ethos), just enough emotional appeal (pathos), and present it in a manner that allows you to either let facts speak for themselves, or allow people’s common sense to kick in, then the combination for an argument is perfect.  One example of this that I think is a representation of this perfect combination is the public service announcement in the book, ch. 5, pg. 111.  This PSA is one that most people are familiar with presented by the Texas Department of public Safety to stop people from drinking and driving.  The Texas DPS is a credible source, and there is enough emotional appeal in the announcement to pull at people’s heart strings.  The combination of these two things, help logos kick in by sparking off common sense- if you don’t drink and drive, you won’t be responsible for horribly injuring someone with something that they will need to deal with for the rest of their lives.  In class we spoke about the different ways to combine all these different elements to help make an effective argument, and this ad is a perfect representation of what was discussed. 

I know that for these blogs, it’s best to tie what we’ve learned from class and the book to outside elements.  However, the PSA in the book, I think tied everything together so well, and I couldn’t really get past that. Since, my brain kept coming back to this image, this is what I decided to write about.

The title is self explanitory (sorry, no exciting insight on anything here)

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