As freshmen in an ENGL101H class at the University of Maryland, College Park, we are learning about rhetoric and how it helps form an argument. Together, we created a blog that analyzes and compares two songs using rhetoric to express environmentalist messages: “Don’t Go Near the Water” (1971) by the Beach Boys and “Why You’d Want to Live Here” (2007) by Death Cab for Cutie. As the runners of the blog, we all share an interest in environmental conservation and in music. The Beach Boys and Death Cab for Cutie, respectively, vocalized their contrasting outlooks on the environmental issues of their times using style and appeals to pathos.
The 1960s were obviously a time of reform and in the 21st century, many of those movements made a recurrence, including environmentalism. The critical state of Earth now has invoked aggression and anger within the public, which is illustrated by Death Cab for Cutie’s cynical tone. The Beach Boys had a comparatively hopeful tone, most likely because the environmental problems had just been realized so the public still had hope. As our blog suggests, the two songs are similar in the way that they sing about the ecological destruction humans are causing, yet they are different in their outlooks on the environmental movement. Therefore, they have a collective message that we are killing the environment and need to take action instead of ignoring the problem.
Throughout our blog we tried to order our posts to most effectively convey the collective message of the two songs. We began with kairos and the rhetorical situation to give readers the background and meaning of the environmentalist movement. Next we analyzed how the two bands established ethos because we believed it was important to give the bands credibility before analyzing them further so readers would be more effectively impacted by the messages of both songs. Then in our pathos posts we concentrated on the emotions and feelings of the reader and how each band goes about creating these emotions. We followed with logos posts, which centered around the logic and facts the bands used to convey their message, to further persuade our readers to understand the reality of environmental problems with our readers’ vulnerability after pathos . Finally, the style concerns the different methods used by the two bands to rally their audience to join the environmentalist movement. We saved that for last as our final rally for our readers to change their views on the environment.
We encourage readers to truly reflect on how their actions and daily lifestyle choices impact the environment. Some of these choices cannot be changed without the help of the government. For example, only the government can set higher standards for the agricultural runoff caused by the raising of the chicken you eat for dinner or make low-emitting vehicles more cost-friendly. In the 1960s, people were fed up with the current ideals and methods of the government and wanted immediate change and gratification. Today, people are more complacent and unresisting towards the government, which is unfortunate because the current environmental stage calls for radical action and policy change. This compliancy is reflected in “Why You’d Want to Live Here” because of its bleak, cynical outlook. Death Cab for Cutie mainly laments on the issues of the environment but pose no solutions or ways to change it. Oppositely, “Don’t Go Near the Water” is optimistic since the Beach Boys communicate to the listeners that there is something we can do. In this blog we wish to encourage readers to care about our environment for the greater good of ourselves and future generations.
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