Rhetorical Analysis

In Johnathan Marks’ TED Talk, delivered at PSU titled, “In Praise of Conflict,” Johnathan
uses a strong combination of ethos, logos, and pathos to make a compelling argument as to
why conflict should be seen in a more positive light and claims that conflict is far too often
avoided at the expense of the well-being of others. For context, The TED Talk was delivered to a
local audience at Penn State University, so it can be safely assumed that the target audience of
the persuasive speech was college students and professors.

When reading the title of the TED talk, I questioned how conflict could possibly be a
good thing, as I thought of conflict as a way to describe wars, brawls, and other events that
result in the harm of the general public. However, I surprisingly came to agree with his point of
view as he explained his reasoning for his beliefs. After Mark’s opening story, he proposed his
thesis, which is that governments cannot avoid conflict with corporations when cooperation
would ultimately hurt the people the government Is meant to protect.

At the beginning of his TED Talk, Johnathan Marks’ established ethos by explaining why
he is a credible source. The speaker said that he is a human rights lawyer, which in the context
of arguing about conflict to protect human rights, gave him credibility.

After his introduction, Jonathan leapt into explain how he was inspired to give the TED
Talk after encountering a man who left his job at the British Foreign Office. The man said that
he tried to start assisting with the human rights abuses in China. The boss, however, said that
they could not do anything about it because China was an important trade partner. The man
then asked his boss if they could work on fighting human rights abuses in Burma (now called
Myanmar). The boss responded that they could not do that either because they did not have
trade relations with Burma. The man was disheartened that Britain was too afraid of conflict to
help protect humans.
 Next, Marks gave his thesis statement which was a clever combination of both logos and
pathos which argued that claiming all conflict is bad is too simple of a stance. Jonathan states,
“We cannot know whether conflict is bad unless we know who is fighting, why they are fighting,
and how they are fighting. And compromises can be thoroughly rotten if they harm people who
are not at the table, people who are vulnerable, disempowered, people whom we have an
obligation to protect.” Marks’ statement follows proper reasoning, and it also taps into the
audience’s emotions by using words such as ‘vulnerable’ and ‘disempowered.’

Marks continued to use stories in his argument and used logos to convince the audience
of his point. Mark’s first example involved the basic function of the United States government.
He explained that the U.S. has an executive, judiciary, and legislative branch, which each have
their own responsibilities and have checks and balances. Marks argued that the checks and
balances can create a conflict between groups of people, but these checks and balances are
necessary for the benefit of the American people. In his second example, Marks stated that
healthy competition between airline companies can ensure fair prices for travelers, but the
airlines working together to keep prices high, also referred to as collusion, is ultimately harmful
to the people. In both cases, When the airlines have competition, they have conflict, but it
keeps prices low. When airlines cooperate and don’t have conflict, the prices stay high and that
is not good for the public. Marks provided digestible examples which clearly explained his point
that conflict can be good, which initially seemed like it would be difficult to defend. Jonathan
used examples which were easy to agree with in order to explain how conflict is necessary for
our government and companies to work effectively. After Jonathan discussed how it is
important for a government to have conflict within itself and for companies to have conflict
with other companies sharing the same market, Jonathan discussed why conflict is important
when the government and companies interact with each other.

Jonathan uses another example, along with logos, to show how the unhealthy
relationship between governments and corporations harm people. Jonathan talked about how
a United Nations agency collaborated with a large soda company to address poor sanitation in
schools in rural India. The soda company contributed less than one million dollars to a
government agency to help with the school and in return, “that corporation received the
benefits of a months-long promotional campaign including a 12-hour telethon all using the
company’s logo and color scheme” from the government. Jonathan argued that this harmed
the people because the United Nations agency failed to promote sustainability (soda bottles are
not good for the environment) and was helping promote sugary beverages in a country that
already has an issue with obesity. Marks argued that the agency’s collaboration with the
company harmed both India’s health and environment. Jonathan Marks used logos in this
example because he created a clear line of thought showing how the agency’s decision was
collaboration, not conflict, and was harmful to people.

Jonathan Marks continued to use logos to further stress how this type of collaboration
between governments and corporations can be harmful. He argued that to get along with
corporations, they find common ground, not common good. He argued that governments
compromising with companies often leads to harm to be done. Here, Jonathan used logos by
showing that by compromising, a government may give something up in order to appeal to a
company, who’s ultimate goal is money, not people’s well-being.

The speaker also made use of pathos by telling a disheartening story about how a family
was affected by the fracking industry. He described a family who worked hard and eventually
bought the house of their dreams. Unbeknownst to them, the oil company could frack on the
nearby land. The fumes from fracking make the family sick. Eventually, the family struck a deal
in which the company paid the family to move and get a fresh start, but only if they signed a
non-disclosure agreement. Marks blamed the government for allowing such non-disclosure
agreements as it prevented those who could help from knowing about the problem in the first
place. By setting up the story, Marks was able to put the audience into the family’s shoes so
that they felt very empathetic towards the family who was treated poorly by the company.
Marks used this disheartening story to argue that because the government did not stand up to
the company, which would have involved conflict, the family was taken advantage of. Marks
successfully made the audience feel anger towards the company for treating the family poorly,
and feel disappointment towards the government for failing to protect their people because of
fear of risking conflict.

At the end of the TED Talk, Jonathan Marks passionately declared that the government’s
purpose is to protect the public’s interest and their well-being and the government should fight
for the public.

Throughout his TED Talk, Jonathan used all three strategies, in a relatively formal
speech, to effectively convey why conflict is necessary to prevent businesses from taking
advantage of those who are unable to protect themselves. The TED Talk was appealing and
appropriate. It was appealing because it provided several examples and stories to keep the
audience engaged. The talk was not offensive because the speech remained serious for the
entirety and stressed how protecting our most vulnerable is critical. I tried to find logical
fallacies in the TED Talk, but I did not notice any.