Everyone's a Critic

David Harned

Prof Brown

24 March, 2012

English 1B

Everyone’s a Critic

In the article believe me its torture, Christie Hutchins describes his own experience with water boarding and how that if water boarding isn't torture, nothing is torture. He tries to go ahead and bring in the emotion and feel towards water boarding by actually going ahead and having the experience himself. This does give him a great advantage in writing this article especially the logos side of things.

First off let’s talk about how Christopher Hutchins uses the strategy of pathos to appeal to his audience. The fact that he went ahead and was actually water boarded gives him a great chance to bring real emotion to the table. An example that we can dive into is the scene that he paints before he is water boarded, "I was then turned around a few times, I presume to assist in disorienting me, and led over some crunchy gravel into a darkened room. Well, mainly darkened: there were some oddly spaced bright lights that came as pinpoints through my hood. And some weird music assaulted my ears. The outside world seemed very suddenly very distant indeed"(Hutchins). I believe that the author does a great job here of bringing the situation straight to our imagination. I can feel myself in some broken looking building, far away from civilization to where no one could hear any cries for help. This directly appeals to the emotional aspect of the human mind and allows the reader to be in the water boarding room with the author. Another example that Christopher Hutchins describes is the actual torture method, "The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face"(Hutchins). Here the reader can almost feel the wet paw damp on their face and how once a person finally has to breathe in all he or she would take in is water, thus feeling the sense of drowning. Another piece of emotion that he puts into this article is when he almost drowned when he was a little kid and how that relates to the torture room in the book 1984, "I do have a fear of drowning that comes from a bad childhood moment on the Isle of Wight, when I got out of my depth. As a boy reading the climactic torture scene of 1984, where what is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world, I realize that somewhere in my version of that hideous chamber comes the moment when the wave washes over me."(Hutchins). Right he we are able to picture Christopher Hutchins as a kid drowning to the depth of the ocean. Bringing a kid to the equation allows the reader to relate to kids in their life and how terrible it would be for them to drown. Also the fact that he was able to have an actual event happen where he almost drowned as a child gives the reader another dose of realness. If it was a random incident of a kid drowning the effect would of not be as effective because Christopher Hutchins already has credibility as the writer of the article and his experiences hit closer to home and gives the article a real turning feeling. Even having the kid version of Christopher Hutchins reading 1984 is significant because again it gives the reader the segway to look at their children and imagine them in that scenario. Overall the author does a great job of using the pathos strategy in the article.

Another strategy that the Author demonstrates is the fairness to opposing views and also showing that he is a credible person to be talking on the subject.  First off he gives instant credibility by stating that he will indeed be water boarded, "Exploring this narrow but deep distinction, on a gorgeous day last May I found myself deep in the hill country of western North Carolina, preparing to be surprised by a team of extremely hardened veterans who had confronted their country’s enemies in highly arduous terrain all over the world. They knew about everything from unarmed combat to enhanced interrogation and, in exchange for anonymity, were going to show me as nearly as possible what real waterboarding might be like"(Hutchins). This article isn't just about a man who has testimony from stories of random people this is a story of his actual experience with water boarding. Although this is all well and good there are some problems that I can see about his credibility for example Christopher Hutchins is 59 and the people who are going to water board him state that, "Waterboarding is for Green Berets in training, or wiry young jihadists whose teeth can bite through the gristle of an old goat. It’s not for wheezing, paunchy scribblers"(Hutchins). Although this is a dent to his credibility it gets enhanced by what he says later in the paragraph, "I had had to produce a doctor’s certificate assuring them that I did not have asthma, but I wondered whether I should tell them about the 15,000 cigarettes I had inhaled every year for the last several decades"(Hutchins). This really almost blows his credibility right out the window which is a shame because he brings so many good points in this article, and the fact that he goes through the actual experience of water boarding gives him almost all the creditability he needs. Navigating from the creditability standpoint to seeing if he is fair to the opposing side it seems like Christopher Hutchins does give the other side a chance to bring in their augment. For example, "When contrasted to actual torture, waterboarding is more like foreplay. No thumbscrew, no pincers, no electrodes, no rack. Can one say this of those who have been captured by the tormentors and murderers of (say) Daniel Pearl?"  It's important to bring the other sides position to appeal to them from that standpoint. It is also important for the author to respond to that claim and he does by relating Abraham's Lincoln's moral stand point to water boarding by saying, “'If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.' Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture."(Hutchins) and also that, “Water boarding is a potentially dangerous activity in which the participant can receive serious and permanent (physical, emotional and psychological) injuries and even death, including injuries and death due to the respiratory and neurological systems of the body"(Hutchins). Here the reader can see that although it isn't any thumbscrew, no pincers, no electrodes, no rack; they are still physical, emotional, and psychological injuries to the person being water boarded. At the end of the day Christopher Hutchins does a great job of using ethos to appeal to his audience.

Another point to be made is the author uses the strategy of logos to persuade his readers to agree with him. The evidence that the author has in the article is quite remarkable and is intensified by the fact that he gets water boarded himself.  Also he can justify his claim very easily because he is justifying himself, not someone else's story. He does a great job of incorporating his experiences to the facts of what water boarding does.

Lastly the article has a great sense of kairos or appeal to timeliness. This article was written at the height of the water boarding debate and had a perfect kairos level. If the article was written right after 9/11 then that would kill all of his arguments because everyone would be so focused on the inability to relate and show compassion to the victims. Although we have the same arguments, we have a much different result based on when the article gets released. For example if another 9/11 happened tomorrow by Middle East terrorist, it would not be a good idea to go ahead and write an article about how we are winning the war on terror. The fact that Christopher Hutchins waited years after 9/11 to write this article shows his readers that he has a great sense of kairos.

In the article, "Belief Me Its Torture" Christopher Hutchins does a great job of pathos, ethos, logos, and kairos. Pathos by using descriptive language in describing his water boarding experiment, ethos by being creditable and giving the other side a chance to bring up their points, logos by justifying his own experience of being water boarded, and kairos by waiting years after 9/11 to give respect to the victims. Overall the article really has a great argument on how water boarding is torture.