Fangzhou Li

UWP 001 008

Word Count: 1355

Can You Keep Ones Voice Silent?

Analysis of Sunday Commentary: Shutting Down Those
You Disagree With Is Not An Answer by David Greenwald

Background information: On January 13th, 2017, there was a serious protest held
by students in University of California, Davis, which lead the cancellation of
speech of Milo Yiannopoulous on that day. David Greenwald, the founder and one
of the main editors of Davis Vanguard, posts his article, Sunday Commentary:
Shutting Down Those You Disagree With Is Not An Answer, to criticize the
behavior of protesting by UCD students.

According to What Is Rhetoric? (1995) by William Covino and David Jolliffe,

the commonest definition of rhetoric is the study and the practice of shaping content.
As an experienced writer, David Greenwald is familiar with how to convince the
audience by his rhetorical techniques so that his writing is supposed to be rhetorically
well organized. Greenwald shows his disagreement with the decision of cancelling Milo
Yiannopoulous speech on campus. In the article Sunday Commentary: Shutting Down
Those You Disagree With Is Not An Answer, Greenwald successfully conveys his idea
that shutting down Yiannopoulous voice not only will not eliminate his racist and sexist
comments, but also will spread his ideas and thoughts. In this article of mine, I would
like to study how Greenwald utilizes his rhetorical techniques, including the tone, the
citation, the evidence, and the method of persuasion, to achieve the reveal of his
political belief of free speech.

First, I want to talk about how Greenwalds article meets its rhetorical situation.
In What Is Rhetoric? (1995), the authors point out that an article or a speech is
successful while it meets the rhetorical situation which involve three factors, the
audience, the exigence, and the constraint. In Greenwalds article, the audience of the
article is the people who care about the activity of Milo Yiannopoulous, and most of
them have negative thoughts about Yiannopoulous, and the exigence of the audience is
how to lessen hate speeches. Though the article does not reveal the agreement with
Milo Yiannopoulous, the urge that allowing Greenwalds speech is unacceptable to the
audience. It is more difficult to convince people who are in anger, so, considering about
this constraint, a conversational tone can help to smooth protesters anger caused by
Milo Yiannopoulous so that the audience is more willing to listen to what the article
says. For example, in his article he says, I do not like the ideas of the students
protesting his (Yiannopoulous) speech to be belittled. Greenwald shows that he
understands the action of the students in UC Davis before he starts to argue that he
disagrees with their protesting. Even though the author owns more knowledge and
experience in politics than most people do, he does not speak strictly and sharply from
a higher position. Using a gentle tone eliminates the gap between the audience and
Greenwald, an editor, which also allows the audience to read his article peacefully so
that Greenwald can convince his audience more easily and successfully, and strengthens
his belief of free speech.

Second, Greenwald utilizes quotes of well-known and authorized philosophers,

such as Voltaire, Noam Chomsky. In the article, David Greenwald argues that only free
speech can eventually eliminate hate speech. Therefore, Greenwald mentions that I do
not have to agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,
by Voltaire, and If we dont believe in freedom of expression for people we despise,
we dont believe in it at all, by Noam Chomsky. Voltaire was a great philosopher, who
was also an advocator of free speech. He devoted himself to the campaign of protecting
the freedom of thoughts, so Voltaires statement is very powerful for Greenwalds
article. Also, Chomsky is a modern famous linguist, who was also called as the father
of modern linguistics. He also strongly supports the freedom of expression in both
academic and political areas. Greenwald chooses two authorized advocators of from
different areas, for comprehensively showing the importance of free speech. Therefore,
Greenwald believes that people should not shut down Milo Yiannopoulous speeches
even though he is a racist and sexist hate speaker. In Greenwalds opinion, blocking
ones voice only arises the curiosity of the public do that more people will be eager to
listen to the voice of that person. And if this situation happens, the audience will be
more easily influenced by speakers. For instance, Greenwald cites, pretty much
everyone else agrees with at least some of what Im saying, and but you have no right
to deny others the chance to (come to a Milo Yiannopoulous lecture), said by Milo
Yiannopoulous. Objectively, almost everyone agrees what Yiannopoulous says above,
and he or she may reconsider that whether the rest of Yiannopoulous thought is also
correct. As Yiannopoulous said, there are some valuable sources in his speech, and
Greenwald uses this sentence to let readers to realize that denying everything
Yiannopoulous is saying is irrational. Greenwald focuses on convincing the audience
by the importance of free speech, and his citations and quotes are well utilized so that
the content of his argument becomes solider and clearer.

Third, Greenwald gives very illustrative evidence to show that blocking Milo
Yiannopoulous speeches can only bring bad effects. Even the most reasonable and
logical argument will not be trustworthy without a proof, so showing a good evidence
is an important basic of rhetoric. Greenwald shows the fact that Twitter permanently
banned Yiannopoulous; however, Yiannopoulous more than 300,000 followers rallied
posts with the #FreeMilo hashtag. The fact shows that the action of blocking ones
voice eventually raises the loudness of that voice. It not only motivates an enormous
amount of followers to start spreading Yiannopoulous thoughts, but also allows this
campaign to be shown on televisions, radios, and newspaper. The evidence is
illustrative because this is the fact happened recently and closely to the people who
were cautious of Milo Yiannopoulous. Greenwald infers that UCD students should not
repeat the fault that was made by Twitter. This connects to the idea of the author that
Yiannopoulous is expecting protesters to make him more famous. Once there is the
cancellation of his speech, more news will report about this incident, and more people
will know about Yiannopoulous. This evidence is talking about what happened nearly
to the audience, which is impressive and reflexive for them. Therefore, this evidence
helps people to reconsider that if blocking ones voice is a correct solution dealing with
hate speech.

Overall, we understand that rhetoric is how we shape and reveal peoples

expression. During the event of Milo Yiannopoulous, we learned that the students and
David Greenwald have different ways of expression. The students did not concern about
rhetoric but presses the campus to shut down Yiannopoulous speech, while David
Greenwald utilized rhetorical method to persuade the audience. As a result, the students
did succeed to cancel the event on campus, but Milo Yiannopoulous become stronger
because of the protest. They failed to consider the exigence and the constraints of the
situation; however, Greenwald points out that the exigence is eliminating hate speech,
and he shapes his way of expression by the rhetorical constraints. Therefore, in my
opinion, I think what Greenwald says will help to solve the problem of hate speech in
the future.

So, what does Greenwald show to us? He believes that to make the protesters stop,
he must convince them that blocking ones voice enlarges that persons thoughts. I
studied how the rhetoric of his article works out. David Greenwald considers the
rhetorical situation well, and provides citations and evidence according to that
rhetorical situation. Eventually, Greenwald achieves to show his points of view
successfully, and his ideas make the audience evoke a deeper thought free speech. I
agree with his idea that we need to embrace out right of free speech, and this means we
need to accept even the ideas we disagree with. Then how should we do to those
thoughts we do not agree with? According to Greenwald we should ignore, or discuss
and come up with ideas to counterattack, and then we can lessen the spread of hate
speech.
Reference:

Greenwald, David. Sunday Commentary: Shutting Down Those You Disagree With Is

Not the Answer. Davis Vanguard.

www.davisvanguard.org/2016/12/sunday-commentary-shutting-disagree-not-

answer/. Accessed 11 December 2016.

Covino, William, and Jolliffe, David. Rhetoric: Concept, Definitions, Boundaries.

Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 1995.