**First I revisit my outline and decide which claim I’d like to develop first. Keep in mind that you don’t have to go in order, the order might change, the claims themselves might change (including the thesis), and each claim might need more than one paragraph to develop.
I.The article employs questions in three key moments of the article, each time an opportunity for the audience to decide what kind of socialist he is.
a.The first question posed by Einstein exists in the title.
b. The second question exists in the introduction and works both to establish the author’s ethos and to create a sense of authority in his reader.
c. The final questioning occurs in the article’s conclusion.
III. The cumulative effect of the particular rhetorical device of questioning in Einstein’s article serves as a powerful example of how a philosopher—and Einstein speaks as a philosopher in this work—can and often does manipulate his audiences into acting out of a strong sense of responsibility, if not guilt.
IV. Conclusion: Although the interrogative strategy Einstein uses greatly affects his audience, socialist party members and sympathizers, the strategy is not likely to work well—and indeed didn’t—given the relationship between guilt and anger, and anger’s propensity to win when the two emotions battle on the fields of social landscape; it is a good lesson for all revolutionaries.
**I ask myself: What questions do I need to answer in order to prove that my claim is true? and what evidence will my reader need to feel convinced that I’m right?
The second question exists in the introduction and works both to establish the author’s ethos and to create a sense of authority in his reader. This question begins the article’s content: “Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism?” (55). To ask if something is “advisable” is to imply that someone has power, the power to give advice, and that someone is asking for or needs that advice in a particular situation. “Is it advisable” begs the questions “for whom” and “by whom.” Ostensibly, given the phrase “one who is not an expert on economic and social issues” refers to the speaker himself, as Einstein, who is well known at the time of this article’s publication as an expert in mathematics and physics, not in “economics and social issues.” But given this is an article published in the inaugural issue of a socialist magazine in America just before McCarthyism, it’s also likely that the readers themselves are largely not “experts on economic and social issues.” They are likely intellectuals of various disciplines, or upper middle class educated people intrigued by the notion of socialism. So the question “is it advisable” positions the reader both as someone in a position to “ask for advice,” in this sense from Einstein– who is not “an expert” as he confesses, in the context of this magazine, but who clearly has something to contribute–and as someone who has the power to give advice, for the reader is likely, like Einstein, not “an expert” in the context of this article. So at the onset, Einstein establishes both his own authority as someone who should speak, but also the authority of the reader, who is subtly compared with and accepted as “like” Einstein. It is a very powerful rhetorical move, as Einstein is able to raise the confidence and spirit of his readership by virtue of lending them his own ethos.
**Notice the parts of this paragraph: Claim, evidence, explanation of evidence: How does the evidence prove the claim is true?
**Notice how the evidence is explained in terms of how a particular rhetorical strategy works on a particular audience.
**How might this discussion expand from here?
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