Is the arguments in "The Perils of Indifference"- by Elie Weisel logical arguments?
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In Elie Weisal's speech that he made before President and Hillary Clinton, Weisal was trying to present the damages that can be caused by indifference versus anger or any other type of reaction. If one were to determine if he used logic, he used the appropriate structure for a logical argument.
Weisal provided a series of declarative statements explaining the nature of indifference and followed it up with the damages that can be caused by indifference. He spoke of the people and countries that knew about the events but did nothing. The events were not directly related to their well being. To be indifferent meant to have no response or emotion to a situation like the men who wore blankets in the camps. They were dead to the world feeling no pain, hunger, emotions, or feelings.
Weisal provided good support for his remarks through his use of examples. I believe he provided good support for his title.
I think that the arguments presented in Wiesel's speech are highly logical and force democratic societies that stand for freedom and tolerance to examine their own policies and predispositions. For example, when Wiesel criticizes America of the 1930s for silence, it is a logical analysis of American intervention in the war. The mythic retelling of American entry into World War II was to stand for democracy and freedom, whose antithesis was present in the form of Hitler and the Nazis. Yet, Wiesel points to FDR's and the government's silence to the problem, even rejecting Jewish refugees who escaped from death only to be sent back to it. The idea of demanding voice in the face of injustice and resisting silence and indifference as paths if one believes in freedom is of critical importance and logically made in Wiesel's speech. At the time of his writing, the ethnic cleansing happening in Rwanda and the war crimes perpetrated in the former Yugoslavian republic were moments where the United States had to reexamine its own position towards these and the points made in Wiesel's speech help to resolve any potential inaction that one might feel would be an appropriate course: "Indifference is not a response... it is a sin."
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