Response to "Public Thinking" by Clive Thompson

Natalie Goetz

Professor Werry

RWS 100

3 September 2014

Response to “Public Thinking”

In most rhetoric texts, there is a main point the author tries to convey embedded in a variety of different forms of evidence and filler words used to guide the reader into taking the side of the writer, “Public Thinking” by Clive Thompson being a prime example. In his essay, he seeks an answer to the larger question: Is the invention of new technologies and other advancements hindering the American ability to write and analyze, or is it encouraging them to express their views and become more educated through works of others as well as their own? Thompson’s objective for his essay is to lead us towards a clear understanding of whether or not human advancements are key to increasing global awareness, communication and literacy focused on writing. Nevertheless, it becomes apparent through his copious amounts of evidence that he believes America is creating more opportunities to become literate through writing. Whether its through college research papers, blogs, or Facebook, Americans have obviously increased the amount they individually express themselves through writing. This is clear through Weinberg’s personal realization of an interesting element in “Moneyball”. “Weinberg’s process of crafting his idea—and trying to make it clever for his readers—had uncovered its true dimensions” (Thompson 54). This goes to show, that by nature, human understanding essentially lays in the composition of an idea through the eyes of the audience. However, this is just one form of evidence he uses to help the reader better understand his valid stance.

Although abundant in Thompson’s reasons for his belief that America is increasingly becoming more literate, there are 3 main forms of evidence that are properly executed in order to support his case. An experimental study done by professor Brenna Clarke Gray illustrates the audience affect on her students by assigning them to create a Wikipedia entry on Canadian writers. After her study, Gray shared that her students did significantly better on this assignment than the others primarily because they took it more seriously. She states, “It was like night and day” (56). 

In addition to this study, Thompson uses an incidence in history to support the idea that the way we think is a product of our environment. “If four astronomers discovered sunspots at the same time, it’s partly because of the quality of lenses in telescopes in 1611had matured to the point where it was finally possible to pick out small details on the sun and partly because the question of the sun’s role in the universe had become newly interesting in the wake of Copernicus’s heliocentric theory” (Thompson 59). This directly ties into present-day Americans and the development of the Internet as a place where they can freely express themselves through their individual and original writing.

One of Thompson’s concluding points includes a personal anecdote on Ernest Duchesne and his original discovery of penicillin. Due to the fact that Duchesne was young and not very well known, his writings of the discovery weren’t noticed. It took 47 years, and millions of people dead from diseases, for its rediscovery by Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming to finally be accepted by the public. “Failed networks kill ideas” (Thompson 61).  If Duchesne and Fleming were to have the same connections we do today, millions of innocent lives could have been saved. The Internet “encourages public thinking and resolves multiples on a much larger scale and at a pace more dementedly rapid” (Thompson 61).