Comparative evaluation - Essay Example

We have read three speculative essays in out textbook, Reading critically, Writing well: Stephen King’s Why We Crave Horror Movies, Shanker Vedantam’s The Telescope Effect and Sheila McClain’s Fitness Culture: A Growing Trend in America. It is instructive to compare the way each of these writer handles counterarguments and alternative views. Stephen King is claiming that “we’re all mentally ill; those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better” (69). A counterargument to this claim is that it is misleading for King to claim that all humans are abnormal in some way.

Simply relying on the idea of watching horror movies does not in any way make all of us to be abnormal. In fact, I am aware of a good number of people who dislike watching horror movies. In my view, his generalizations give those with contrary opinion enough reasons to counter his argument.On the other hand, Shanker Vedantam is exploring the manner in which our brains process tragedy and empathy by considering the “telescope effect”. The main argument present in this text is that telescope effect in human brain is responsible for human behaviour where a person would care so much for the good of a few rather than the good of the many.

The choice to use real life examples in countering possible counterarguments makes the claim that the author makes believable. Finally, Sheila McClain, in her article Fitness Culture: A growing Trend in America, is discussing how celebrity endorsements of fitness centres is gradually increasing but doing very little to maintain the motivation of those clients. The arguments she is presenting here is on how human minds can easily be manipulated. It is shocking people end up doing things simply because a celebrity has endorsed only to feel less motivated after a while.

She handles counterarguments by presenting examples in real life.