Robert A.

Trone
ENGL-1010-Sp16-Stephenson
Rhetorical Essay

March 5, 2016

Dont Quit the Game Before all the Cards are on the Table!
A rhetorical analysis of The Optimism of Uncertainty

Authored by Howard Zinn, The Optimism of Uncertainty was originally

published in The National on September 20th 2004. The magazine was
founded by abolitionist in 1865 and is the oldest weekly magazine in print
catering to the political left. Zinns article possess the question of how do we
stay optimistic and happy despite all the terrible events that are taking
place. He takes us on a guided history tour of the last hundred years in order
to establish the premises that extraordinary and unpredictable change has
happened by the efforts of those who have banded together and rose up to
challenge authority. His message is one that we should not sit idly by and
hope for change, but actively and peacefully participate in the process.
In order to understand the deeper meaning of the essay, it is important
to understand Zinn. It is my belief that even more than most authors, his
writing was shaped by major influences and events in his life. He was raised
in the slums of Brooklyn, New York and his parents were Jewish immigrants.
As a Teen he spent time debating with the local Communist youth and
participating in Communist rallies. During one such rally mounted police
charged the crowd and Zinn was knocked unconscious. It was this rally that
that changed his belief in a self-correcting democracy into an activist. He
further continued to shape his views of the world order by reading the
Communist Manifesto, The Jungle and The Grapes of Wrath. The books all

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Robert A. Trone
ENGL-1010-Sp16-Stephenson
Rhetorical Essay

March 5, 2016

Dont Quit the Game Before all the Cards are on the Table!
A rhetorical analysis of The Optimism of Uncertainty

revolved around the exploited lives of immigrants, the great depressions

effects on the poor, and the class struggles in society.
In 1943 Zinn joined the US Army Air Force during World War II and
became a B-17 bombardier. It was his drive to fight fascism that led him to
drop bombs on Berlin, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. He would later drop
napalm bombs in southwestern France. His anti-war sentiments were shaped
in part by his actions during the war. After the war Zinn would use the G.I Bill
to attend college and earned his Ph.D. in history with a minor in political
science. His first tenure as a teacher was at Spelman College in Atlanta,
Georgia, an all-black female liberal arts college. It was here that he became
active in the Civil Rights Movement and was ultimately fired for his support
of student protestors. He would go on to teach political science at Boston
University until his retirement in 1988. His resume included being a noted
historian, playwright and well known political activist all the way up to his
death in 2010.

Zinn uses optimism as a means to distract the reader from

what his primary call to action is, the fight against power, large government,
capitalism and what he perceives as tyrannies. Though the National caters
to the political left, I believe that Zinn is confronting those that reach far to
the political right. Specifically he tailors his comments to those that are
worshipers of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. Those that subscribe to the
theory that to correct what is wrong in the world requires drastic, decisive
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Robert A. Trone
ENGL-1010-Sp16-Stephenson
Rhetorical Essay

March 5, 2016

Dont Quit the Game Before all the Cards are on the Table!
A rhetorical analysis of The Optimism of Uncertainty

measures. More so that those who do not fight fire with fire are left to suffer
the consequences of their inaction. What he fails to do is sell the fact that in
each instant, the revolution, coup or changing of government was ultimately
beneficial to the oppressed, nor did it always benefit the lower and middle
class in achieving equality.
Zinns overall appeal to emotion is one of caring people vs. those
who have power. This becomes a recurring theme throughout the paper
driven home with statements such as by unexpected eruptions of rebellion
against tyrannies and that those power brokers systems can unexpectedly
collapse despite their perceived invincibility. The world is never as simple
as what his article would have you believe. But he continues to appeal to
our pathos with just enough common sense, that we start to make
connections based on his truisms. For instance What leaps out from the
history of the past hundred years is its utter unpredictability, the postwar
world, taking a shape no one could have drawn in advance and No one
foresaw the disintegration of the old Western empires happening so quickly
after the war. He then cites several armed conflicts and revolutions
throughout history that lead the reader to believe that all the changes of
power were beneficial to the human race and commoners in particular.
One such example is the Russian revolution and the overthrow of the
czar led by the Bolsheviks, as Lenin rushes off to Petrograd to become the
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Robert A. Trone
ENGL-1010-Sp16-Stephenson
Rhetorical Essay

March 5, 2016

Dont Quit the Game Before all the Cards are on the Table!
A rhetorical analysis of The Optimism of Uncertainty

focal point of the Communist regime. Most historians would agree that
although the country transitioned from one form of government to another,
Communism did not benefit those it was intended to. With the social class
separation even more divided, you were either upper class or lower class,
with little means for betterment of your station in life. One could draw the
parallel that the powerful became more powerful, while the poor stayed
poor!
Another point of non-disclosure is his mention of the failure of the
Soviet Union to have its way in Afghanistan The statement by itself gives
the reader a sense of justice that a small group of Mujahideen Afghan
warriors could single handedly defeat one of the two largest axis of power at
the time. What the article fails to inform the reader is that the United States,
though not directly involved in armed conflict, backed the guerrillas with
money, resources and intelligence. This eventually was one of the factors
that led to the Russians pulling out of the country after 12 long years of
stalemate. So knowing the bigger picture, one could come to the conclusion
that all those in power do not do so at the expense of the down-trodden and
oppressed.
Another of Zinns strategies is to group several examples of minorities
rise against the establishment. In doing so he can lead the reader to assume
that all these revolutions, coups and movements were just and beneficial.
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Robert A. Trone
ENGL-1010-Sp16-Stephenson
Rhetorical Essay

March 5, 2016

Dont Quit the Game Before all the Cards are on the Table!
A rhetorical analysis of The Optimism of Uncertainty

He appeals to our emotions, values and beliefs when he comments That

apparent power has, again and again, proven vulnerable to human qualities
less measurable than bombs and dollars: moral fervor, determination, unity,
organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage, patience .
No one with a sense of justice and equality in the human race would
argue that the Civil Rights Movement was not beneficial and long overdue in
the United States. But then he cites the Vietnam conflict, which
encompasses the Frenchs inability to combat the Communist North and
subsequently our involvement in the Second Indochina War. Zinn again fails
to mention that although the conflicts involving both the French and the
United States wound up in a stalemate and eventual withdrawal, The
Communist North Vietnamese Army did not fight without backing and
support from Communist Russia in the form of monies, weapons and
ammunition. In the end no one came out a winner, with an estimated three
million Vietnamese casualties. In his attempt to sell the ability of the
minority to overcome the power brokers, he fails to weight the cost vs. the
long term benefits if any.
Howard Zinns does a wonderful job of giving the reader hope for the
future, but to say that he is not biased in his theory of how we get there is an
understatement. Nor does he prove that all uprising through revolutions
benefit the working classes and minorities. In fact most times the opposite is
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Robert A. Trone
ENGL-1010-Sp16-Stephenson
Rhetorical Essay

March 5, 2016

Dont Quit the Game Before all the Cards are on the Table!
A rhetorical analysis of The Optimism of Uncertainty

the truth in his cited examples, the oppressed go from bad to worse with
little light at the end of the tunnel. I am a firm believer of paying a kindness
forward and hoping that it spreads exponentially. But most of what Zinn tries
to sell us is based on his ideologies, and largely based on Socialistic beliefs.
He fails to show the bigger picture in his mission to sell his David vs.
Goliath, us vs. them mentality. In the end, the overall message of
optimism and obtaining a utopian society is a worthy vision and makes The
Optimism of Uncertainty worthy of reading.

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