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Noel Lopez

Professor Beadle

English 115

9 December 2019

Finding Happiness

David Brooks in “What Suffering Does”, Graham Hill in “Living with Less. A Lot

Less.”, and Sonja Lyubomirsky in “How Happy Are You and Why?” all give their take on

happiness in order to convince the audience how happiness is affected. Brooks speaks of how

suffering can affect happiness, Hill talks about how living a less materialistic life can bring love

and happiness, and Lyubomirsky claims that happiness is connected to our genetic makeup. Hill

gives the most effective argument in his article because he uses his own experiences to create the

sense of love and happiness thus using pathos and ethos, and he uses logos in the form of

statistics to support his claim.

Using pathos is an effective way of making a claim because the audience feels as they

can connect with what the author or speaker is saying. Hill states “My life was full love and

adventure and work I cared about. I felt free and I didn’t miss the car and the gadgets and house;

instead I felt as if I quit a dead-end job.” (Hill, 311) This is a way of using pathos because he

connected with the audience since the reader might not be happy with their life or job. Using this

makes his argument more effective because he shows exactly how changing his life made him

happier and it can make the person reading it happier as well.


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Brooks in the article “What Suffering Does” misses the use of pathos in his argument,

this makes it hard for the audience to connect with the piece since they do not know what the

emotion being portrayed is. “Just as failure is sometimes just failure (and not your path to

becoming the next Steve Jobs) suffering is sometimes just destructive, to be exited as quickly as

possible.” (Brooks, 284) Reading this the audience might get the wrong idea and might interpret

it as a brutal unsympathetic comment because of the lack of connection to the audience.

In “How Happy Are You and Why?”, Lyubomirsky talks about emotions relating to

genetics, however she does not use pathos to support her argument. In the article it reads, “It

turns out that depression is associated with a particular gene, called the 5-HTTLPR, which comes

in two forms, the long and the short.” (Lyubomirsky, pg 192) Using science to explain emotion

can make people confused and not want to continue reading the piece, especially those with

lower education that do not understand the concept. Also, the lack of emotional connection using

pathos makes the audience more inclined to not want to take anything from the piece. 9

Ethos makes the audience take the claim seriously since they believe they can trust the

author or speaker because they went through the experience or they have important names in

place. Hill uses his companies to show ethos in order to get the audience to see how he has lived

with less but still had a great life. “As the guy who started TreeHugger.com, I sleep better

knowing I’m not using more resources than I need. I have less – and enjoy more.” (Hill, 312)

The audience reading will feel as if they will be happier with themselves because they want to do

better for the environment. This makes Hill a great writer because he connected it with the

audience as well as with his own credibility.

In Brooks’ piece he speaks about what suffering does to a person however his use of

ethos is not strong because he is not credible to speak about emotions. “Born in Toronto, Canada,
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in 1961, he grew up in New York City and earned a B.A. in history from University Colorado

(1983).” (Brooks, 284) Him being a history major does not make him qualified to speak about

happiness because he did not study it, nor does he have a background in psychology. Also, he

does not speak of his own experiences within the piece, this makes the audience question his

credibility even more, if he connected with the audience the way Hill did then Brooks article

would have been more effective.

Lyubomirsky uses ethos to show how his statistics are credible, however this can make

the audience feel like they cannot relate or understand because the names or words used might

not be known by the reader. “From the Greek philosopher Aristotle to the father of

psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud to Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, writers and thinkers have

offered wide-ranging definitions of happiness.” (Lyubomirsky, pg 184) The use of this can

confuse audience that are not aware of these individuals, it will make them not want to keep

reading the article because they will just get more confused as more names are being brought up.

If she would have given details on who they were the audience would feel more comfortable

reading the piece. The use of ethos did not help her because, just like Brooks, she failed to

connect with the audience.

Logos is an important part of an argument because it helps get the author’s point across,

using statistics makes the reader trust the piece since it shows accurate data on the subject. Hill in

“Living with Less. A Lot Less.” Uses logos to show how stressful in can be to have so much

materialistic things in your home. “In a study published last year titled “Life at Home in the

Twenty-First Century,” researchers at U.C.L.A. observed 32 middle-class Los Angeles families

and found that all of the mothers’ stress hormones spiked during the time they spent dealing with

their belongings.” (Hill, pg 310) This helps make his claim because it shows how stressful it can
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be to have so many belongings. Using this makes the audience connect with the piece more

because they are able to relate with what is being said.

Brooks’ usage of logos in his article is something that can be considered however it is not

as impressive as Hill. Brook’s article reads, “When people are thrust down into these deeper

zones, they are forced to confront the fact the fact they cant determine what goes on there.” This

is a good use of logos because it seems logical that people would think this, however it is not a

good use because the audience might not want to hear that because it does not comfort them.

Reading this they can not connect with it and may not have a takeaway function.

The use of graphs by Lyubomirsky is a good way to use logos however it might make

three reader see themselves differently. In page 184 a pie chart is shown, it shows how different

things effect our happiness, and in page 187 a bar graph is shown, has statistics on happiness

score based on generation. Some readers might think that there is something wrong with them

since their generation might have gotten a lower score, and the use of the pie chart makes them

even more concerned since it says that they have a set happiness point based on their genetics, so

they will start to think they cannot be happier and will continue to be in a saddened state.

In the article “Living with Less. A Lot Less.” Graham Hill gives the most effective

argument because he connects with the audience through pathos, uses ethos to be credible and

logos by using statistics. The way Hill used the rhetoric strategies to make the audience feel as if

they can relate to his past experiences and they can trust him is what made his argument more

effective. Brooks did not use pathos to connect with his audience and speaks about something

that he is not credible to speak of. Lyubomirsky’s use of credible sources confuses the audience

because people may not know all the names and words that were noted.
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Work Cited

Brooks, David. “What Suffering Does.” Pursuing Happiness, edited by Matthew Parfitt and

Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford St. Martin’s, 2016, pp. 284-287.

Hill, Graham. “Living with Less. A Lot Less.” Pursuing Happiness, edited by Matthew Parfitt

and Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford St. Martin’s, 2016, pp. 308-313.

Lyubomirsky, Sonja. “How Happy Are You and Why?” Pursuing Happiness, edited by Matthew

Parfitt and Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford St. Martin’s, 2016, pp. 179-197.

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