PETA, which stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has repeatedly shown up in my news feed on Facebook, in my regular email as well as my PSU email often enough that I think I should voice my opinion on their tactics.
From most of their articles and messages, they have used a very interesting approach to the three parts of rhetoric: Ethos, Logos, and Pathos. I know saying ‘no offense to the vegetarians/vegans’ won’t actually make it less offensive, but I don’t agree with their claims and I also have problems with their methods of rallying supporters for their ’cause’.
ETHOS
PETA loves celebrity endorsement. They find whatever celebrity available to say a good word on whatever motive they are trying to advertise at the moment. Whether it is about cruelty of eating animals or acts of animal cruelty apparently if a famous singer, athlete,etc says its wrong then that celebrity must be a reliable source. Clearly a professional swimmer would know more about endangered species than a biologist right? Another example of such would be saying that because ‘x’ person followed a certain diet they achieved a great body or some other noticeable benefit. However PETA tends to ignore the fact that there may have been other factors such as months of hard work in the gym.
LOGOS
Error 404: Logos not found
This may be an exaggeration of the actual case, but to a certain extent it is true. PETA likes to focus most of their efforts into appealing to their target audiences and causing them to feel bad about certain things they do which PETA labels as ‘inhumane’. Too many of their arguments revolve around biased speculation instead of logically sound statements.
PATHOS
Pathos seems to be what PETA is the best at of the three, and even then I don’t find it very effective. If anything, somewhat disgusting. Probably around 70-80% of PETA’s articles contain gruesome and gory photos that most people would find offensive or shocking. Descriptions also lean toward darker tones. If there is anything PETA is good at it should be imagery. They are pretty effective in describing situations in the rawest form.
Although 95% of their content is poorly constructed, they occasionally do something right in actually using statistics, studies, quotes from biologists and such, as well as analysis of both sides of a viewpoint. On a good day the pathos will variate from the usual bloody and obscene imagery. I suppose that their messages would be even better if they addressed existing counterarguments to a proposal side by side with their own.
Oh, and another thing: I love the “PETA: People Eating Tasty Animals” phrase. I’ve seen that on t-shirts before.
I have to agree with everything you’ve said. PETA always grinds my gears with their illogical arguments that seem to rely solely on evoking emotional responses with their commercials or celebrity endorsements. James Katze in our class wrote a great proposal paper on why PETA’s arguments have zero logic, I was glad to get a look at it. Otherwise, my arguments against PETA are extremely political, but that doesn’t hold as much weight as exposing their lack of logic.