Stop Eating Meat Now

Animals Rights Rhetorical Analysis

Philip Wollen's "Animals Should Be Off the Menu" is a 10 minute speech that champions animal rights. During the course of this speech Wollen sparsely utilizes statistics, stories, and a number of references to the impact of disparate industries if meat was eliminated as a form of human food. He also advocates ending the process of humans killing and grinding up animals to serve as the food for livestock, and notices that at both ends of this practice, animals are actually suffering (since the livestock will eventually get slaughtered to provide a steak for someone).

In helping to prove his point, Wollen approaches this topic from a number of different angles. The one that he utilizes first (and which perhaps might be the most convincing) is the health ramifications regarding the human consumption of animals. The author alludes to the fact that consuming meat and a diet rich in animal protein is well alleged to create salutary problems in the consumer. In this respect, he claims that a cessation of meat for humans would actually substantially increase the health of the population.

Wollen also addresses various economic ramifications that are posed as boons if animals were no longer consumed by people. He claims that there are a number of different industries that would flourish in the wake of this practice, beginning with the farming industry. Additionally, he references social implications that refraining from eating meat would engender. The speaker posits the notion that a number of people in third world countries are starving, and that the amount of waste produced in the process of despoiling those countries of various resources used to provide animal-based, luxury food items for western civilization, could readily be used to feed those people. The author also alludes to ecological ramifications that producing meat causes, and references greenhouse emissions that the process of farming livestock produces.

From a rhetorical standpoint, it is pivotal to note that the vast majority of Wollen's speech is based on emotional appeal. This type of rhetorical device is perhaps good for video or television, particularly when the speaker is periodically interrupted by spontaneous bursts of applause (such as was the case during Wollen's speech). However, it leaves such a speech with very little conviction for the prudent listener who is more concerned with factual accuracy that emotional arousal. Wollen, however, utilized tactics that are more typical of demagoguery than of academic conviction.

His reliance on emotional appeal was demonstrated from the very beginning of this speech, when he opened up about the death of his father (which was attributed to cancer). Such an opener would have been ideal for going into the debate (supported by eminent statistical evidence) about the effect of a meat-based diet on salutary concerns, particularly those allegedly related to cancer. However, Wollen spent more time comparing the cries of his father to the cries of dying animals than utilize facts to support his basic premise. To his credit, the orator managed to include some data about the number of animals that have been slaughtered weekly, which he juxtaposed with data about the number of humans in existence and (purportedly existence since the earth supported mankind).