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Comparing Freakonomics By Steven D. Levitt And Stephen J.

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The book Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner is a unique book because it makes the reader think about our society in a peculiar way. The book take uncommon topics or two opposites ideas and compares the two together to show how similar they are. For example, the two authors compare the Klu Klux Klan to a group of real estate agents, which is interesting because the direct relationship might not be easily apparent, but however they are fairly similar.
Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, answer questions one may have never thought about or would have never come across, and answer them in a way that is applicable into the real world. Such questions in the book include things such as: What do School Teachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common, How is the Klu Klux Klan like a Group of Real-Estate Agents, and How to be the Perfect Parent….etc. As you can see some of the titles do not look …show more content…

For example, a Klu Klux Klan leader can be compared to a group of real-estate agents in the way that they both can be deceitful. “The gulf between the information we publicly proclaim and the information we know to be true often than vast. (Or, put a more familiar way: we say one thing and do another)( Levitt and Dubner 83).” The quote explains that people may say one thing, but actually know another. The way that real-estate agents could possibly be compared to a KKK leader is that they both are deceitful when it comes to information. For example, a real-estate agent may promise to sell your new york city apartment for 3 million dollars when in reality they can only sell it for 2.6 million dollars. As well as a KKK leader may promise the donations going towards the cult are going to be used for a violent acts of crime, but in reality the money will be used for his gambling purposes (David Duke the leader of the KKK actually did

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Dear Prof. Ulibarri, As I was sitting in the library writing this paper, I was glad that we had gone so in depth into all the rhetorical strategies in class. I started by memorizing what each rhetorical strategy was and how it was used to persuade the reader I then looked up examples of each one so it would be easier for me to locate them in the text of Freakonomics. I then re-read the chapter I chose and highlighted the rhetorical strategies I found. From there I found quotes in the text to back it up and identified how the authors, Levitt and Dubner used them to persuade readers. After that I took a look at the index of templates in They Say I Say to choose which templates I would use to begin the sentences of every beginning paragraph

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The book Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner talks about many different things, including cheating teachers and sumo wrestlers, how abortion lowered crime rates, how a street crack gang works, and whether the way parents raise their children even matter. These topics seem to have nothing in common, but all of these topics were identified in the same way: an economist (Levitt) looked at school test scores, crime data, and all sorts of other information, looking at them in unconventional ways. Because of that, he has come to many interesting and unique conclusions that make complete sense. These findings were based on some simple ideas: the power of incentives, conventional wisdom is not always right, things may not have obvious causes, and experts often serve their own interests instead of the interests of others. Perhaps the most important idea in the book is, as Levitt and Dubner state, “Knowing what to measure and how to measure it makes a complicated world much less so” (14).

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The act of self-deception is prevalent in common human activities and has been throughout many generations of societies. Barbara Tuchman conveys such act in the March of Folly, and recites, “Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government… it is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by facts.” Although not every decision made by man is due to this stolidity or “wooden-headedness”, it occurs frequently not only in governments, but in daily human

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The KKK went after blacks in general and anybody who doesn’t support their views, even whites. Stories of African Americans being savagely beaten reported in the newspaper and hostile notices posted for the public to send the message throughout the city to demonstrate what will happen if they don’t follow through the KKK’s plan for having a “pure” country. For example, in the newspaper report from the Shelby County Guide, they reported the KKK coming into their town to regulate matters. They, “... hung three or four negroes nearly dead, and whipped others severely,” (Source 7), just like how Mr. Morrison was critically whipped at the railroad for defending himself in a fight the other person started. Thus, the objective of the KKK is horrific, violent, and just outright

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The KKK used terrorism, including physical harm and murder, against groups and people that would not agree with the Klan. All three movements have been called the "purification" of American society by the Klan. This felt to the Klan like they had conquered the world, had supreme power, and they had did it. They have erased blacks from our country politically and socially in their

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From the book I have learned the history of the KKK, other knight groups, their way of living, and their way of thinking. I have also learned how somebody can be a regular old citizen in our community, but is a part of a hate group and believes that Blacks, Latinos, Asians, people from the LGBT community, and Jews are the enemy. Not only are these groups are more than relevant all over the country, but there are young children who will keep these groups alive. The children will be corrupted into thinking that racial hate is normal way to think and will follow the footsteps into their parents. This book very much shows how the Neo-Nazis, racist skinheads, white nationalist, and other groups want a white dominated nation.

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The Ku Klux Klan first emerged in Pulaski, Tennessee following the Civil War. As we know today, the mere mention of the Klan triggers fear as the KKK is known for its various tactics of violence that came in the form if lynchings, murders, and mutilations. Following their emergence, the KKK were quickly symbolized and portrayed as the protectors of the South, following the defeat of the Southern states in the Civil War and the beginning of the period of Reconstruction by the federal government (Gurr, 1989, p. 132). During the 1920s, the KKK achieved its greatest political success and growth outside of the South. During this period, the membership of the Klan heavily expanded to the states of Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Oregon, to which the KKK obtained two to two and one-half million members at its apex.

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The KKK let a picture out to the world showing they didn’t want African Americans to vote and wished for them to have the littlest amount to vote. (Document C). The KKK didn’t like African Americans being able to vote because they believed they were not real people and that they didn’t deserve many rights. Freedman, African Americans, or mulattos that were not apart of the military service could not own or even keep a weapon and if caught with a weapon, they would get a fine and the weapon would be confiscated (Document D). The KKK benefited from those people not being able to have a weapon because it meant African American’s had less right, in which they counted for less of a real person.

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The Ku Klux Klan or KKK has created centuries of fear. They originated in Pulaski, Tennessee. The famous hate group was out to re establish white supremacy. The KKK has influenced local governments and people in power. It has also had an impact on American people and specifically black minorities.

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Southern states broke up Republican Meetings, burned black churches all across the South and also terrorized and even killed some freed people. From 1868 through the early 1870s the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) functioned as a loosely organized group of political and social terrorists. The Klan's goals included political defeat of the Republican Party and the maintenance of absolute white supremacy in response to newly gained civil and political rights by southern blacks after the Civil War (1861-65). The KKK was a very loosely organized group, and hierarchical structures beyond the county level probably were more symbolic than operational. The Klan in Georgia had an apparent head, the Grand Dragon, who at one point was probably General John B. Gordon.

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It 's not easy being a cult leader. Having the ability to sway and entire audience is a difficult task that most are unable accomplish. For a Demagogue however, this task is simple. Demagogues have the ability to persuade an audience by using stereotyping and taking away the voices and democracy of their followers. Through Patricia Roberts-Miller 's lens, we get an inside look on the strategies that demagogues use to persuade their audience.

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The Ku Klux Klan, made up of former Confederate officers who idealized an antebellum Southern heritage, became folk heroes by terrorizing outsiders who challenged race relations by assisting blacks. Catholics, foreigners, former slaves, and their sympathizers were targeted for wanting to push reforms that went against the Southern way of life. As one historian points out, the KKK gained sympathy because they were seen as defenders and policemen of the people who protected the prevailing values of society, including Protestantism, whiteness, and genteel southern culture (Kinshasa 15). The KKK and its sister organizations were even sponsored by state governments, such as Kentucky and Mississippi, as a police force to maintain the status quo (Parsons 160). The presence of the Klan and other forms of white resistance offered white residents a form of security during this uncertain time period.

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