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Of Walter Lippman's Essay 'The Indispensable Opposition'

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Walter Lippman’s article “The Indispensable Opposition” is a criticism of society’s failure to support political freedom and the freedom of speech in America. Lippman’s article is written with beautiful diction, artful syntax, examples, and appeals to the audience. With the expert use of all of these rhetorical choices, Lippman truly displays the “opposition” in America over freedoms. Lippman’s article is written in such a professional way. His word voice is complicated but isn’t complicated to the point where it can be misunderstood. Through his words, he expresses his opinion that we, as Americans, are not defending our rights to freedom of speech. In his opening sentence, he demonstrates that Americans do not value political freedom as a necessity, but rather a noble ideal. Throughout his entire work, he comes back to this idea and continues to support it with his words. …show more content…

Parallelism is one of the many stylistic rhetorical devices that he uses. He lists many synonyms in his sentences to give the reader a greater understanding of his purpose. Some examples of his parallelism are, “its substantial, beneficial, and indispensable consequences” and “we are magnanimous, noble, and unselfish.” Lippman seems to split up many of his sentences into successive clauses. His sentences are longer because of this, but he refrains from being repetitive. Lippman uses one main example to support his thesis, a quote from Voltaire, an expert satirist. Voltaire criticized many people in his writing during his lifetime and therefore, certainly believed in the freedom of speech. His very famous quote, “I wholly disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it,” is the best quote that Lippman could have

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They are almost like repeating sentences, but written differently and are used to emphasize important ideas. In Patrick Henry’s speech he uses parallelism a couple different times, for example, “We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves.” He repeats that they have tried everything, he does this by rephrasing it in different ways each time. Stokely Carmichael also uses parallelism in his speech, he says, “ Now there is a man who’s desperately needed in this country. There is a man full of love.

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(Doc. D) This statement exemplifies the detraction of the rights of man which allowed citizens to voice and protest their opinion publicly without the fear of being

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Walter Lippmann asserts how because people have the right to speak, they also have the right to freedom. Lippmann discusses and compares how even though you have the right to speak it does not mean that it is wanted and the way a person has rights and freedom may not always be wanted. Lippmann establishes his point of the right to freedom through repetition, strong diction, and historical examples of people and time periods. Lippmann employs repetition to emphasize his view on the rights of freedom.

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