Adventures in Capitalism with Ben Agger

Agger, Ben. "Adventures in Capitalism” The Virtual Self: A Contemporary Sociology. 2003.
Print.


Ben Agger’s fourth chapter titled Adventures in Capitalism from his book Virtual Self introduces his views on the affects of capitalism on people and the virtual world. Through ethos, pathos, and logos, Agger effectively argues the negative points with capitalism, but at the same time, it’s vitality for our ever-growing virtual society. Throughout this chapter, Agger accurately depicts his opinion about how capitalism has created overindulgence and addiction, yet instead of progressing, Agger believes society is regressing.
One of the dominating rhetoric appeals prevalent throughout this chapter is Agger’s use of ethos. As an author, he, himself, has credibility and the ethics to write something he truly believes in. Agger makes references in this chapter to Karl Marx’s ideals, and he utilizes Marx’s teachings to create a point and to support this view in an ethical way by referencing one of the most noted philosophers in history. Agger’s main claim throughout the chapter was the capitalism in the virtual world is ruining society and that his opinion parallels Marx’s belief that capitalism in society would eventually lead to intense tensions within the society and thus causing its own destruction. Another appeal to ethos in this chapter is when Agger references Christopher Lasch’s novel on the The Culture of Narcissism. In the novel, Lasch supports the idea that capitalism has caused narcissism, which is “the paradox of selves who psyches and bodies are colonized but who then embrace private experience as an adequate source of meaning and shun politics and public issues (107)”. Those are just a couple of examples when Agger has appealed to ethos to his audience with the use of authors and theorists. He continues to do so with other authors and philosophers also in this chapter.
Now, one of the most effective rhetoric appeals Agger cleverly utilizes is pathos, which is the appeal to the audience’s emotions. One of the first instances in the chapter where Agger appeals emotions is when he describes how at least one third of his daughter’s classmates are overweight. It really affected me as I am overweight and it made me double back and think whether or not capitalism is partially to blame for it. I immediately felt drawn to this chapter because I was interested in what else Agger had to say about this subject. Agger again appeals to my emotions when he exactly pinpoints the subcategory I belong to when he claims that Marxist critical theory states that when people are free from capitalism they will be able to make good choices for their lives. Agger claims, “they will not engage in binge drinking or eating”, which is something I must admit I do (108). I was emotional while reading this because I consider those two things to be a huge vice in my life, and I wish I would to cut back on those things, but like Agger said, the society built around capitalism has programmed me to follow certain choices that are given to me instead of being free.
The last rhetorical appeal Agger effectively uses is logos, which appeals to audience in a logical reasonable way. Agger uses personal anecdotes to help argue for this claim of capitalism being bad for our society. He recalls watching a TV ad for J.C. Penney’s about a women craving to shop, and in that instant, Agger deducted that J.C. Penney was trying to get young women to crave new clothes and new fashion and really a new self (115) .As seeing it from his perspective, it makes complete and logical sense that capitalism has created this incessant need in women to become better with new fashion.
Throughout reading this chapter, I have to say I see Agger’s points about capitalism and how greatly it affects society in a negative way, but I believe in America it is too difficult to try and change as we have built our country on the ideals of capitalism but it would be interesting to see a different side of it.