Audience and Argument

This morning I was talking with my students about argument, and we began to discuss audience, and the more I think about it, the more relevant to everything it seems.

This morning I woke up to discover that Detroit reelected its mayor yesterday. I'm not sure I think that the best move, but I am not actually a city resident, so I didn't get to vote. I don't know that it's the worst move, but I know it means things won't change. The reason I think about this in connection with audience is I can't help but wonder who campaign ads were geared towards. It seemed at the end that it became an issue of electing the lesser of 2 evils. Logical reasoning got brushed aside by both parties, and that disheartens me.

Argument becomes this vague ideal that allows people to prove points effectively, and marketing departments have taken away any necessary appeals to logic and apply only to desire and emotion. So, this makes me wonder how to convey the importance of logic to students. How do I demonstrate to students the necessity of logic when everything around them dictates that logic just doesn't matter any more. I guess we apply logic to advertisements. Why do marketing execs know that they will get more business by appealing to emotion?