Summary Of Living Simply In A Dumpster

Improved Essays
In the year 2017, most modern societies have ultimately adopted an ideology of overconsumption and consumerism. This adoption of overindulgence and extravagant spending is the focus of journalist James Hamblin’s profile, Living Simply in a Dumpster. In this article, Mr. Hamblin writes about Jeff Wilson, the dean of the Houston-Tillotson University, and his message about rejecting indulgence and returning to a practice of living in deliberation and ecological awareness. This idea is communicated and dramatized by both the journalist and the dean through a compelling use of ethos, logos, and kairos.
James Hamblin and Jeff Wilson ultimately strengthen Wilson’s message about living deliberately by establishing themselves as credible, authoritative,
…show more content…
In order to do away with this, James Hamblin incorporates a variety of diagrams and pictures as well as an elongation of details to counter the absurd nature of the situation and establish a more serious tone. This can be seen in how Mr. Hamblin incorporates a “phase two” and “phase three” diagram. In the fisrt diagram, Mr. Hamblin provides a visual aid of the “average American dumpster studio” phase and how it will incorporate “more amenities including a bed, a lamp, and a classic home-evoking pitched roof…” (Hamblin 4). The phase three diagram that is said to begin in the winter serves as a similar visual aid that shows the “uber dumpster home” and its addition of solar panels, a sleeping loft, a heating unit, and many other modern creature comforts (Hamblin 6). These diagrams provide very detailed ambitions and plans for the dumpster profile. On top of this, Mr. Hamblin incorporates an elongation of details. This can be seen in his use of an antimetabole when he describes that Professor Wilson’s intentions were to, “…not just to teach his students about the environmental impacts…not just to gradually transform the dumpster...[but a] tapestry of these things” (Hamblin 2). Furthermore, this incorporation can also be seen when Mr. Wilson goes into drawn out details about the projected forty percent increase in global population and the need for sustainability and how only thirty-nine percent of Americans believe in climate change (Hamblin 6). This description helps to make the tone more serious by contextualizing the project and how it is exploring sustainable practices for the future. This use of elongated details, when paired with the diagrams and before and after pictures, helps to suspend the reader’s initial disbelief by providing logical project ambitions, intentions, and context as to why the dean is

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The book “Harvest for Hope”, written by Jane Goodall, outlines and inspires the audience to eat mindfully and healthily. The author explains how a great portion of our nutrient intake is unknowingly mixed with toxins, and made in miserable conditions. Dr. Goodall explains this successfully by analyzing the typical practices of industrial agriculture, which then leads her on to examine the repercussions of these techniques, pressing the point that we are fatally detached from nature and it’s ethics. This novel informs the public not only how to leave a small environmental footprint, but also how one can do so positively. Jane Goodall associates many of humanity’s problems to the way the nutrition is composed.…

    • 312 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Modern times offer a very diverse way of expressing oneself. The expression of a single person who consumes more than they need may not be enough to hurt the environment; however, the overproduction of harmful waste from big business is big enough to impact the environment. Critically acclaimed author Anna Lappé describes the climate crisis through the food production industry in a sector of industry where people rarely scrutinize in her article “The Climate Crisis at the End of Our Fork.” In a very different, yet scarily similar way Carolyn Merchant metaphorically describes the problems with modern human tendency and desires through the image of a shopping mall in “Eden Commodified.”…

    • 1123 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Eighner restrains himself from collecting things he has no use for; a dumpster diver must learn to control themselves and distinguish between beneficial items and junk. On the idea of materialism, Eighner, at the very end of his essay, takes a hit at the wealthy, comparing himself to someone who is fortunate enough to be in the state of economic well-being: both Eighner and this person know, when it comes to things, there is plenty more where that came from (151). Eighner need never worry about finding something for survival, as the wealthy need never worry about obtaining what they desire. He concludes his essay with a rather stunning and ironic sentence, revealing that while he does not feel sorry for himself, he feels sorry for the well-off: “I feel sorry for them” (151). Eighner takes pity on those who are, perhaps, empty on the inside; those who only value materialistic…

    • 1081 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Today’s society in the United States is a technological paradise where answers can be found in the blink of an eye on a smart phone and trips across the world can be made in a matter of hours. Innovations and constant breakthroughs have made people smarter and more efficient but, consequently, have also made the nation, as a whole, distracted. With on-going industrialization, the environment has taken an abrupt turn for the worst. The solution for the past few decades has been to “go green.” Words like “recycle” and “solar energy” have become focal points for many people, and the question for our society has become, “How can we fix this problem that has been created?”…

    • 1497 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Since the environment is a hot topic in today’s news, many people have strong opinions one way or another about how people should handle environmental problems. The satirical book The Future of Life, juxtaposes two extreme ideas about environmentalism. Edward O. Wilson elaborates on the unproductive nature of headstrong, uncompromising environmental discussions by utilizing exaggerated diction, hyperbolic rhetorical question, and parallelism. By using exaggerated diction, Wilson highlights the satirical nature of unproductive environmentalist arguments.…

    • 660 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    1.0 Introduction Richard J. Muller is an accomplished professor at the University of California at Berkeley with expertise in a variety of areas including: energy efficiency, conservation, solar power, and nuclear power. His book “Energy for Future Presidents” is an open monologue where Muller expresses his thoughts on the current state of energy sources and its potential in a growing world where the demand for energy is continually escalating. The need for this book stems from a lack of in-depth knowledge about energy sources and the issues surrounding it. This publication focuses around exploring alternatives for energy security in the United States, while also keeping in mind the effects that these energy sources have on global warming. One of the greatest strengths encompassed within the reading pertains to the author’s ability to be non-subjective in his writing and that the author offers a different perspective on energy; separate from the way the world understands it.…

    • 1547 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He tries to create awareness on how much waste we, as American individuals generate, and the need for this to change. In one of his many interesting yet disturbing examples, he is puzzled on how we toss 80 million plastic bottles every day “when almost everyone has access to clean drinking water” (Mckibens). Or how we toss enough aluminum to rebuild our entire air fleet every three months. But McKibbens doesn’t stop here, he also argues that this waste also comes in the form of money and time by stating that Harvard graduates that pursue careers in finance and consulting are wasting valuable time and money that could be spent on more productive careers. As part of a solution, McKibbens argues that to get out of the perhaps irreparable situation that we are in, we ought to relearn old habits of reusing and recycling things we no longer need.…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    “Why don’t we go out to the porch?” Sam looked at Colleen oddly until she tilted her head toward the doorway, where Maggie just entered. “It’s a bit warm in here.” Sam waved his hand for her to lead the way and they moved through the people in the dining room and out into the back porch. It was cold out, the bon fire died down that it was just throwing a little light up to where they were standing.…

    • 1378 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    WALL∙E is a 2008 PIXAR film production directed by Andrew Stanton. This film presents a vision of how mankind’s future might be because of over consumerism and over reliance on technology. Sean Mattie underlines the latter cause by noting that advanced technology, centralized control and almost total automation depicts mankind’s future (12). Further he argues that “the technology of making and marketing consumer products was so effective and human beings so habitual about acquiring and disposing things, trash clogged the planet, making it uninhabitable” (12). This endorses the former cause of the devastating condition on Earth depicted in WALL∙E. In the same way, Booker also suggests that excessive consumerism has generated the environmental…

    • 688 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This week, the reading selections were quite interesting. We have these two authors, Taylor and Epstein, who truly approach the environmental topic in separate ways. On one hand, we have Paul Taylor defending our environment all the way in the article “The Ethics of Respect for Nature”. In this article, Taylor insists that we switch our current perspectives, regarding the environment, to ones that further zoom in on the sake of nature. In fact, Taylor states that “once we reject the claim that humans are superior either in merit or in worth to other living things, we are ready to adopt the attitude of respect” (330).…

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Through adequate details in the exposition that sets up an appeal in Ethos, interesting humor that keeps the reader hooked with Bathos, and anecdotal evidence creating Logos, Hamblin is able to achieve his goal of advocating a policy of minimalist environmentalism, in a seemingly deleterious Anthropocene age.…

    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    His convincing rhetoric and impassioned fervor ‘forces’ the reader into sympathizing with him and his cause. In his essay, he begins to expand on his arguments by initially asking the reader: “What do you want?” [McKevitt 144], compelling his audience to gather that information about themselves to derive a personal conclusion. Throughout his essay, he also continuously uses the word “unhappy” to install the idea of prevalent dissatisfaction in order to scare or frighten. His persuasive tone was the most effective strategy in his writing for numerous reasons; he toyed with the reader’s belief of happiness, indirectly attacked the audience for contributing to our waste problem, and asked us a broad question to coerce us into thinking privately.…

    • 1190 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The world is a buzzing place with endless sites to see, people to meet and possessions to own. The problem with this buzzing society, is that we forget to live in the moment, and enjoy each day to the fullest. People are consumed with worrying about how much they ‘have’, which can leave them competitive, materialistic, selfish, and forgetting what is really important. Henry David Thoreau believes to combat this, people need to simplify their lives, minimize the amount of friends they have, meals they eat, and possessions they own (1102). Thoreau graduated from Harvard university and throughout his life he worked as a tutor, house painter, carpenter, mason, surveyor and pencil maker.…

    • 1088 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Thesis statement: I will discuss the problem of global warming, what causes the problems of global warming, and what we can do to reduce the outcome of global warming. INTRODUCTION I. ATTENTION GRABBER: What do you think about these pictures? The first one is talking about the emission released from industrial factories. The second one shows a picture about the green and clean world.…

    • 1108 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    (Gain attention) President Barack Obama once said “There’s one issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other, and that is the urgent threat of a changing climate.” (Reveal Topic) This statement by President Obama on climate change conveys how important the fight against climate change is. (Establish Credibility) I became interested in this topic after getting into a disagreement regarding climate change with my grandfather and how he doesn’t “buy into that liberal bullshit,” so I set out on a mission to prove him wrong by conducting research with the goal of fully understanding the climate change debate. (Preview the Body)…

    • 1384 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays