by WaltGrace1983 Tue Jan 21, 2014 11:03 pm
This one looks daunting but I think this is a time when avoiding formal logic may be beneficial for speed. Here is what is going on...
Some people say that a poet who writes formal poetry is performing a "politically conservative" act
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MP and MH had poetry that was "almost exclusively" formal yet they are "politically progressive" (apparently the opposite of politically conservation)
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Formal poetry is NOT a politically conservative act.
So let's break down what is going on here. Some critics are saying, "hey! all formal poetry is politically conservative!" Yet the author says, "no way! look at these two poets! they are writing formal poetry but they themselves are politically progressive!" Did you see what just happened there? The author's argument has a big flaw! Who is to say that, just because someone is deemed "politically progressive," it therefore means that they never ever in a million years would commit an act that is politically conservative? The author is talking about the overall "nature" of a person and using that to prove something about the acts that they commit. I can be a hardcore democrat but still believe in something that is republican, right? Yes, yes i can.
Therefore, I am looking for something that would say that there is no way you can be politically progressive and commit acts that are politically conservative. If I find this, that would prove the author's argument absolutely true! Why?
1. We have already established that the poets are politically progressive.
2. We have already established that these poets write formal poetry.
If we have established these two things and we ALSO say that if one is politically progressive then one cannot commit conservative acts, then formal poetry cannot be conservative!
(A) This is saying: Feminist --> ~Politically conservative. Well this seems to adhere to what the argument is saying. After all, the poets are both feminists and they both are not politically conservative. However, does this prove the conclusion 100% true? No it doesn't. We need something about the politically conservative ACTS.
(B) This is saying: ~Formal --> ~Politically conservative. In other words, if you are politically conservative then you write formal poetry. Well yea, this may be true too. However, this says nothing that bears relation to our argument! The poets are NOT politically conservative! Also we don't care about what those conservatives do! We need to know something about those progressivists!
(D) This is basically saying that if one writes poetry that is progressive then one never writes poetry that is conservative. That's awesome yet not awesome enough. This, once again, doesn't give us anything! We don't know if the poetry they are writing is progressive or not! That is what we are trying to prove. This is basically just a bunch of vague nonsense. In reality, this is a vague enough answer that I will keep it. I probably won't have enough time to figure out exactly what the implications of this answer choice is for our argument but I wouldn't give it too much more though once I find the answer I pre-phrased in my head.
(E) We don't need to know what the most "decisive" factor is! Political consequences? Where did that come from?
(C) is perfect! (C) is saying: Politically progressive --> ~perform politically conservative acts. This justifies the authors conclusion totally. We have these two poets who are politically progressive in nature. Thus, they cannot perform politically conservative acts. THUS, the acts that they are already performing (aka the "formal" style of poetry) are NOT politically conservative. Bingo.
