TOW Post #24- IRB: You Are Not So Smart

-Reading Goal: A more challenging text, requiring more thinking

-Writing Goal:Establishing the "so what?"

            In society today, many people don't accept a decision, situation, etc, very well when the result is not in their favor. Everyone just wants to be right all the time and not be confronted with something they might believe is outrageous and false.In general, basically everyone thinks high of themselves and believes that their so skater than everyone else. Unfortunately a writer has written a book on what we don't want to hear; to be told that we are wrong. Although readers we might pick up the book and disagree with the title You Are Not So Smart, because we all think that we are, essentially McRaney makes a good argument as for why he does not think, everyone is so smarts. He achieves this argument through claims of fact and claims of policy.

            Author David McRaney organized his book into mini chapters on topics that tell the reader why their way of rationalizing is wrong, and the explanation for it. McRaney include multiple facts in order to support his argument on why everyone is not so smart. Throughout one the point one point that he clarifies and writes about if accusations on why we chose and use the same brand name of product. McRaney writes that “We reach for the same brand not because we trust its quality but because we want to reassure ourselves that we made a smart choice the last time we bought it.” Then he continues on to explaining experiments and hypothetic situations to explain his claim thus overall supporting his argument.

             Besides incorporation multiple claims of fact McRaney also incorporates claims of policy throughout the entire book. After explaining why the readers way of thinking about something or coming to a conclusion, he gives advice for the readers in order to stop the false thinking/way of things from happening again. For example at the end of his 15th chapter he states that “To escape consumerism and conformity, you must turn your back and ignore the mainstream culture. The shackles when then fall away, the machines will grind to a halt, the filters will dissolve, and you will see the world for what it really is. The illusory nature of existence will end and we will all, finally, be real.” By incorporating this policy of change McRaney is able to support his argument. Overall McRaney is not only supporting his argument, he is also pushing his  readers to becoming the smartest that they can truly be.