IndexIntroduction“The Perils of Indifference”: Rhetorical AnalysisEthosLogoPathosRhetorical QuestionsRepetitionConclusionIntroductionDuring the Holocaust era, semantic groups were considered a priority danger for Germany and its collaborators, embodied by the Nazi-organized and state-sponsored persecution of six million European Jews. Fifty years later, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel has worked tirelessly to educate the world about inflicted violence that turns into indifference. From a peaceful childhood dedicated to Torah study to a brutal adolescence amidst the rise and horrors of concentration camps, the sum of his experiences has shaped how we protect humanity. On April 2, 1999, Wiesel's Millennium Address on “The Dangers of Indifference” describes the injustices individuals face and urges the audience to engage in activism, to never ignore the plight of others. Its power lies in the combination of historical truths, a call to social and political action, and, most importantly, the speaker's emotional personal story. Wiesel's speech is a stark indictment of those who choose to be indifferent to the suffering of others, calling for compassion using various rhetorical devices including ethos, logos, pathos and charged language, rhetorical questions, parallelism, and repetition. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay "The Dangers of Indifference": Rhetorical Analysis Ethics The speech brings out an intense personal aspect, bringing forth the same ethics to address its Jewish values ​​as well as the moral and ethical principles that society seemingly fails to follow. By providing the audience with a short narrative about how his youth was surrounded by mental scars, the harrowing story appears credible to a wide range of members of the government. His piece warrants extensive first-hand experience for the reason mentioned above, written by a leading expert on the Holocaust and moral issues. His closing of the speech, “And so, once again, I think of the young Jewish boy from the Carpathians,” demonstrates not only the current issue at hand, but his own credibility as a relevant speaker (Wiesel, 1999). The use of “we” and “us” throughout the speech strengthened commonalities with the audience and therefore encouraged a sense of cohesion or community by attenuating the author-audience divide. Because this speech is rooted in Wiesel's personal experience, he demonstrates to the audience that humanity needs to wake up to the world; that we must not succumb to the danger of excluding the outside world. Just as important as the moment in which Wiesel (1999) delivers his message is his direct acknowledgment of the people he is speaking to: “Mr. President, Mrs. Clinton, members of Congress, Ambassador Holbrooke, Excellencies, friends.” This, in turn, not only sets the stage for their role in helping Wiesel escape, but also establishes a means of building rapport.LogosUsing an effective structure with logos, Wiesel brings together his personal memories and facts about the atrocities of the 20th century to allow audiences to empathize with the victims of a century of horror. His evidence is constructed with a multitude of references to senseless historical events in which the human cost of pain and grief cannot be calculated by self-inflicted, interpersonal or collective violence: civil wars, world wars, murders, border disputes, genocides, etc. The act of sharing these tragic events and remembering the epicenter of unimaginable degradationin the form of numbers, translates its theme of indifference into perpetual emotions of guilt and shame. It is with reserved sorrow that Wiesel mentions the miserable American decision to turn back the St. Louis refugees, who included a shipment of 1,000 Jews who were sent back to the burning shores of Europe. It is evident that these topics are tied together by a strong logical thread as it encapsulates humanity's philosophical ideas and linguistic features to serve as inroads into its ideas. From providing an in-depth definition of indifference to highlighting the US of A's American actions and our choice not to intervene, it touches on the effects of these situations to convince audiences to take action. To embarrass the audience, the speaker examines the injustices faced by a wide range of ethnicities and backgrounds, further demonstrating the dangers of indifference. While the presence of such logical statements and questions serves as an appeal to human conscience, Wiesel deliberately weaves in positive actions in which humanity played a role. Evidently, his goal was to shed light on the altruistic acts of the world in an attempt to imply that society was and can be intuitively altruistic. The speech includes several uses of logos, in ways that appeal to an audience full of government officials who rely heavily on a collection of facts. The naturally emotional subject of PathosWiesel constructs a powerful speech full of pathos as it opens with a sketch of a young boy, unidentified but representing Wiesel himself, recently released from the concentration camp. In essence, the speaker uses the first lines of his speech in an attempt to contextualize his experience in the entire tragedy that characterized the 20th century, and to underline the importance of remembering it all. The use of anecdotes to construct dark images of prisoners, starving children and refugees who feel lost serves as “heart-touching” topics. Wiesel (1999) states: “Their hidden or even visible pain is of no interest. Indifference makes others something less human,” desensitizing those who lack empathy towards humanity. He juxtaposes both positive and negative emotions alongside each other to draw a stark contrast between the joylessness and liberation, the anger of the soldiers and the gratitude he felt deeply. By losing his family and dedicating his life to denouncing the horrors of the Holocaust, he manages to elicit sympathy in a way that allows the audience to process and reflect on these steps: to stand up, react, and choose not to be indifferent. Rhetorical QuestionsThe thought of violence evokes a strong emotional reaction, allowing the speaker to gradually process sensitive notions such as hunger, desperation, and pain. His intent to pass the baton comes from his effective appeal to emotions, conveying the silver lining of the storm cloud that "indifference kills" can be countered by saving lives through action and compassion. Using several key techniques to create a persuasive speech, Wiesel asks a series of focused, rhetorical questions with the intent that the audience contemplates responding during his pause. In “The Dangers of Indifference” he asks a total of 26 questions, not to get an answer from his audience, but to capture their attention and allow them to reflect on the effects of such a global issue. Wiesel incorporates a very convincing way of elaborating his ideas as he relates the current state of the world to the Holocaust and questions the audience into action. By asking questions like “Does this mean we have learned from the past? Does it mean that society has changed? The human being has become less indifferent and more human".