Feed the Starving

2 Pages 562 Words

Feed the Starving

On the issue of world hunger the two essays “Why not use food as food?” and “The Island of Plenty” present opposing arguments. In “Why not use food as food?”, George Will argues that because there is such a surplus of food in America, we should use the extra food to aid other starving countries. Johnson C. Montgomery, author of “The Island of Plenty”, argues the opposite by saying that sharing our food with other nations would only cause a depletion of our resources and the weakening of our country as a whole. Of the two essays, Will’s essay is more persuasive to the reader because though Montgomery’s arguments are more passionate, Will’s objectivity in evaluating the issue is more convincing.
Will uses the three different methods of appeal, emotional, ethical, and logical, in his essay. He first uses these when he writes about a dormant limestone mine in Missouri where “the government stores so much surplus cheese, butter, and powdered milk that a visitor would be hard pressed to walk past it all in one day.” He then goes on to tell the reader about the 20 million people in African countries who will die of starvation if they do not receive food of some kind. From this standpoint, the Americans’ sharing of extra food seems both logical and ethical. After this, Will appeals to the reader’s emotions and sympathy when he describes a picture of a “child sucking from the withered breast of a woman who could be nineteen years old."
On the other hand Montgomery writes, “If we try to save the starving millions today we will simply destroy what is left of our Eden.” This is an example of an either-or fallacy; a statement that contains flawed logic. He implies that if the United States helps starving people now, eventually the depletion of our nation's resources will occur. He then argues that, by helping other countries, the United States has only increased the amount of st...