Thomas Reagan

ERH-102-01

Ms. Mattie Smith

9 June, 2023

Help Received: in class support and discussion, citation generation from Purdue owl

Anti-gun, or Anti-American?

Beyond Gun Control: Examining Neoliberalism, Pro-gun Politics and Gun Violence in the United States by Luigi Esposito is a prime example of the problems with people proposing gun control in the modern era.  There is a demonstrated affinity for large words, little meaning, closed mindedness, and an underlying distaste for all things traditionally American.  After originally reading through the paper and wondering what the cause for such a heavily biased series of claims displayed as if fact, along with definitions derived from the works of colleagues rather than any dictionary available around such a touchy topic, research into the author was prompted.  Dr. Esposito has authored multiple similar papers, largely concerning the topics of neo-liberalism, race, former president Trump, and globalism.  From reading multiple of his papers, neo-liberalism is not in fact neo-liberalism, but rather any school of thought based upon individual responsibility and freedom, the fundamental ideas of American society and founding principles of the nation.  The concepts displayed in the pledge of allegiance, repeated by most school children every morning, “Liberty and justice for all”.  The general themes and wishes of Dr. Esposito are that of a global culture, and the fall of the uniqueness of America which becomes abundantly present within this writing.  Neo liberalism is used as a blanket term with negative connotation for things the author disagrees with or sees as undesirable in hopes to isolate such views and opinions as lesser since they may be placed under a blanket label and attacked without specificity.  As well as Anti-American sentiment, statistics are highly misrepresented or not used at all in this essay of fact, and finally the essay fails to follow a single focus but rather attack ideals instead of focus on guns and gun control.

As defined by the author, Neoliberalism is the “Widely regarded as the dominant political-economic paradigm of our time, neoliberalism entails a view of the world that downplays the social realm and emphasizes the individual as the only viable unit of concern and analysis” (Esposito 4).  In layman’s terms, neoliberalism is the world view most people have, where they are responsible for themselves first and foremost, and a persons choices are theirs more so than their society’s.  In western nations this is almost definitely a dominant ideology, but there is nothing to prove it incorrect, outdated, or improper within the writing, just the expectation upon the reader that it would be a negative connotation , automatically alienating a large portion of potential readers, myself included.  The entire argument of the essay hinges on the idea that neoliberalism is a negative ideology, with very little done to affirm this implied claim.  That alone is a failure of large proportion to provide a strong basis upon which to form their arguments, but again this may be oversight as this essay was proposed as more of a factual statement rather than an argumentative piece.

Following this arises the issue that despite proposing this essay as a claim of fact, based off many factual arguments, there is little to no use of any statistical data, and the majority sources are referenced are other collegiate essays of people of a similar disposition.  Throughout the twenty plus pages, there is a single usage of a percent, ratio, or otherwise standard statistic, and it is a percentage of NRA funding towards political lobbying, which again shows the hand of the author towards their biases, and the lack of attempt to hide said bias immediately leads one to believe the author may be deluded to the point in which they believe they are an unbiased authority, whereas most would agree that no person can be entirely unbiased.  The essay reads more as a script for a filibuster lasting days than that of an argumentative essay or a factual statement.  The constant tendency to create definitions, and the need for labels on anything that will be seen critically has a very negative effect and creates a hostile atmosphere of a falsely black and white situation, that refuses to bend or incorporate those of an even minorly different opinion as they will instantly begin to see the claims as incorrect the minute their personal belief is attacked for not aligning perfectly, and their views shown as incorrect or nonfactual despite being an opinion and not a factual deal.

Along with this constant need to label things, there is also a need to divide things.  Harsh ideals, or negatives, are often assigned to be “masculine” by the author, while softer and more caring are designated as “feminine”, and these self-placed labels are once more used for attacks based on the labels the author has just placed, allowing themes of toxic masculinity, this can serve to separate any male readers who are not appreciative of having their attributes assigned to all the author deems negative, and female readers who are confused as to why only male traits are negative or punishing, specifically with quotes such as “under neoliberalism the “left hand” or “feminine” side of the state (i.e., the side of government in charge of securing social needs and the public good ) is downplayed in favor of the “right hand” or “masculine” side of the state (i.e., the side that neglects social welfare and focuses on issues like penal policy and national security).” (Esposito 6).  Such claims can be very harmful and reinforce a semi hypocritical nature of the attempted progressive nature of the paper and of the author, that it would reinforce such arguably harmful gender stereotypes and supposedly classic gender roles of the father as the disciplinarian and the mother as the nurturer.  Tonal shifts and inconsistencies are far too common for anything stated here to be taken seriously as even the most superficial of problems are apparent and distracting from any manner of reasonable analysis, to the point over half a paper could be written on these alone without addressing an argument within the paper.  Neoliberalism is made to be the boogey man of the author, through blaming all short comings of modern society such as inequality and injustice as a symptom of neoliberalism without truly explaining why.  There are constant statements with no explanation behind them, just many words.  It is akin to talking a lot without saying anything, except it is the entire paper.  There is no argument that is explicitly stated within any reasonable number of pages.  The abstract that heads the argument is too abstract.  The individual’s drive to succeed is described as greed and lust for power, no second thought is given to these statements, and no level of explanation as to why.  These conclusions are built of other hastily stacked together conclusions, and the cycle continues creating these shaky towers of claims to be presented as facts to the few who believe it, creating a negative echo chamber of how bad anybody who wants guns are, and how much worse people who have guns are, except for how the majority of gun owners do not commit crimes.  The argument suddenly pivots from gun owners as an individual to political corruption with lobbying organizations such as the NRA, and again I struggle to realize where gun violence comes into play anymore, or where it has come into play at all throughout their paper outside of short references to the Sandy Hook shooting, and some other large shootings that occurred.

The circular nature, big words, lack of substance, and over all lack of any real point or argument fails to make an interesting or convincing paper for the authors point of view, and could more than likely cause the opposite effect of what was intended by the author, unless this is a man playing the long con trying to false flag his real political opponents by pretending to be of the same disposition as they are, and misrepresenting their arguments purposefully as a sort of political espionage, and if that is the case then bravo the author has perfectly accomplished their goal, like the actor who plays the villain you hate oh so much in your favorite tv shows, the same feat has been pulled off in text.  This would be to ignore the old saying of never attribute to malice what could be explained as stupidity, which I believe is a much more likely situation due to the pseudointellectual nature of the entire issue.  Arguments so poorly put together are extremely negative to the grander political views that support them, and robs them of credibility and logos, which is how the political divide in a nation is created, nobody becomes willing to hear the other side out, or figured that they are right simply because of the group they belong to, but this is not a true human idea, this is how a globalist would see things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Esposito, Luigi. “Beyond Gun Control: Examining Neoliberalism, Pro-Gun Politics and Gun Violence in the United States.” ResearchGate, Apr. 2014, www.researchgate.net/profile/Luigi-Esposito-5/publication/269863090_Beyond_Gun_Control_Examining_Neoliberalism_Pro-gun_Politics_and_Gun_Violence_in_the_United_States/links/567192f708ae90f7843f368b/Beyond-Gun-Control-Examining-Neoliberalism-Pro-gun-Politics-and-Gun-Violence-in-the-United-States.pdf.