EssayFrog

Mr. Zoellner's Take

Passing Judgment
Many times in life people do thinks that are self-gratifying to prove a point. To justify these actions they point out things about others; the way they dress, the way the talk, even the way the walk. Any character flaw will do, as long as they can get their audiences to focus on the negatives of the other and not there own. In Robert Zoellner’s essay, I’m O.K., but You’re Not, he misrepresents John Barth’s remarks from, The Floating Opera, with judgmental and political bias. He points out things about the couple in the essay as to lower their value that aren’t necessary to his argument.

Mr. Zoellner is turned off by the couple in his essay and begins painting negative pictures of them from the moment they walk in. Pointing out their disapproval of him smoking behind them. Any non-smoker is going to be uneasy at the thought of a smoke cloud around their head while trying and eat. Robert Zoellner sets the tone of the essay by observing the gentlemen’s manner as, “self-righteous and peremptory” (32) . He tries lowering their value or credibility, but there is no evidence provided for why he felt they came of this way. It is merely his interpretation of how they present the question. From this point on the purpose is to smear the couple in order to take attention away from him chain-smoking on the edge of the non-smoking section.

Robert Zoellner tries justifying his smoking by passing judgment . . . read more.