Fridman's Essay 'America Needs Its Nerds'

Preaching to the Nerd Choir Although Fridman’s assertions in his essay “America Needs Its Nerds” are well grounded, his method or argument is flawed. He makes successful points on America’s off-balanced priorities (putting an emphasis on sports rather than education) but his confined audience and uncited claims weaken his argument. Despite Fridman’s fallacies, he manages to create a thought provoking text on the necessity of valuing knowledge. The basis of his argument is that negative words like “geek and “nerd” deteriorate a child’s love of learning, leading to a less education focussed nation. Although many may agree with this notion, Fridman’s choice of tone and diction alienate an entire group of readers, making his argument applicable to only certain people: those who already consider knowledge more important that sports. His many points-- being picked on in school, feeling embarrassed about studying, hiding good grades out of shame-- only have emotional resonance to those already targeted as “nerds.” To these readers, Fridman’s pathos might be highly successful, provoking recall to similar experiences, but to those lacking such experience, the argument is lost.

Despite what many may assume, Fridman claims that even in the most prestigious, education focussed of schools, kids are still ashamed of their academic prowell. From which source Fridman derived this information, it is unclear. However, such statistics are convincing of how deeply ingrained this stigma has become. His point is to illustrate the extent of the damage of these insulting terms, and by creating a reaction from the reader, he is