Rhetorical Devices In Chuck Klosterman's 'But What If We' Re Wrong?

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Chuck Klosterman’s But What If We’re Wrong? is a book about examining the present as if we are in the future, examining many universally accepted cultural and even scientific beliefs and explaining how they will probably be thought of as absurd to future generations. The interesting thing is that he doesn’t actually say what these beliefs will become because his entire argument is that we simply do not know. The future is completely unpredictable, and the more reasonable it sounds to our present-day ears, the more likely it is to be a false prediction. He says that when examining our perception of the present day as if we are in the future, We must start from the premise that−in all likelihood−we are already wrong. And not “wrong” in the sense …show more content…

He interviews people such as George Saunders, Kathryn Schulz, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and several more well-known experts about topics ranging from books to music to the theory of gravity. These interviews give the points Klosterman is making credibility as he jumps from topic to topic. He also cites historical examples of the future being completely unpredictable during the present; for example, the novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville went from being a total flop at the time of publishing to being known as the greatest novel of all time. Nothing in Melville’s time indicated the success of that book, and there is no particular reason that the order of events couldn’t have led to another unknown brilliant novel’s success. While citing these historical examples and interviews with great thinkers, Klosterman maintains a conversational, humorous, and engaging tone that keeps the reader wanting more. There were times where I found myself laughing out loud while reading, a very rare occurrence for me. One of my favorite lines in the book was when Klosterman was speaking about how people’s perceptions of presidents change over time. He writes about how the “worst US president of all-time” has changed throughout the years from Grant while he was in college to Buchanan. Along with this,

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