Summary Of Hanna Rosin's Striking A Pose

Hanna Rosin, a writer for The Atlantic, discusses whether or not yoga is merely a fad or actually a cure-all for the ailments of life in the West within her article “Striking a Pose.” To prove that yoga is just a modern fad, Rosin focuses on celebrities and the bandwagon effect it has. She uses a very informal tone, geared towards The Atlantic’s readership, when describing the permeating presence of yoga in the West. Rosin also makes an appeal to ignorance in her discussion of miracles that occurred from the practice. While Rosin seems to make a compelling argument that yoga is in fact a fad, she employs fallacies which suggests a lack of substantial evidence. The first fallacy that can be spotted within Rosin’s argument is the appearance of bandwagoning. She grips the reader’s attention with celebrities like Russell Simmons and Uma Thurman. At one point, Rosin shows that many are literally going with the flow of yoga, “... everyone had jumped on board: Jerry Seinfeld, Cameron Diaz, Michelle Pfeiffer, Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Sarah Jessica Parker and all three Dixie Chicks.” The recitation of A-list celebrities suggests to the readers, that all of them are doing it, so why aren’t you? Although a myriad of people partaking in yoga leads to it becoming a fad, the use of ad populum is considered a logical fallacy. Because of this, much of Rosin’s
The notoriety of yoga is exhibited through renown yoga coach Baron Baptiste’s recollection of “training the Philadelphia Eagles … students from Georgetown University [and] former Washington Wizards basketball players.” The author quotes John Friend, another famous yogi; “[t]here is a deeper spiritual hunger for something larger than ourselves, which is many times not answered by organized religion” to support her counter-argument of yoga being a “spiritual