My reading of Gloria Anzaldua gave me a lot of respect for this woman. She had an amazing way with words in both English and Spanish.Yet sadly, I think her wild tongue ranted on a bit without some thought to some significant context.

Anzaldua argues that there there is no less violence in war than there is in robbing someone of their language. Language is something that maintains someones identity and heritage of cultures.

She goes on to acknowledge even that some predominant demographics, the majority holds 80% Indian ancestry, and the rest is Spanish, Black, and some other mixes. But what I feel she tries to take attention away from is the ancestry of her language.

Towards the closing of our excerpt Anzaldua states “There is the quiet of the Indian about us. We know how to survive. When other races have given up their tongue, we’ve kept ours.” My criticism in this is that from the region of her ancestory and the indians from that region there is no claim to those Indians having held their tongue. Though she resents the spanish routes of english words used to describe the people of Mexico, she has little criticism of the Spanish language itself.

I say this without bias, being my grandfather had significant Aztec roots. The truth is, Spanish conquest has stolen many indigenous languages. The Indians of most regions have little root to their culture in their language. Though that is not to say her statement is true of all the indigenous roots of Mexico.

Take the Yucatan peninsula for example, though the Peninsula was heavily under Spanish rule for decades and suffered the destruction of an empire. Mayan culture and language is still vibrant. Throughout the Yucatan peninsula, the mayan language (called Maya), is primarily spoken. This language, though having surely evolved some extent in past centuries, still stands independent. Free of any Latin root, grammar, or influence.

That is the perseverance of a culture, that is survival of linguistics.

In the reading of Chinua Achebe, we were given some enlightenment and insight as to the importance of language. In humanities myths, folklore, and religion, words and language are often given magical properties and are even given credit to such extents as being the tool that created life and all existence. Language is often perceived as being inherent, instead of only the capacity of language. And we too often take for granted the power that words have; from being in part responsible for our progress throughout ages in civilization and humanity to having the power to possess a man.

Achebe also notes, that “like any other human invention, (language) can be abused, can be turned from its original purpose into something useless or even deadly.” Language, like all things that even come to touch the thoughts of man, eventually becomes distorted and perverted. Only too often a day than we take notice of, marketing perverts language and takes assault to exhort your mind.

Being up at hours of the night the rest of the world has established for that all so useless and inefficient task of “sleeping.” I commonly resort to late night infomercials as my source of entertainment, in these advertisements I find a parade that seems to flaunt pride and homage to the distortion of language that Achebe notes.

Take for example this little laughable (yet depressing, since you know people bought it) example of linguistic perversion. The MagniScribe!

Given the importance of language, who ever led the marketing of this junk must truly be unwanted by the unwanted scum of the earth. These people would lie somewhere below a lobbyist who lobbies against lower bus fares for widows of war veterans, who happen to be on their way to donate, volunteer, and adopt poor orphaned children with deformities that were caused from nuclear fallout at an orphanage made of completely recycled products and adopted injured animals.

These people use words like “Magically Magnetic,” and “Patented Magnetic Engineering Physics” to give this poor product some sort of extra-ordinary value and the faux-“cutting edge sciencey yet magical high tech innovation” feel. Really they’re just trying to give hype and disguise to something that is really just an ordinary ball point pen (not some new revolutionary pen technology like the commercial would have you believe), that is attached to a magnet that is attached to a clock on a string in some type of Flava Flav fashion, that will magically make you some sort of organized, efficient, on schedule, on time, and always ready to…. write something down. Whilst somehow justifying the fact that they’re charging thirty bucks for a pen, I mean “MagiScribe!”

]]> http://godtripp.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/the-linguistic-pleasures-of-late-night-infomercials/feed/ 0 godtripp http://godtripp.wordpress.com/2008/11/22/meat-and-you-partners-in-freedom/ http://godtripp.wordpress.com/2008/11/22/meat-and-you-partners-in-freedom/#comments Sun, 23 Nov 2008 06:48:46 +0000 Jared http://godtripp.wordpress.com/?p=64 ]]> Blog Post – Week 12

Quintilian makes this assertion that only good people are capable of becoming great rhetoricians. Bad people lacking of the truth while being obsessed and consumed in the task of being evil are brought to be poor rhetoricians; lacking the dedication necessary to the art of rhetoric.

Of Quintilian’s assertions though there was one point that stood out to me, (though I do not believe he touches it in the detail it deserves.) He makes point that a good person, possessing the truth will naturally obtain a more respectable and winning position in argument and rhetoric over that of a bad person, who does not possess the truth.

Regrettably though I must admit, this is always not the case, many times a bad person, not possessing the truth, can win in argument and rhetoric over that of a good person who is possessing of the truth. This is usually seen in the case of a highly skilled orator, such as Hitler, or can also be seen true in an argument where a good person may lack efficient and necessary skill in rhetoric.

But to some extent I will give support to Quintilian. In the case of two rhetoricians who are relatively equivalent in skill, the rhetorician possessing the truth will more quickly gain a high advantage over the one possessing falsehoods.

In coincide I feel the education of the audience plays a relative factor. The audience’s education may conflict with what is true, possibly giving the rhetorician possessing the falsehood the advantage, if the falsehood is perceived as the truth by the audience.

For example I will give a great Troy McClure Film, shown to the Springfield Elementary Second Grade Class to address the issue of vegetarianism: here.

To an audience who is even slightly educated about animal cruelty, this video would be horrifying. But to the ignorant second graders of Springfield, profoundly stupid and meat feasting; this film is gold!

Troy McClure, is obviously not a good rhetorician in the large perspective of his works. So if he was to take the alternative argument in favor of vegetarianism to the same audience, he would not have won a single mind out of the class (with the exception of maybe Ralph.)

P.S. I did kind of knock Troy McClure for being a poor rhetorician in the large perspective, but for short moments the man is a genius of persuasion. By this I mean his overall film is not convincing, but he’s got a silver tongue. When Troy refers to the cattle as being ready to “graduate Bovine University,” that would have been great if only it had not contrasted by the sound of slaughtered cattle.

P.S.S. Ralph’s Comment after this film, “When I grow up I want to go to Bovine University!”

There’s no blog assignment this week but for the sake of routine, and even more so boredom I have decided to post anyway. Just a short bit though…

In all the readings we had on the nature of man and altruism from Hsun Tzu, Mencius, and Benedict we have established a thought of the human condition at birth. The issue in this is we try to find this as a human universal. We have discussed several ideas that altruism and the human’s nature is a product of culture, upbringing, ritual, or birth.

But what about a state of human nature in our genetics? We seem to think of this human nature as being a genetic quality to humans such as all humans have heads, noses, mouths and ears. But we fail to look at the specifics within these genetics. All humans possess a head but they’re heads are all shaped differently, with a variety of noses, mouths, and ears.

The sexy sexy genius with his amazing hair-do, Steven Pinker, sheds more ideas on this with his insight into evolutionary psychology. Check out a video lecture and overview of his book here.

He overviews the more and more accepted notion of the blank slate of the human mind that has proceeded through the 20th and into 21st century and then begins to argue with basic logic against this notion. Using studies of genetic twins separated at birth to illustrate and support the basis of most of his arguement.

He also shakes fingers at alot of the modern ideas of raising a child. Such as doing more athletic activities with a child makes a healthier person, or talking to your child makes them more articulate, but he points out that people then ignore the genetics of the parent within these activities. An articulate parent is likely to have DNA that supports him being articulate. This is likely to pass on to the child through his genetics and create an articulate person.

Check out the video, it can speak for itself =)

Ray is a young man growing up in a poor part of Washington D.C. known as “Dodge City.” Ray’s not a bad guy; he spends time encouraging the young children in his area, and even going as far as to buy them all ice cream. He also has an amazing knack for poetry, which seems to come extremely naturally to Ray. But despite Ray’s talents and aspirations for the music industry, Ray is also a victim of the culture of his society and sells drugs to make a living.

Later, in a drug deal gone all wrong, Ray is arrested and found guilty of possession and sent to County Jail. The Inside is hard for Ray, he is pushed, intimidated and pressured since the moment he enters.

Ray soon finds himself trapped into a fight or die situation. Like two armies before a battle, Ray finds himself in the center of the two. Ray then pulls out his own arsenal though. A weapon of great impact, and hidden inside of him like the soldiers of the horse of Troy. Ray begins spewing out his poetry and without violence Ray brings the war to an end without the start of a single physical battle. Ray brought himself safety and victory through rhetoric.

Aristotle brings this point up within his context on rhetoric. Listing the useful purposes of rhetoric, Aristotle states:

“..it is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being able to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs.” (Reading the World 553)

Here Aristotle brings support to Ray’s methods, and even holds them in higher esteem than the method of violence.

By appealing to a path of pathos rhetoric, Ray manages to use his emotion and silver tongue to breach through the hard prison faceted minds, and touch them emotionally. Saving his life, and setting him on a reformed path.

An innocent young girl stands in the midst of a peaceful meadow, birds clearly chirping in the ambience. The young girl has a daisy in hand, and as she slowly counts the petals she removes from the stem, her age becomes more apparent as she demonstrates not knowing all her numbers yet. “Seven… Six… Seven… Six… Nine.” At coming to nine, the inauspicious and ominous voice dominates the scene, counting down, “Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven… Six… Five… Four… Three… Two… One.” The frame goes black, followed shortly by a pluming nuclear cloud. The voice of Lyndon B. Johnson follows, “These are the stakes! To make a world in which all of God’s children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die.” Vote for President Johnson on November 3rd.

http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1964/peace-little-girl-daisy

I couldn’t talk about Rhetoric and fact within a presidential election without bringing into the case the election of 1964. Where through skilled political campaigning, media, and slightly the poor selection of a Republican candidate, Lyndon B. Johnson won the election by a landslide.

In their writings, Plato and his student Aristotle have taken very different perspectives on the nature of rhetoric. Plato, through the literary use of Socrates, depicted a definition of rhetoric that could only be connected to Sophists and demagoguery. Expressing a hatred towards the practice, seeing that it conflicted in the path to truth. Plato established in this, two types of truths: one based on knowledge where there is no false, and the other based solely on belief where false and true are irrelevant with one another in their purpose.

The profound daisy ad from Lyndon B. Johnson in some ways could be seen in the eyes of Plato in some ways. The ad focuses more to appealing the viewers’ emotion while leaving hardly anything to the appeals of ration and truth. You could say the ads message was a bit dramatic – “If you vote for Barry Goldwater, this little girl, and everyone else… WILL DIE!“

This is to say that the ads of the time couldn’t maintain a sense of rhetoric that appealed to the knowledge base of truth, something that Plato fails to address but Aristotle makes emphasis of. Aristotle saw that rhetoric could be perverted in the sense depicted by his teacher Plato, but showed that rhetoric had expanded usefulness that was in good intention. For example, rhetoric had the powerful to persuade and instruct the un-instructable.

For this we can take into account that during the election, Goldwater was an extreme rightwing conservative. Goldwater was seen as a war hawk and encouraged the use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam; promoting an idea of “total victory.” Some of the ideas focused less on the appeal to emotion, and focused more on a rhetoric that appealed to rationality and knowledge.

http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1964/confessions-of-a-republican

It could also be noted that all of the ads of Lyndon B. Johnson closed with the same line, “The stakes are too high for you to stay home.” This line proved to be a political advertising POWERHOUSE of rhetoric! Placing a sense of emergency, and obligation on the viewers to vote Johnson, this technique was again mimicked by the Republican Party in the 2006 General Elections. “These are the stakes,” was the closing phrase used in these advertisements claiming that the Democrats would be soft on terrorism and expose the country to danger and featured Al Qaeda members and a threat of a nuclear bomb.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X-fDqQ-Xcc

Paulo Freire was another educational philosopher who rejected modern education; seeing connections with education with the means of oppression and freedom. Freire described modern education as a banking system, where students were to remain empty bank accounts where the instructor could deposit knowledge. Completely rejecting this method of education, Freire believed that this type of education stimulated oppressive attitudes and practices within society. Stating that the teacher’s dominant role in the classroom was much like that of the tyrant, Frieire supported a more “democratic” method of education.

Fredrich Douglas was another writer who shared notions of education as a means to escaping oppression and embracing liberty. Freire slightly expands on this notion that it must also be a proper education. Imagine that Douglas ‘s education had differed than it was, that instead of constantly asking questions and a self pursuit of knowledge he had only been spoon fed knowledge and acted as this “empty bank account.” With this sort of an education it would become very unlikely for Douglas to have escaped his oppression. His education would have enforced an open attitude towards the oppression. His instructors could deposit knowledge that they saw fit, and none other. Which would have never brought his eyes upon the truth of his situation; he may have been fashioned to accept his place as natural order.

Friere believed for a student to become an empty account, they become dehumanized in process. Instead of being a subject of learning they are now objects and the same expands to the instructor. This can also be supported in Douglas’s case; his masters would have easily viewed him as an object. So do we become objects, and slaves to our education? Instead of making opinions for ourselves, do we instead reach our hand into the pool of knowledge our instructors deposited into us and paraphrase it as personal views? Beauvoir may have expanded the notion that those who take ready made decisions are sub-men, could expand to opinions stemmed from their deposited education.

In this sight, students of modern education become little more than the obedient flock of the Sheppard. Of course in Friere’s notion we become even more lifeless than the heard, we become objects, inanimate, pushed to the will of our oppressor. But what possible changes for education could be done to create more liberal form of education.

Friere suggests a classroom role where there is no teacher and student. But the titles are gray, a classroom of teacher/student and student/teacher. Where students are brought to pursuit education on a free foot, in touch of Rousseau’s notion on education and the oppressiveness brought on by the parent – child relationship. Students set out to intake knowledge not of any particular gridline, but perhaps that of Practical and Liberal knowledge, which in essence makes connections to the philosophic ideas of John Henry Newman. This teacher/student and student/teacher relationship within a classroom shares the ideals and beliefs found in study with the classroom. These beliefs and ideals are transformed into knowledge through discussion and critical review.

Children of Men, a film adaptation of P.D. James’s classic dystopian novel threw the class into a complex disturbing view of the not so distant future of London, and the entire world along suit. Envisioning a world where women are no longer able to conceive children; the world loses complete hope in the future survival of humanity and with the certainty of oncoming extinction the world establishment falls predominantly into social disarray and chaos. Providing how a world that lacks the promise of a future can provide alternate views in government, changes in cultural practices and norms, religion and altruism.

A reflection of Hsun Tzu’s idea against human altruism is given substantial evidence here. The general point of social order is under the harsh English regime, which is largely in support to Hsun Tzu. The world portrayed in Children of Men is dominantly Anarchist, with social order and government widely torn apart much of the world becomes savage. Meanwhile the majority of London holds selfish to their maintained society of order and enforce fierce border securities against attempted refugees. “Baby Diego,” the youngest child in the world, was stabbed to death in the Buenos Aires for refusing to sign an autograph. These also show signs and argue in favor of Hsun Tzu and of man’s inherent selfish behavior.

This evidence to selfish behavior can also be argued a sign of altruism of the human heart, since “Baby Diego’s” death also had profoundly impacted society into a state of deep grief. There is also the actions of Theo, who repetitively put himself in the path of bullets and death in order to save Kee and improve the chance of survival in the end sacrifices his life in the waters for the mother and child. Clearly these must be acts of altruism; he couldn’t possibly expect any sort of selfish return for his actions when his actions cease his own life.

Given example from these two vastly opposite arguments on human nature, the film seems to argue differently on the behalf of man’s nature. Clearly, man’s nature is not definite it lies somewhere between altruistic and selfish. This leads question to on linear scale where does mans nature fall and how does the screenwriter’s argue this? Does man’s nature fall dead center between altruism and selfishness, or does it lean in a direction of one or the other: and if it does lean, in what direction and how far? Then in extension, is man’s nature universal or does it differ upon individual basis. Sadly the film does not spell out a definite answer, but it provides several accounts in which one can argue.

The seemingly most dominant conclusion that could be made is that all men, though some may be more predominantly altruistic or selfish than others, contain within them the capacity for both. For instance the scene where the raging battle is ceased in the awe of the child, the majority of the people fighting could easily be concluded to be selfish in nature as to Hsun Tzu’s argument. But then their action of cease fire begins to argue Mencius’s proposals. So though these people are considered selfish in nature they then show displays that they still encompassed an altruism beneath their demeanor.

Though this rises up additional arguments in Hsun Tzu’s defense, since Hsun Tzu somewhat supports in his manuscript that man being inherently evil may be compelled to perform altruistic actions because it is in his selfish favor to do so. Alternatively, or in coincide, this also favors outside arguments on altruism; in support of such ideas such as the Dawkins’ concept of memes in altruism, or that of Robert Trivers’ theory of reciprocal altruism. Considering that the battle’s cease fire being an act of altruism may be in actuality an act of reciprocal altruism, this would suggest that the altruistic act of not killing Kee, Theo, and her child and allowing them to pass, was only altruistic in that the action did not expect and immediate return of favor. But they may have expected a return of favor in the future, such as a possible cure to conception in the future.

I agree perfectly well that education to a great point is a method to freedom, as I feel ignorance is also an invitation to control and submission. Having just recently seen the documentary film, “Jesus Camp,” I was able to reflect a lot on the views of Wollstonecraft and Douglas. Reflecting these views I was also able to indoctrinate my own idea that though education can free one of bondage and submission; a bias education is no more supportive if not more harmful to a person’s freedom.

The film covered over a bit of the life of a group of evangelic extremists; primarily children. These children were taught that unbelievers are sinners, that they are horrible “phonies” and hypocrites to question god, to go out and push beliefs on other school children and overall to acknowledge only Christian education. Christian education involved not only their sermons and beliefs within their church but extended out to these children emphasized distinct connections to politics, social interaction, and even their studies.

Out of America’s home-schooled population, seventy five percent of which are evangelicals; the film followed one boy of the group of who was home-schooled, Tyler. Tyler’ study of life science consisted of reading his textbook, Christian Life Sciences, followed by discussion with his mother. After reading over the brief paraphrase of the evolutionary theory that assuredly gave no details and then the “equivalent” theory of creationism the discussion following came to a quick conclusion. “If you look at the evolution, and then creation you can just see that there can be no other way.” Tyler then agreed with his mother that evolution was just stupid. After which, Tyler proceeded to watch a video. Tyler learned about the earth and its creation just over 6,000 years ago, which confusingly also portrayed dinosaurs in the background.

When I look at this sort of bias education I can’t help but relate it to the position of Frederick Douglas. The slaves of this time may have been educated that slavery was simply their place and that there were no opinions outside of that. Is this form of education from a religious bias also shielding children from intellectual freedom and opinion making? What of the children’s freedom of religion? If the child was ever to push against odds, would they possibly not have the same revelations of the world that Douglas had in the beginnings of his education? Without the child venturing on to seek outside opinions in education how will they ever freely exercise their amended rights to the freedom of religion and the freedom of choice?

http://www.abovegod.com/

“If god is not measurable, he is fictitous. Without Cubic Creation Life is Fictitious.”

This fallacy is a non sequitar argument that implies that for whatever reason god’s existance is somehow connected to the lack of cubic creation and life being ficticious. The attempted connection between the two is so far apart from valid logic that it’s mind boggling trying to even find some sort of remote connection or to find the place of the arguerers mind; which in my opinion must be somewhere around insanity. The assumption to even say that life is fake without cubic creation is illogic enough; but there is absolutely no way to give example to this by saying that god is ficticious if unmeasurable.