Monday, December 5, 2011

On Helene Cixous


I love rebels and Helene Cixous is definitely one. Her writing has really provoked me to think about the media portray women and the messages it is sending to our teenagers and young adults. I was a rebel growing up. I was a tomboy who liked playing street football with the boys, beating up anyone who deserved it (usually they were messing with my little brother or using racial remarks), could not get me in a dress to save your life, and did not discover makeup until well into junior high school. Slowly but surely I came around and was able to merge wearing dresses and putting on makeup with my active sports life and tomboyish ways that peaked out every now and then. What I did not like was the media telling me at every turn that something was wrong with me because I was not concerned with trying to be paper thin with long straight hair, blue eyes, and a fair complexion. What affected me the most and made me start doubting myself is when the boys I was falling in love with were not falling in love back. Doubt started creeping in and I started to think there was something to all the media hype.
Outside of family and friends impressionable youth are looking at magazine ads, television, video games, and the internet to shape their views regarding female body image and female roles in business and society. These messages can really do damage. To minimize the damage and ensure a positive outcome it is imperative that women start wielding the mighty pen to write with feminine language and imagery, to have a voice, to take back the control over our bodies and our lives. We should shape our own messages and views not let it happen to us.

My Thoughts on Raka Shome's "Postcolonial Interventions in the Rhetorical Canon: An "Other" View"


Call me crazy but I find it extremely ironic that rhetorical studies is being challenged by a bunch of white men in power regarding white men in power from the past and present! I just read pages of these rhetoricians ideas of how not to essentialize, or at least to do so strategically, to resist hegemony or “to conduct an ‘ascending analysis of power’ Foucault, 1980, p. 99)” of the writer’s own discourse (Shome 597).
It is suggested that these rhetoricians can try to unlearn the rhetorical tradition as Spivak suggests but most people do not just forget what they know. Also soul searching to figure out why the discipline is so white is recommended but this would only work for those who recognize there truly is a problem and then still they would have to try and understand or interpret how their actions played a major part in the problem. They would need to recognize the fact that they could empathize but never sympathize with those who are marginalized.
The rhetorical field needs to study all discourses not just the west and make a conscious effort to investigate and learn about other races and cultures. Only then will rhetoricians be able to attempt soul searching with eyes wide open and accept other views outside of the rhetorical tradition.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Aristotle Rap

This rap song has inspired me to try one myself. I will have to enlist my 15 year old son's help since I cannot rap to save my life! Until then let this tide you over.


Ethos, Logos, & Pathos

I love the way ethos, logos, and pathos is explained in a fun, easy to understand, and informative manner in this video. Check it out!


Ethos, Logos, & Pathos of Frederick Douglass’s Rhetoric


Frederick Douglass was a former slave “turned abolitionist orator, newspaper editor, social reformer, race leader, and Republican party advocate” (Martin, Preface). He had to overcome a limited education, opposition from friend and foe, and take the time, where he could, to study rhetoricians of the past to become one of the greatest orators and rhetoricians of the 19th century. Douglass addressed large mixed audiences as he traveled throughout the world speaking against slavery addressing over 100 meetings a year. During these engagements he sometimes faced violent opposition and sometimes he even contended with internal quarrels within the abolition movement itself (Bizzell and Herzberg 1062).
In looking at Aristotle’s three persuasive appeals: ethos, logos, and pathos, outlined in On Rhetoric, it is evident that Douglass masterfully used pathos to evoke strong emotions from his audiences. These emotions ran the gamut from sympathy and fear for the young slave boy, hatred for the slave owners who mistreated and abused him, and the feeling of hope for a better tomorrow. He also used logos to his advantage to persuade his audiences to take action and join the cause to abolish slavery and later to treat black people as equals with thoughts, feelings, and goals just like white people.
Where Douglass struggled, through no fault of his own, is ethos. “Before you can convince and audience to accept anything you say, they have to accept you as credible” (Dlugan). He became increasingly frustrated with the white friends who encouraged him to keep his plantation accent in his speech or a trace of slave’s servility in his manner. Instead “he worked hard to improve his diction and his command of Standard English” (1063). He also paid careful attention to his clothing and styled his hair to emphasize its African texture. “His successes as a speaker lead audiences to doubt that he had ever been a slave…” (1063). Doubters who attended his public speeches accused Douglass of having a white ghost writer. To counter the criticism he published the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American slave Written by Himself in 1845 (Bizzell and Herzberg 1063). It is hard to say if his audiences respected him given the attitudes of white people during the time, even if they supported his causes. Without respect how can there be trust let alone be considered an authority on the topic? The latter being especially true since some did not believe his story. “Keep in mind that it isn’t enough for you to know that you are a credible source. Your audience must know this. Ethos is your level of credibility as perceived by your audience” (Dlugan).
Douglass had no training in rhetoric but he studied famous speeches such as Cicero and George Washington (Bizzell and Herzberg1068). “John W. Blessingame, a modern editor of Douglass, points out that naturalness of gesture and expression, flexible use of the voice for emphasis, in imitation of different manners of speech for humorous or otherwise illustrative effect, all emphasized by Bingham, were all noted by contemporary observers as key features in the success of Douglass's oratory” (1068). Newspaper reporters took note of his oratory skills and began to praise it in news articles. In describing an encounter one reporter said it was “better to have run upon a lion. It was fearful, but magnificent, to see how magnanimously and lion-like the royal fellow tore him to pieces, and left his fragments scattered around him” (Martin 24). Another reported he “spoke with great power. Flinty hearts were pierced, and colored ones melted by his eloquence” (23-24). “Learning to read, write, and orate almost simultaneously, as Douglass did,” prepared him well for his future as an abolitionist activist (Bizzell and Herzberg 1068). Although oratory played a major role in the movement, “the line between written and spoken rhetoric was indistinct - speeches were often carefully composed before being delivered, and they were edited again before being published…” (1068). “While employing Standard English and European cultural references, for the most part, he expressed an African American point of view and gave a uniquely African-American twist to European American cultural elements” known as black jeremiad (1068).
Although Frederick Douglass had no formal training in rhetoric and had a limited overall education he was able to overcome these obstacles to become one of the greatest orators and rhetoricians of the 19th century. He was innately able to use Aristotle’s ethos, logos, and pathos to his advantage, as much as he could and was allowed to in consideration of the discrimination he faced.

Citations
Bizzell, Patricia, and Herzberg, Bruce, eds. The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical
Times to the Present.  Bedford/St. Martins: Boston, 2001. Print.

Dlugan, Andrew. “Ethos, Pathos, Logos: 3 Pillars of Public Speaking.” Six Minutes Speaking

and Presentation Skills. Six Minutes. 24 October 2010. Web. 23 October 2011.

http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/ethos-pathos-logos/

Martin, Waldo E. The Mind of Frederick Douglass Volume 2. The University of North Carolina    Press, 1984. Google Books. Web. 23 October 2011.

19th Century Rhetoric: Frederick Douglass

Why was Frederick Douglass important to the 19th century?


How did Frederick Douglass contribute to rhetoric?


Monday, October 17, 2011

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

Who Am I?
Descartes believed souls to be our mind where thoughts took place and were stored. Since we are our thoughts a recording of said thoughts, such as in a journal, is a record of ourselves. Meditations on First Philosophy is a journal of his thoughts on how we as humans know more about our own minds more than the physical world we live in (Kaye and Thompson 5). So our dreams are a window to our souls.

  "But what then am I? A thinking thing. And what is that?
Something that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses - 
and also imagines and senses...
Even if I am always dreaming...
isn't it just as true that I do all these things as that I exist?
Are any of these things distinct from my thought?
Can any be said to be separate from me?
It's so obvious that it is me who doubts, understands, and wills that I don't see how I could make it more evident" (Descartes 6).

Memorable Movie Quote "What Dreams May Come"
Albert: So what is the "me"? 


Chris Nielsen: My brain I suppose. 


Albert: Your brain ? Your brain is a body part. Like your fingernail or your heart. Why is that the part that's you? 


Chris Nielsen: Because I have sort of a voice in my head, the part of me that thinks, that feels, that is aware that I exist at all. 


Albert: So if you're aware you exist, then you do. That's why you're still here.