Last project

In my expert opinion literature is any piece of written work.  Even music, plays, and movies all count because they were written at one point.  So yes, even this blog post is a piece of literature because it is being written.  This obviously isn't good or important literature, but it is definitely considered a piece of literature.  Literature is very valuable to the study of society.  By studying all the different works of literature, we can learn about society at the time and how they used language.  We can not only learn about their language but also their culture.  We learn about the author's tone towards different subjects and we learn how society viewed different things.  You can also study the language of the society and see how it has evolved to where we are now.  All the different things you can study about literature help us to understand society back when the piece was written.

The most meaningful literature to me is music.  It is the most meaningful because that is what I enjoy the most.  I can gain the most from listening and learning about the lyrics and meaning because I enjoy it.  Although you can usually get a lot more information from reading a book or encyclopedia, I get more out of music because I can't actually stay focused on a book filled with thick information.  I am also far more interested in pop culture so music fits my interests more than books.  This is literature because it was written before it was put into sung words.

I learned mostly about rhetoric. We focused most of the year on it and I think I gained a fond understanding of it.  I will hopefully take with me the skills of writing that I bettered this year.  I did struggle with organization in my writing this year, but it is something I will keep working at.  There isn't really anything that I wish we would have done more of this year.

The Age of Technology

Exigence

According to Bitzer, rhetorical exigence is the puzzle to be solved that has a reason that strongly invites utterance(page 5). He also claims that the work of rhetoric is that" it comes into existence for the sake of something beyond itself; it functions ultimately to produce action or change in the world..."("The Rhetorical Situation"). In order to write something that aims to produce change, you need to have an issue that is worth changing in your opinion.  The issue at hand is whether or not mobile technology is good for an individual's life.  The reason for writing on this topic is that mobile technology is used every day for multiple different things, one of the most important things being communication.  The issue at hand is whether or not mobile technology is good for an individual's life.  Lot's of different factors play into how the mobile technology affects our lives.  The main arguments that are used to say that cell phones specifically and also tablets are addiction(3) and harmful radiation from the products(1). Almost all of the positive effects have to do with communication(doing business, keeping in touch, reaching a broader audience(2).

Audience

In this day and age almost anyone over the age of 10 is invested in this issue as almost anyone over the age of 10 has a cell phone.  Looking at the possible health risks associated with cell phones directly correlates to every single person who uses one.  Addiction applies mainly to teenagers and young adults.  Although this part of the topic has the ability to apply to just about every user.  The communication aspects apply mainly to adults as they use cell phones and other mobile technology to do business and not only do business but stay in touch with their friends that they do not see every day.  This does apply to teenagers as well but not as much considering that most teenagers see their friends every day.  As I quoted earlier, rhetoric aims to produce change.  If I take that into account then them main audience I should be focusing on is teenagers and young adults as this topic applies most heavily towards them.

Sources
1.http://www.lef.org/magazine/2007/8/report_cellphone_radiation/Page-01
2.http://science.opposingviews.com/positive-effects-technology-communication-1418.html
3.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/cell-phone-addiction/

Entertainment = death?

         After reading the first chapter of Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman it seems as though he is just trashing our current culture and the advancement of our technology.  He ends his chapter by writing, "We do not see nature of intelligence or human motivation or ideology as 'it' is but only as our languages are.  And our languages are our media.  Our media are our metaphors.  Our metaphors create the content of our cultures"(pg. 15).  Earlier in the chapter he claimed that "...forms of media favor particular kinds of content and therefore are capable of taking command of a culture"(9).  The original sentence talks about how our language limits us in our understanding.  The languages connect our mind with ideas of different objects.  This language makes our culture what it is.  Taking in all that he said in the first, I would say that he makes a claim that our society is so caught up in entertainment that we are becoming too lazy and using so many metaphors to make language easier that it is making the people in this day and age dumber.  The claim to his whole book is obviously that we are amusing ourselves to the point of farm or in his words death.

       Yes, obviously there are a lot of people that are learning the shortcuts to learning new information and end up not learning as much in the process.  The media helps these lazy people by giving on small pieces of information on a variety of topics and then on top of that only provide news of things that are entertaining to watch.  One example would obviously be how almost every news station in the United States has one time or another told a story about the Kardashians.  Another common example would be how every single news channel has an attractive weather lady.  When was the last time you saw an overweight weather lady blocking the whole screen and pointing at some clouds?  People have strayed away from newspapers, which don't get me wrong do have information in them that is almost is pointless as the Kardashians, and instead started watching tv which has far less useful information in it  Postman writes, "Our politics, religions, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice"(3-4).  His next line states that the outcome of this is the title of his work.  I would definitely disagree with this.  Education isn't much of a show business.  There have been aspects of technology added to education that does make it entertaining, but it is no where close to the point of being show business.  True educational institutions are not meant to entertain but were created for the sole purposes of education and money.  Religion is an aspect that slightly falls under the showbiz category.  The religions that fall under these categories are not the old ones that have been around for over 1000 years, but rather they are the religions that people create to make money, entertain(showbiz), or on the rare occasion start a church about the aspects of religion that they truly believe in so that they can help make others' lives better. There is obviously aspects of showbiz that leak into different aspects of life, but they come no where close to ruining our society.  There are people who use media as a shortcut for learning and are so obsessed with entertaining themselves that they don't reach their full potential.  There are also hard-workers though that strive to be the best they can and be as smart as they can to make the world a better place.  These people will not let dumb news-people ruin their chance to become smarter.  They will push through and reach their full potential.  

      While Postman writes that Las Vegas is the "focal point of radiating American spirit"(3).  I would strongly disagree.  I would say that a city like New York is a city with radiates the most important American spirit of working hard in order to keep the world running and make the world a safer, smarter, and better world to live in.  I believe that the spirit that radiates out of New York is much more strong than the entertainment spirit of Las Vegas.  All in all I do agree that many people in America do harm themselves by getting too caught up in entertainment, but I believe that Postman over exaggerates the harm done by this.

Honestly though, if you wake up in the morning and need the weather, who would you rather watch?

Racism for profit?

The use of racial stereotypes is alive every day in the U.S.  The amount of segregation has obviously gone down a lot in the last 100 years, but it is still very prevalent.  One man who has used racism as a way to make money is Johnny Rebel.  In his songs he constantly uses racial slurs against African-Americans.  According to Wikipedia his first album was released in 1971 but his most recent album was released in 2003.  In 1971 there was a lot more racial tension than there is now, but his songs were 100% against black people and were purposely aimed to offend African-Americans.  The use of racist language in music is still found in some rap songs, but not near as offensive and abundant as that of Johnny Rebel.  Johnny Rebel uses something that many people make any argument should be a legal to profit from and make a living.  Should someone be able to make a living off of saying racial sayings with music in the background?  In Charles R. Lawrence III's article "On Racist Speech", Lawrence writes, "University officials who have formulated policies to respond to incidents of racial harassment have been characterized in the press as 'thought police'"(pg. 65).  I realize that everyone has the right of thinking whatever they want.  To call someone a thought police is just getting very defensive and shows that you have not done much thought on why racial speech should be tolerated. The first Amendment protects the freedom of speech, but has an exception of "fighting words"(pg. 65).  This brings up a very large problem though because it is hard to categorize what is and isn't a racial fighting word.  If there were a law to be passed that said that any face-to-face racial comments that are meant to initiate a fight is illegal it would be virtually impossible to prove that anyone was purposely trying to initiate a fight.  The line that would have to be drawn on which words are fighting words and which words aren't fighting words would be a very fine line.  They would have to constantly change the law to make the new racial slurs illegal.  The task would be virtually impossible.  On top of that if a police officer thought someone had said something that was a fighting word in the distance.  The defendant can make an argument that they said a word that rhymed with that fighting word and it would be very hard to be 100% that the defendant is lying and try him in court.  All in all the use of racial slurs is obviously immoral and in my opinion should not ever be used to purposely inflict psychological pain on anyone of any race.  To make it illegal would be a next to impossible task so that is out of the picture.  The only option left is to base what you should and shouldn't say off of your own moral compass.  You should be able to use these racial slurs because you will end up having to pay the consequences for them later, whatever they might be: losing a friend, getting beat up or shot, not getting a job.  Wherever you say these racial comments whether they be on twitter or in person, there will be people who see/hear them and there will be effects that come from you saying that.