Rhetorical Essay

Fanny Rodriguez

Professor Brown

March 26, 2012

Not everything is as it seems.

Terrorism is define as “systematic use of violence and intimidation to achieve some goal” in the www.dictionary.reference.com. During 9-11 the shock of being under attack consume us up until the point where we were annihilate, not knowing what to do to help or the inability to go out there and help out drove us to a point of unmanageable range and to accuse somebody of such actions.  That somebody it turns out to be the Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda. Now the question is where they the only truly ones to blame for this war to break loose? Coordinating to Susan Sontag in her article “9/11” published  in The New Yorker only 13 days after the travesty,  thinks it was not only the al-Qaeda to blame but the self-proclaimed super powerful America as well. I agree with her statement, after too much damage and hurt we weren’t thinking properly, therefore in this essay I’ll demonstrate as to why I relate to her point of view as well as understanding the opposing view.

 Every time the topic of 9-11 is approached it brings back those horrific pictures of a plane crashing at the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon, causing a fog in our heads to not think clearly anymore.   We are being led to a point where it is better to be told what is best to feel. “The voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilize the public “(Sontag). Why are we letting the government to treat us in such way?  Treating us as infants who cannot handle the reality of the world is just propitious. What is America hiding from us? Why can’t they come out straight and say what have we done to other countries to deserve their ire. 

Throughout history America has the tendency to invade other countries and making alliance with some but we never get to see what is behind those negations. The “alliance” with Iraq let us export petroleum to the United States, it’s all we know of such alliance, but there’s more to it than that, we just don’t know about it because we truly don’t care enough until an attack was place in America. Before the attack “how many citizens are aware of the ongoing bombing in Iraq?” (Sontag). Not many that’s’ for sure, unless you are directly influence by it you wouldn’t know. Living in this country one has the tendency of if it’s not affecting you directly we let it pass by us, as if it’s nothing of importance, even though in the future may have a great impact, such as the 9-11 attack.

The government does a really good job on keeping the citizens in the dark.  One of their ways to keeping us in the dark is by “…convincing us that everything is O.K. America is not afraid. Our spirit is unbroken…” (Sontag). Just these three statements will have us believing such words even though at the present we are currently in war. Why do we let the government manipulate us? We have to speak up and let the government know that not everything is O.K. That America is afraid, no, not afraid it is more than that. America is beyond terrified.  And at this point our spirit is just shuddery broken. America it’s not invincible and the al-Qaeda terrorist proved just that.

Now it’s time to do something about such actions taken place in 9-11. It’s time to stop the uncontrolled rage and to really sit down with a clear mind.  “A lot of thinking needs to be done,…about the ineptitude of America intelligence and counter-intelligence,  about options to America foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, and about what constitutes a smart program  of military defense”  (Sontag). These are the key factors to keep America moving in a better future. It’s time stop the government from keeping everything under wrap just for our “safety”. I think since we the people live in this country and we voted for The President and for our own safety, the government should lease important information to the citizen and involved us more on policy making.

Throughout the article Sontag used very well the strategy of ethos. Her statement were knowledgeable, reasoned with the audience her point of view. For example “politics, the politics of a democracy-which entails disagreement, which promotes candor-has been replaced by psychotherapy” (Sontag), today we live in a world where “therapy” will fix everything. Is it truly fixing things up? One has to be knowledgeable in order to play with the politics and democracy of this country and Sontag did an excellent job achieving this goal.

Many might think that this idea of stop been in the dark is just outrageous thinking. The truth is they might in fact be correct.  What if the government releases a set of documents that pretty much states that America is forever to be in war with all non-alliance countries?  Also if the media bombard us with images of the war constantly in full gory. Can we really handle such grotesque reality? Many think Sontag was brutal on her article, and I see why they got that impression from her. Telling a person that all their life has been just a bubble of lies and that you are immature that you can’t even speak up to defend yourself,   must be horrific. 

Eng: "Regarding the Pain of Others" by Susan Sontag

Photography and film is a great way to not only entertain but also to inform the people. But how much can a newscast can inform us during the times of war? There's always that thin line of what is publicize and what SHOULD be publicize. Due to censorship laws now days we are not so "inform" as it used to be during the WWII. Do we really want to see the grotesque pictures of people lay on the pavement all bloody and disfigured? How much can we truly handle? Should we be thankful for all the censorship laws?

As humans beings we have the tendency to crave more, to be "unique" and for a photographer or a filmmaker this factors are more intensify. They try to tell the story not only from their point of view but how the story relates to them, what I don't get is why in this article puts this "artist" in a place where what they capture it's not true enough, or it's beyond ambiguity. Art is view in different facets and or perspectives so why are this photographers are judge by their work? Is it their fault that the audience can't or won't accept the "reality"?

After 9-11 media focus much more about the shock of how United States was attacked and a bit less of the loss of families. Back then this was reality and nothing more. Then came the stage of we are strong and we still "stand tall," the attacker was names the enemy and war broke loose. But ever since we have less and less information given to us. Until a movie is made and we think that's what exactly happens, and we believe this because that's the only information given to us.

In other words what do we really need to see photographs of what is truly reality or a movie that makes us believe that's what truly happen? Either way we will never be satisfy, because we want/need the truth but the government will not allowed for our own "good." I think we should sit back and really think what we want from our government and from our entertainment.

Eng. "Lady Gaga and the Death of Sex" by Camille Paglia

In recent years there’s been a debate of how the new generation doesn't care about pretty much anything since we have technology at our tip of our hands making us not to question anything; because it is believed that whatever there is on the net then it must be true. But does it really make us that naïve? Even up to the point of not identify or value sexuality. Apparently Camille Paglia believes it does on her article of “Lady Gaga and the Death of Sex” stating generation Gaga is “marooned in a global technocracy of fancy gadgets but emotional poverty,” who doesn't distinguish powerful vocal styles because our own voices have been atrophied by using text messaging where we don’t get to interact with others and see for ourselves how awkward a person can be in their body language in daily interactions. Borderlines blurred even more up to the point where “gender is now alleged to be fabricated rather than biological,” all because we seem to embrace poses like “hooking up,” and how Gaga is our role model.

Camille Paglia goes to further extend on how Gaga is the cause of how sex is being “bane” from our technological generation by giving different example of artist Gaga looks up to or she’s being influence by, one of the examples is Madonna. I don’t personally follow neither of them both, but I don’t necessarily live under a rock, I do know that at their own time period they were and is a major influence on our culture, making them role models to look up to and follow. For me both artist have their pros and cons, but the way Paglia attacks Gaga is a bit too excruciating and bias, because it is clear that she does not like Gaga even a tiny bit and uses her as an example of how incredulous we've become that we just accept someone with not a clue what values and morals are, and with technology washing our brains even more to just accept such concepts. 

2. How has the revolution of communication  effected us?

3. Why are borderlines blurrier? 

Eng "A Marketplace of Echoes?" By David Weinberger

After reading for the first time the article all I could think of was that old saying that states the optimist invented the airplane and the pessimist invented the parachute. The article itself goes back and forth on 1. whether the Net has or has not help us be more open minded when we are trying to achieve diversity? Just like the optimist who invented the airplane in order to travel great distances in a short amount of hours instead of days or even weeks like it used to be before, the Net was created to transfer information from one place to another in a short amount of time. But as it revolutionize and it open to many new different windows, ones which you agree with and others not so much, nonetheless it's there whether you choose to approach them or not its you decision. Since you can't have something that good and not have someone who will questioned in one way or another that the "net is making us stupider." As a new "improve" generation where almost everything is literally a click away, diversity is the essence of who we are. We live in an era where if you have on your playlist a certain and only genre you would be consider as abnormal, because now days we seek diversity as much as possible due to the fact that now we release that not everyone is equally the same, and we have minds of our own. We don't need to agree with everyone in fact now days we can voice our opinions. Some are not so great, in fact there are a bunch which are not great at all, some might not be the next Einstein but the fact that we are voicing are opinions is a great way to improve our communities, cultures, etc.
For me it's very surprising that we've been establish in these echo chambers where supposedly diversity is controlled. I ask myself how did this happen? And how I feel about it? I'm not sure I can answer the first question I'm still rapping my head around the fact the at a certain level we've been manipulated and with all the information mention on this article is hard to grasp. As to how I feel about to a certain point I think that I see where there might be concerns with "too much diversity" but the fact that they and we are creating such echo chambers is utterly shocking because where are the people voices who want this a better WORLD. Just a heads up the WORLD is NOT made up of only a certain amount of people who agree with each other, we are made up of different size, shapes, race, ethnicity and most important our own individual way of thinking. No two person are EXACTLY the SAME, not even twins are exactly the same, so why form such echo chambers.

Questions?
How much is "just enoght diversity"?
Is diversity truly scary as they make us belief it is?

Eng. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicholas Carr

Technology has revolutionize drastically in the last couple of decades with impressive high scale gadgets for the  every day average person. Now days we see not only the adults with tablets but the young children of about 5 years old of using SMARTPHONES super easy as if the it were their second nature like breathing. Having such devices with just a click away from the Net where information/data is uploading at every second  could be risky.
In the article "Is google making us stupid?" by Nicholas Carr approaches various topics of how we have change our ways of witting and or reading ever since technology/Internet has been invented? One of the questions he approaches  is 1)if the Net takes away our capacity for concentration? He believes it does, because of how the Net distributes the information like "a swiftly moving stream of particles," thus far making it hard to concentrate when everything is being thrown at you at an unbelievable short time. The Net is a data system that gathers data from what you search hence every time you are online searching it's gathering in that specific subject and sending you to links that are related to the topic for you to check it out. Therefore your spam of concentration on a specific topic shortens, because you only scan the research quickly and perhaps saving it to re-read it later and move to the second link then the third  and so on. But after going through many articles/data there's little chance to go back and re-read the first search. Back in the day researchers use to go through books and books to gather the maximum amount of data on a specific topic It was process that might or might not be fun to do, but regardless their concentration was more acute. 2)Does writing in pen or pencil on a piece of paper  or on a computer changes the way you think? 3)Does the Net shape the style you read?