Saying No to College

With this spring break's college tours on the horizon, I've become hyper aware of the entire college process, and admittedly decide to Google "Is college worth it?" just in case I would be wasting up to $40,000 a year on a diploma that might leave me jobless in a troubling economy. And what I got was interesting, but actually I felt more secure in my own drive for college after reading it than I had before, if only because reading "Saying No to College" by Alex Williams ade me realize my own objections to the logic portrain.

The main rhetorical mode used in the New York Times article was exemplification, the use of specific examples to prove a point. Here, Williams discusses the fate of high-profile college drop-outs who have "succeeded." He writes, "Bill Gates dropped out of college. So did Michael Dell. So did Mr. Zuckerberg, who made the Forbes billionaires list at 23" demonstrating that the risk of dropping out can be one of the best decisions in a young person's life, if it inspires them to think differently and do what they love. However, who is to say that these men are/were happy, even if they did make a lot of money? What makes them successful? Furthermore, these often-quoted names on the topic of dropping out are 1 in a billion (although some might argue that they were successful BECAUSE they dropped out, which is another argument altogether and a pretty tough one at that) and should not be considered the norm. Using these men to exemplify an argument is like displaying the women who lost 95 lbs on a commercial diet only to display the small font underneath "results not typical."

After reading this article, I felt more established in my opinion that college is necessary for MOST people looking to live financially and emotionally successful lives. The mere qualification of my claim can be accreddited to this article, but I think it was more successful at establishing that the key to success is "lov[ing] what you do" and "not sett[ling]."

Wait, Why Can't We Eat Other People Again?

In the spirit of this week's A Modest Proposal, I've decided to analyze another piece of satirical writing, this time from the notorious "news source," The Onion. The article, entitled "Wait, Why Can't We Eat Other People Again?" makes an argument similar to Jonathon Swift's: we should eat children for dinner. The only difference is the reasoning for the claim. However, the major similarity is clearly an allusion to A Modest Proposal, which is part of what makes it humorous.

Technically, my earlier description of the article was incorrect. The article is not satirical, because it does not aim to make the audience think critically about the subject, but rather just to make the audience laugh. A Modest Proposal was discussing the famine and poverty in Ireland, and criticizing the government for not helping the starving population. This article simply argues that we should eat people because there isn't any reason not to. In fact, Doug Brusey questions or societal "rules," "Hey, what if that’s it? What if the one guy in history that tried to eat another person cooked it all wrong and it came out weird and chewy? Wouldn’t that be a dumb reason to not eat people?"

This irony is the main source of humor in the passage. As a test of the audience's logic, the irony asks the audience to fully understand that Brusey is not in fact a psychopathic cannibal, (especially in the closing line, "Either way, I actually just ate a family of three, and, if I can be honest, they were a little gamey"). Once they understand this, they can laugh at the comparison of babies to animals raised for slaughter and jokingly agree with Brusey's point of view.

The peice was clearly not nearly as effective as A Modest Proposal, but its allusions to the famous piece ("Now, in fairness, I’m pretty sure it’s okay to eat a human child if you want") and its ironic message were both humorous because they relied on the cultural memory and overall competence of the audience to grasp the joke. And if the purpose of the article was to merely make the audience chuckle, (which is actually quite simplistic for typical The Onion commentaries) then the article was indeed effective.

Same Love: Music Video

I've been a fan of Macklemore since I first heard "Thrift Shop" last November, but when I heard "Same Love," I realized his true talent as a rapper. The song argues for marriage equality eloquently, which has been such a taboo topic in pop culture for a long time and is only just now being discussed somewhat openly. The music video adds beauty to an already powerful message, and has already gone far in the fight for gay rights both politically and socially. Hopefully the stir over the song and video is only just beginning.
The video, directed by Ryan Lewis and Jon Jon Augustavo, incorporates a myriad of rhetorical devices, ranging from a chronological arrangement with a full-circle ending to several allusions to pop culture and American history. The full circle ending, which uses the setting of a hospital and the image of people holding hands as (beginning) a baby is born and (end) a beloved husband passes away, makes the audience connect the beautiful moments and realize that the love (portrayed by the similarity of holding hands) really is the " same" no matter the couple, and that every human being alive should be allowed the privledge of being with their beloved in the hospital. The audience might then start thinking about the fact that this basic right is denied to gay couples in states where they are incapable of marriage, and thus the audience wouldst pathetic towards couples in this situation and therefore  feel angry about the laws in place.
Another important rhetorical device used in the video, and several other music videos as well, is the cultural references made to connect with the audience and make them reflect on their own lives. Macklemore references YouTube and Little League for their roles in promoting intolerance to gays, and to make his audience think about if they have ever said or done something derogatory in an Internet comment or the like. By incorporating aspects of cultural memory, Macklemore might be stopping (even just a few) of his listeners from writing "that's gay" the next time they want to insult someone or something. Furthermore, the song and video reference the American Civil Rights Movement, by incorporating lyrics such as "the same fight that led people to walk outs and sit ins/ It's human rights for everybody, there is no difference!" This makes an extremely effective argument, as there are few Americans today who would argue that blacks deserve less rights or that Martin Luther King Jr was a bad influence on American history. Thus, the audience would realize that one day when Americans look back at the country's current state of intolerance, it will seem like a giant, stupid mistake. To achieve equality though, the video reminds the audience that they need to take a stand in the same way Rosa Parks did half a century ago. And after watching this powerful video, the audience might feel compelled to do that. Or at least approve Ref 74, the "place to start" that the video very simply asks in the last seconds of the video. While "Same Love" will by no means single-handedly gain equal rights for the LBGT community, it has effectively brought the issue to the rap and pop culture community, where most of the intolerance is seeded most deeply, and makes an extremely compelling argument that a) gays deserve rights and b) the audience should support the effort to give gays these rights.