Blog #9

The three texts I found to be most important to me were Isaac Asimov’s Intelligence, The Vocabulary of Comic by Scott McCloud and finally an excerpt from Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. These three literary works have influenced my writing aspect but also my thoughts and beliefs on some of their opinions themselves. The sources I chose are mostly important again because most of my papers have incorporated the idea of these brilliant minds where McCloud’s idea of who were comes to life and what we know as Asimov explains deals with where our talents lie. My works themselves tie into these works because of relatively inspirational they can be.

One of my favorite works was Asimov’s Intelligence because he speaks about how he can score the highest on standardized tests and even prosper in the fields of English but if you asked him to build a car from scratch he would not be able to (Asimov 2). That knowledge is not a combined structure but split into multiple divisions of commonality. In the work, he shows this joke that his mechanic had told him which is said like this "Doc, a deaf-and-mute guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails…..He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?" Indulgently, I lifted by right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers. Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said, "Why, you dumb jerk, He used his voice and asked for them"(Asimov). In this joke that the mechanic catches Asimov in it shows that since Asimov was very educated he could not catch the witty answer to the joke as the mechanic who had the smart of just building cars would have know the answer. I myself can relate to this scenario because I can excel in skills of writing and history I could take hours to solve one mathematical equation. Asimov had shown me that knowledge is not based off of this idea of common sense but that common sense is the division of separate knowledge.

McCloud’s Vocabulary of Comic stood out to me personally on the way he describes cartoons as the shells of human beings. “Another is the universality of cartoon imagery. The more cartoony a face is, for instance, the more people it could be said to describe” (McCloud 202). This is a powerful analogy he tries to push out to his audience. It caught me with a lot of ideas behind it and I came to an agreement to his idea. I believe that the simpler something is the more we can fill in the void of our complexity. In connection to cartoons we watch on Saturdays or at least the ones I used to watch, I see these simple characters and even though I may not know it as complex I could relate to the cartoons putting my thoughts and my feelings into this empty simple shell of cartoon. Another way this theory pertains to me is through novels, when I usually read these characters are empty shells just names to be know but in time I start to fill that character’s role as myself which allows me to live their life through the narration.

In Schlosser’s excerpt “Your Trusted Friends” in his novel Fast Food Nation, he introduced the marketing strategy of ‘synergy’ (Schlosser 185). This idea of synergy is the incorporation of a strong character or product that can be endorsed by other companies to help the advertisements sell at extremely high rates. This idea to Schlosser was adapted by Walt Disney as he says “Among other cultural innovations, Walt Disney pioneered the marketing strategy now known as “synergy.”During the 1930s’ he signed licensing agreements with dozens of firm, granting them the right to use Mickey mouse on their products and in their ads”(Schlosser 185). This was a boom in the marketing industry and I also found out how to proccess this through my writing skills. In Assignment #2 that was used as a compare and contrast of two food labels, I was able to identify the synergy being used by Nabisco and Kraft to use their snacked baked crackers as an icon of healthy choice for kids.

Blog #8

Pollan describes in the chapter Ethics of Eating Animals that there is multiple ways of ideas people have to eating meat and their feelings for animals (Pollan 304). There is two aspects on where you can look at it, being that you do feel bad for the consumption of animal’s meat and how they are mistreated but you cannot give up the delicious flavor it provides but then others who detest the cruelty of animals do not eat meat at all because animals are looked at as humans and should not be inferior. I fall into the category that does not support animal cruelty and have been a vegetarian for 5 years. The reason why I had chose this aspect is because of the evidence that was shown to me on how animals were slaughtered so that we can eat their meat. I believe that animals like humans have the same equality in the idea of feeling; if we can eat animal meat then we show that like history has proved animals are being discriminated much like African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement and Women during their suffrage of not being able to vote and being looked at as property. So the consumption of meat that was produced through the cruelty of animals is strongly explicit in my view. I cannot avoid or detest the view of others who I bet dislike how animals are slaughtered but enjoy the taste of meat that cannot be given up so lightly.

Blog #6

The word organic is taken into assumption by others to mean “from the earth”. That the food comes directly from nature and the planet and it is what connects our culture and lifestyle to our environment. It is the belief that organic products are not tainted by the chemicals industrialized through agriculture. Organic food is supposed to be fresh and has a back-story onto how it was created. A way that we can feel a connection with the nature it comes from being that of chickens who are raised with freedom and what Pollan referred to as “free range”. The “organic community” I refer to is a set of people with the same belief behind the food products they buy. This community all has the shared concern about their food products and the damage that is done to the animals behind it. They pride on their pathos towards the environment that they buy this organic situated food. The “organic community” is completely oblivious to the production of their so called earthbound food. They all fall prey to the stories produced on the labels that tell one side but keep the total production out of the equation. How can this be called “organic”? The food is produced the same as any other farm where animals are kept in tightly strict pastures where their main purpose is to produce these foods and then be killed when their time is due. The labels on whole food only tell you the cows on this farm are fed with only the most organic of grasses and they are treated with utmost respect when really they are placed in the same conditions as cows in any farm to be squeezed for milk until death. The word “organic” is just the hype of what we expect healthy and earthbound to be. The reality of it is simply the fact that we fall prey to the pathos of the story and ethos behind the companies to believe we are closer to the earth and natural creatures.

Blog #4

The similarity in language between both authors Asimov and Sedaris is prominent in understanding. In both short stories of both authors we see that they are both knowledgeable men who although educated understand different logics of language. The quote by Asimov “Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?" Indulgently, I lifted my Right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers” is very similar to the quote from Sedaris when he states “Understanding doesn’t mean that you can suddenly speak the language. Far from it” because Asimov understands the joke that his mechanic was pointing out but in his response he didn’t speak the language that was meant for the joke. That even if you can understand what you are being told does not mean you will respond in the fashion that is desired. That your response is based on the level of your social knowledge and not what is to be always expected. I can relate because it works out in most classes in school, the teacher will ask me a question where I may know the answer to but when I try to answer, mostly anxious the words I choose to display are sometimes not the ones my teachers look for even though they fit. In my attempt to understand what is to be told, I clearly choose the indifferent language.

“Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?" Indulgently, I lifted my Right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers” (Asimov 2)

“Understanding doesn’t mean that you can suddenly speak the language. Far from it” (Sedaris 3)

Blog #3

“In social interaction between the sexes, biological dimorphism underlies the probability that the male’s usual superiority of status over the female will be expressible in his greater girth and height” (Goffman 28).

This quote is significant to me because I watch and live through this experience daily. In my society, or at least how I look at society, the male in most to all cases is more dominate then the female. Our build is to be taller, stronger and more reliable in any case but not always. Through a relationship perspective, I see a man being taller than the female because of his dominance. He was made to protect and provide for his mate, and therefore must have the proper body to do so. Not the perfect body, but the stronger one. I was brought up and taught in this kind of theory. “Men are supposed to provide and take care of female always” (Mom). Now my mind is set to believe in what my mother says of course, since she is my mother, but why can’t it be the other way around? Is it male purpose to be the supporting role for females? Or can females look and take care of themselves just the same? My belief is that women have that dominant role in their genes far stronger than men. My mother as an example for not only giving birth to me but having to raise me and take care of herself with no one else’s support.

“Perfect. When did “perfection” become applicable to the human body? The word suggests a Platonic form of timeless beauty—appropriate for marble, perhaps, but not for living flesh” (Bordo 151).

The perfect body to me does not exist which relates directly to what Bordo is getting at in her quote. It may exist in a painting, or the texture of marble and stone but never the human body. Something that is perfect has to stop changing. The human body is always going through a constant change, whether it is the process of growing up or just the necessary order our body has to follow. If the human body were to ever be perfect it have to stop its growth which is neigh impossible. When women feel, and in my experience with family members and my significant other, the guilt of how deformed their body is, their self-esteem tends to go down. They want this body part to grown or this one to decrease, the list expands. It is not the fact that they want the change it is the product of perfection they use to compare themselves to. Models in a magazine advertisement or the actresses in movies all have the “perfect” figure. The figure generated by computers which will never change and continue to look perfectly beautiful.

Is Bordo’s and Goffman’s quotes and analysis relevant to today’s society? Definitely. In our society it is not for the man to dominant and for the female to be submissive that is important. It’s the idea behind dominance and submissiveness that exists today. We see it all over advertisements and television where the male is the supporting role in to image or the women plays the submissive victim in those horror films. Humans also use those analogies in their everyday lives, where the man works while the women cook and take care of the kids. Also the advertisements of how the “American Woman or Man” should look are unavoidable. It holds an irrevocable distinction on how we should look, sort of brainwashes us to think that we all have to have that perfect image to follow and if we don’t we’re doing it wrong. Individuality ceases to exist on top of the media that makes us pursue its image.

Blog # 2

“Another is the universality of cartoon imagery. The more cartoony a face is, for instance, the more people it could be said to describe” (McCloud 8).
This quote sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of them, it caught me by surprise. What McCloud is trying to say is that the more stripped down a face can be, the more options it has behind it. We can involve ourselves in the thought of that one character. Looking into an empty shell of a stripped down face places us in that character’s shoes to experience the magic behind it. It can also be looked as a way to connect with others in similarities, our identities may not be the same but our background is. Is McCloud trying to say we all have the same face if we took of the detail? I personally think we do because we all come from the same roots. We add on the detail but underneath lies the web of similarity that we all connect to. That empty shell we step into and fill the void. An example can be seen in cartoons themselves. When everyone was younger they have all seen cartoons I’m sure. I had this one cartoon where I would look at the character and picture myself as him. It was the stripped down context of that character that allowed me to compare myself. The point is that his empty context could allow anyone to connect in similar contrast to him.

If cars can accelerate with the use of gasoline, humans should be able to as well.
This is a logical fallacy because it because it is a false analogy. The two are unconnected ideas that cannot be analyzed together. Cars can accelerate using gasoline because of how they are manufactured; humans do not have that need.

If ever there was an idea custom-made for a Jay Leno monologue, this was it: marriage counseling. Isn’t that like the worst experience two people can have? Whatever happened to just smacking each other up?
I happen to sympathize with this atrocity, though, perhaps because my wife tends to beat me a little too much.

Blog #1

The author Sonia J. Foss describes rhetoric in many ways through the use of symbols. Bringing up ways that symbols are a way we use to communicate with others. We live our lives surrounded by symbols and we react to them accordingly. The author says, “How we perceive, what we know, what we experience, and how we act are the results of the symbols and we create and the symbols we encounter in the world” (Foss 3). The way we interact with these symbols is called rhetoric criticism. The rhetoric criticism we react to can be simple things like watching television or looking at a billboard advertisement. Through symbols humans create rhetoric as a form of communication. If rhetoric is the way to speak through communication then why not just call it communication or speech? Because of the symbols we use to counter someone’s opinion or just to symbolize a way of life, we use rhetoric in a different tone then communication. Foss describes “Every symbolic choice we make results in seeing the world in one way rather than in another, in contrast to animals, humans experience is different because of the symbol we use to frame it” (Foss 4).
Rhetoric strictly coexists with symbols rather than signs, being that a symbol is something that stands for something or can be used to represent something else. Like wind hitting you is a sign that the temperature is cooler or that a storm is inevitably near. One way Foss puts the distinction of sign and symbol is through a tennis match between people who have not experienced it in years against someone who has played the game for years. She discusses that the unfit person suggest he will not do as good therefore, symbolizing why his performance was very tragic. Humans may use objects that are not symbolic and form then into something symbolic. An example Foss uses “The tree could become a symbol, however, if it is used by someone to communicate an idea” (Foss 5).
In my own life this has become an effective method of communicating. Many symbols I used to describe the way I feel, or how I react in some ways that can be explained as rhetoric. Something like arguing with someone in a harsh method, I’ve used symbols that connect to the situation to prove my points. Rhetoric is a way for me to discuss with others through symbolizing my meaning.


Rhetoric -
1: The art of speaking or writing effectively: as the study of writing or speaking as a means of communication or persuasion.
2: Skill in the effective use of speech.