douglass

The speech by Fredrick Douglass was initially supposed to be a speech about the importance of the 4th of July. However, Douglass, as a freed slave, didn't exactly find importance in the 4th of July, because it speaks of freedom, and there are so many Americans that aren't free. He begins to craft his words into an abolitionist speech. Here he begins to talk about how the whites don't view the blacks as people, but they are in fact people. The interesting thing he does is that he twists the slaveholders's own logic around and shows that because of the laws they have enforced, they are already stating that blacks are people. This is how he appears to logos- he shows the logic and makes the twist of speech in a very understandable manner, even though it would have taken a decent amount of thought to arrive at some of the examples that he made- which in and of itself proves his point, because it shows how intelligent he is, and in a way, he sort of raises himself above the white people instead of equalizing them.
His appear to ethos is easy- as soon as he establishes blacks as being equal to whites, he goes through all of the gruesome and sad things that slaveholders do to their slaves. He then asks, What if this were you? would you like it done to you? Of course nobody would, and that is where he makes the connection with human emotions and puts everybody in the audience on the same level.

Prejudice

I find this article really interesting, because I have thought and even done some research about this in the past. I think his descriptions of people trying to justify themselves with prejudice- and his explanation of how people try to find reason for doing what they do. However, he never really got into the specifics of why people are prejudiced in the first place- by people, i mean humanity. He talks about how a kid can grow up prejudiced because of their family, or their surroundings, but the real question is, why is humanity as a whole prejudiced?

If we go back to what he was, in fact talking about though, I generally agree with him, but i think there is no way to really know for sure why people do a lot of the things they do in terms of that. Some of the experiments that they conducted made very little sense, and i wasnt sure how they could possibly explain the cause of prejudice from them. However, his opinion was well presented.

Jefferson

Jefferson has always been an extremely stylized figure, which is the view of most historical figures. However, I am somewhat disgusted by this piece of writing because it really illustrates the view that he had that black people were inferior, and not even people. However, in a way, it is eye opening. The people during the time period weren't simply racist, but uninformed. In a way it makes me understand why they acted the way they did, because they had never really realized that there were different types of people, and just simply didn't understand that people of a different color were still the same as they were. The people of the time seemed to believe "scientifically" that black people were inferior- their where there "data" was lacking was in the fact that black people were not allowed to be educated, whereas white people were, so of course they were going to SEEM intellectually inferior.

There are many different pictures painted of Jefferson- when I started reading the essay, as I said before, i was disgusted by what he was saying. However, the time period does indeed have to be taken into account, and I believe, from the nature of his statements, that if he lived in a more informed time period, he would not hold these beliefs.

Cora Tucker

Cora Tucker and Willy Loman would absolutely despise each other.

Either that or they'd be utterly fascinated by each other, because they have absolutely nothing in common, except that they are trying to achieve a very difficult goal. Willy Loman concentrates solely on being well-liked, while Cora Tucker completely discards that and concentrates only on pushing her ideas forward. Both of these can be good and bad- Where Willy falls short is in his failure to realize that it takes personal commitment to succeed (in most cases of course), and instead he is relying on the persona that other people make of him in order to get anywhere. Without that crutch from all the other people, or the knowlege that he is "well liked", Willy falls apart. Cora, on the other hand, doesn't seem to ever crumble- but she comes of as intimidating, also, and that's what her major problem is- that she intimidates a lot of the people that she wants on her side, and it doesn't help her case very much. Therefore she gathers a lot of people that dislike her, and work against her. However, Cora still seems to accomplish more than Willy.

Well Liked

I found Willy's stance on individual opportunity very strange... and similar to the dad in "Little Miss Sunshine". (his what it takes to be a winner speech). The two are about equally successful in projecting this view- as in, they're not. Willy seems to believe that the only thing that can get someone ahead is being well-liked. Therefore, a person's intelligence gets them nowhere if they are not well liked. Popularity is more important than work ethic, and the number of people that someone knows is more important than how commited they are. There are serious flaws in this idea. However, there are more people in the world that think like this than I would believe possible. Willy is not alone- and though being well liked does get someone somewhere- that somewhere doesn't tend to last very long. This may be a rather pessemistic view on humanity (not that I am trying to be pessemistic), but often times people depend more on each other than maybe they should, and although having people to depend on is healthy and essential for life, so is building onesself. What Willy doesn't realize is that although having supportive relationships is important, the only thing more important than that is the supporting in of onesself. If a person isn't committed enough to do something by him or herself, that person can't use other people as a crutch forever. This is partially the reason why Willy falls apart in the book, because he has no self foundation to base his success off of- only the constant hope and belief that he is well-liked.

Other presentation post

ok so I'm a little late on this; I didn't realize we needed two.

I thought in general the presentations were all good; I mean, i don't remember anyone who did particularly horribly. One thing to take into account is the fact that almost none of us has had any sort of public speaking course, so we don't have a whole lot of background to go off of. I do understand why public speaking is so scary to a lot of people- someone can be extremely outgoing but still be a bad public speaker, because it takes a completely different type of skill (at least that's what I believe). It was a little bit nervewracking to go without my powerpoint, although I am sort of glad I did because I know I probably would have used the powerpoint as somewhat of a crutch. I don't really like to compare people and how they did, though the ones that stood out to me were the people that sounded a lot less speechlike and more conversational. Maggie and Allie stood out, because it was more like they were just talking about their organizations than making a speech, because to me a speech implies that there is somewhat of a wall between the audience and the speaker ( not that it nessecarily should be that way). Many people tried to include the audience by asking questions, which i think is beneficial. I never really thought of that. Overall, however, I found the speeches pretty good.

Presentations Yesterday

Yesterday's presentations were good. I'm not sure what else there is to say; Alex set a pretty high bar with his, but everyone else basically succeeded in achieving that standard. It always jumped out at me when someone told a personal story to appeal to ethos, and I particularly remember Alex saying "Now you might be saying to yourself".. to introduce his conditions of rebuttal. That jumped out at me, because i don't remember anyone else addresssing the conditions of rebuttal so clearly, although i am sure that everyone did.

Emerson

Emerson's essay raises some interesting points- namely, that one needs to be an individual and needs to keep that awe of what it means to be human in order to be successful. I agree with him to some degree- however, it seems as though the world is pressuring people to not be individuals to succeed. Many people purposely keep a low profile, or follow what they are told because they are told that it will help them succeed, when in reality, it wont. Many celebrities that emerge on the scene trying to be individuals eventually get pounded into the same sort of stereotype that so many before them followed. However, I think it does take an individual to truly succeed- if someone can not rise above the masses and declare who they are and what they believe, they will not get anywhere. At the same time, there are many people with the courage and intelligence to do this very thing, and get nowhere. Success is very dependant on outside conditions, conditions that we have no control over. often simply being in the right place at the right time is a way to succeed, though of course one needs qualification. Emerson seemed to think that anyone with particular qualities or a particular mindset in the world could succeed- and he is quite possibly right, depending on what it means to succeed. If success is simply having a positive outlook on the world, sure, that is succes. However, I get the feeling that what he means is slightly more difficult- that success is more an outside thing, a money thing, or a family thing- and in that case, having only a positive outlook may help tremendously, and having these qualities may help tremendously, but there is never a 100% garauntee that a person is going to be "granted" with such success.

Thrifty Threads

The nonprofit organization I am thinking of doing right now is Thrifty Threads, which is on 86th and ditch-ish... it is sort of like Goodwill, but specifically exists to benefit the Julian Center (a center for abused women and children). Essentially, they take donations, and the members of the Julian Center are allowed to shop there for free. of course, anyone else can buy things as well. I chose it because it is a place I am familiar with and donate to often, and i think that it is an important cause.

cultural myths

Before answering the question, Dalton does have a point about how the myth should be buried. It doesnt nessecarily do any good, although, it doesnt nessecarily do any bad either, and therefore it is pointless to bury it, seeing is there aren't that many people who truly buy into it anyway- at least, i dont think there are.

However, going along witht he idea that it should be buried; the only way to bury it is to create a new myth in its place. This is difficult, but see, the problem is, you can't disprove it, because not only is that particular myth impossible to disprove (there are always exceptions to everything), but also, there is no way to simply wipe it away. If that were to happen, the memory and the essence of it would still exist and therefore the myth itself would still exist, no matter how many people stopped talking about it. And anyway, what is the point of trying to wipe out a myth? if it is universally understood that it is a myth, who really cares? Back to the original point, though, the only way to get rid of a myth is to replace it with a new one- which would do nothing to better society, unless the myth were a little more "true" (as oxymoronic as that sounds).