The Operator's Manual

While reading this article I came to the conclusion that I am guilty of doing such things as stated in this article.  At times I thought I had enough commonsense to operate or use something that I've never used before, but After fumbling around and almost killing myself I would read the manual.  This is where I became confused because the instructions were vague and now I really had no idea what I was doing.  I would think that many of us go through this in our lifetime and wonder, who in the hell wrote these instructions?  

It seems that bad things happen to good people which this article points out.  I know that technology is changing even faster than before, but it doesn't seem like this should be an excuse for bad writing of instructions.  One of the things that appalled me even more is that after all of the legal proceedings they are using the same manual for teaching a class on how to use the studgun.  It's funny someone pinpointed out the problem, but no one ever went back to fix it?

The Myth

Well as I sat and read Vatz, I know that everything made sense to me at that time and place.  I only come to wonder if everything will make sense when I present the material to the class?  We are always surrounded by situations, but it is the rhetor that brings them out in detail.  We would really have no concern with these situations, but the rhetor puts emphasis on it or their point of view.  The question is, should we always pay attention to these situations I guess only if there is a strong meaning to ones self.   There are things that stuck in my mind as I read further into the article, one is how the media lets us look at the news such as "Shark Week" which usually happens right after someone is attacked.  This will get the general public in an uproar and scared of sharks, which we don't take into consideration that we would have a better chance at winning the lottery than there is getting attacked by a shark.  My favorite was what really got this war started, you remember "Weapons of Mass Destruction"  anything to get the public confused.  6 years and nothing found yet!

Kairos

When I was reading this I was really thinking about what has been talked about in the class in  the past few weeks.  About how scientists prove something and how others will disprove the others claim.  We can also look at how Kairos is translated "the right time" and how it was the right time for DNA.  I would guess that many of these "right times" have come and gone with different discovers, but who is to say what is right and what is wrong? When it comes to science I can be a sceptic just because how these scientist can use rhetoric to persuade.  I guess that I have to be the judge of that, but with DNA it's hard for me to swallow this claim sometimes.  Just look at fingerprinting and how this claim has changed over time.  Not everything is what it may seem, but with some fancy wording some can make anyone a believer.  

 

It's time to put a little post so I can get back into the swing of things.  Some of the things that have been bothering me lately is that of my project.  I feel that looking at the Haditha massacre (Northern Iraq) and the rhetoric that surrounds it is appalling.  But when I go back to all the readings that we are doing within the class we get into depth with rhetoric.  I feel myself going back to the simplistic parts of rhetoric such as the cannons of rhetoric pathos, logos, ethos.  Just simple things, that if one of these are used right than one (a person) can be able to persuade someone.  Such as in the time of war so one can stay alive.

Where I get a little distraught or even confused is rhetoric used within the medical field.  When reading "Thucydides and the Plague in Athens" I began to think about the great things that rhetoric could provide, but can also be used as a monster to steer people wrong.  I am just pondering on these ideas because one must wonder which is the greater of the two evils.  

While reading chapter 11 about pleasure I would have to say that Aristotle had an outlook at how everything is pleasurable(in the soul if I understood right).  No matter what kind of sensible feeling that you would get there is pleasure involved.  I look at this most because during battles that there is much pain going on, but in the end pleasure will follow.  

I just cannot look at our current situation (financial)  and wonder how there would be pleasure?  Is it that we may succeed in the end and everything will be better or that we can make it through during a time of struggle.  I just have a hard time following how pain will lead to pleasure.  Many painful things that are out there will always stay in ones mind.  I understand that one has conquered a painful time, but I believe that there will always be some form of pain even if there is pleasure.

While I am sitting here reading Aristotle I believe more into the different ways of thought.  The thought that I am looking at is that of psycology and socialolgy.  If you are writing or presenting to someone than you need to know your audience.  I know that these different types of discourse (psycology and socialolgy) are fairly new, but one would have to reason that they are quite old.  This is because to put rational thought into a presentation you have look at these different factors in order to be persuasive.   

I look at this in detail because anyone can just blurt out some words or jot down some words onto paper.  If you don't take into account the social or cultural issues you will not persuade your audience.  This will lead you nowhere, which brings me back to that anyone can do this, but people that are knowledgeable into what they are presenting will let them succed towards their purpose.  

These articles which we had to read this week were more complex than the ones from last week.  One thing kept on going through my mind while reading the articles that came off of e-reserves.  It's this technology that we are faced with today and how it changes our ways of gathering knowledge.  There are just so many different ways that you can gather information this day and age.  I look at this and know more on how I've been left out of the loop.  Three years ago was the last time that I had a cell phone, so when I got my new iPhone I was surprised at all the different things that were available to do on it.  The newest thing was text-messaging.  All of the abbreviations, yea I was confused, but this is a way that technology is changing us.  Even school children are using these types of text in their academic papers.  With this new technology I believe that rhetoric is not looked at anymore (the meanings of words) or in easier terms our society is dumbing itself down.