Society v.s. Individual

Have we lost our ability to communicate?

            Okay I want everyone to think about the last time they had a heart to heart conversation. But the conversation had to happen in person, not over text messages, not over social media, in person. We’ve lost our basic communication skills as a society, nothing has meaning anymore, nothing is sincere. Talk to you later has turned into “TTYL”, I love you to “ILY”, see you later to “C u later”. And now, this has affected our ability to grow up, put down the phone, get a job, and use proper communication skills. We’ve lost the ability to transition to formal grammar and communication at the right times.

            We’re growing up in a time when elementary school children rather play on their iPads rather than go outside and play with their friends, us high-schoolers rather facetime or text rather than go out, we stay in our room all night texting someone who’s just in the room next to ours. We don’t even want to talk to our parents face to face, I even find myself texting my mom while we are both in the same house, “how was your day?”, “what’s for dinner?”, “can you bring my backpack into my room?”. We are educating this society, this generation, in such a way that we lack to ability to work together, and communicate effectively. In Midnight;s Children, Saleem had his own way of losing his social skills, instead of losing them because of technology; he lost them because of the midnight’s children.  Once he discovers these “voices inside his head”, and discovers he can talk to the children all born at midnight when India gained its independence, he becomes an introvert. We lose our social skills, affecting us as we leave college, we leave college book smart, ready to tackle on a job, but here we are for our job interview and we can’t even get halfway through it because we can’t even seem to answer a couple questions about ourselves. 

            Cells communicate by sending and receiving signals, much like how we communicate by talking to another person, we “send” or say what we need to say and the other person “receives” our message and responds. In cells the way to trigger a response is by the signals transmitting across the cell membrane, our words that we say to another person affect them, letting our words soak into their brain “across the membrane” in order to “trigger” a response. Yes, I did just bring biology into this.

            So maybe we should put down the phones and discover and enjoy life not through a screen.

Rhetorical Analysis Outline of Kavita Krishnan speech, “Freedom Without Fear Is What We Need To Protect, To Guard And Respect”

Savannah Kayal

Ms. Parham

AP Language & Composition, Period 3

December 8, 2014

Rhetorical Analysis Outline of Kavita Krishnan speech,  “Freedom Without Fear Is What We Need To Protect, To Guard And Respect”

Purpose: To inform about the rape culture, and what’s not being done about it. Also to persuade not only women, but men to stand up and fight.

Audience: Primarily women to motivate them to stand up, as well as men. But also

Government officials calling them out on their wrong doing.

Subject: rape culture in India, and governments wrong doing

Context:  There had been a sexual attack on a 23 year old student in Dehli, and many other similar cases. On Wednesday 19 December students protested in front Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s house, the police tried to ward them off with water cannons. Kavita Krishnan, secretary, All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA), said why Sheila Dikshit and the political establishment are responsible for women’s deplorable social status in India.

Tone: serious, strong- which empowers women, while scolding the govermnet

Section 1: Introduction and the 3 paragraphs after

Purpose: states the occasion of the speech, states that the rape culture is Sheila’s fault because she did not take any action to fix it. Prepares us for the huge and serious problem she is about to address

Appeals: builds up her ethos by crushing the officials ethos. Pathos by stating that the officials say that it is always the girls fault for being raped. Logos=the rape conviction rate statistic

Evidence: “but the conviction rate has gone from 46% in 1971 to 26% in 2012”

Technique: lists a bunch of rhetorical questions to show how insane it is that nothing is being done about these frequent rapes. “ Who is responsible for this?” also restating how all officials are arguing that it’s the girls faults, “ If she was out at 3 am in the morning, she was being too adventurous.”

Effectiveness: very effective. She motivates her audience to stand up, and shows how drastic this argument is, how insane it is that nothing is being done.

Section 2: “The most recent incident”, and next 2 paragraphs

Purpose: to show that rapes don’t just occur late at night when the victim is alone. States a major claim “women have the right to freedom. And that freedom without fear is what we need to protect, to guard and respect.” Women have the right to be out alone, they don’t need to justify why they were out alone, or out at night.

Appeals: pathos- getting the women audience angry/motivated to protest or stand up tp officials.

Technique: uses a very strong and serious tone, defines the word ‘safety’ by listing what parents, communities, principals or wardens tell them in very short strong sentences, starting each sentence with the word ‘you’, which generalizes all women because all of them can relate to this.

·      “you have to behave yourself. You get back into the house. You don’t dress in a particular way. Do not live by your freedom, and this means you are safe.”

Effectiveness: very effective.  Generalizes all women making them feel united, they all can relate to the same struggles and what standards/rules they have to live by.

Section 3: “Why are we here?” and next 2 paragraphs

Purpose: brings back the reason for this speech “we are here to say that if the Delhi Police is running an ad campaign about violence against women, why is there not a single woman in these ads? Talks about ‘machismo’ and talks about the role of the male protector. Lists what is not included in the definition of ‘rape’ in the Indian government.

Appeals: major pathos, she gets very angry when saying this past of the speech and you can tell by her word choice.

Technique: diction makes mockery of the government-“and this means that you are safe.” She shuts down the officials argument by asking “what about the brother who cuts his sisters head off when she dares to marry a different community? Is he not playing the role of a male protector too?” She points out the fault in there argument by asking some rhetorical questions. She also shows fault in there definition of ‘rape’

Evidence: “if an object is inserted into a women’s genitals, it is not included within the definition of rape. The recent incident on the bus when tried in court, will not include within the description of rape that the men inserted an iron rod into her vagina- the reason she is battling for her life today.” She continuously turns the argument around on the government.

Effectiveness:  very effective. Shows the holes in the government’s rape definition and the holes in their women’s violence campaign.

Section 4: “Yesterday on television” and next paragraph

Purpose: begin her call to action “we salute her will, and say that those who survive rape are not walking corpses. Rape survivors are complete, strong, fighting women and we salute their spirit.” Addresses people who say not to mix politics with rape.

Effectiveness: very effective, has a counter argument for mixing politics with rape

A.   Appeals: pathos and logos

Evidence:

Ø  “If this girl survives, she will be like a walking corpse” She uses this quote from Sushman Swaraj (in Parliament) to  rebut this statement

Ø  “The last thing I want to address are the people who say not to mix politics with rape”

Technique:

o   she starts by saying who she wants to address and what she’s addressing. She proves that statement wrong by saying that the only way to fix the rape culture is with politics, fixing the governments definition of rape, saying that they need to create a counter politics that asks for the right for women to live freely without fear

Section 5: Conclusion

Purpose: to let the government know that they will not stop fighting.

Evidence: “our rage will not be washed away with water cannons, or beaten out of us with sticks”

Appeals: major pathos, the speech ends strong, women are ready to fight

Technique: the diction is very strong, showing that the will of women will not diminish, they will fight and fight no matter what

Effectiveness: very very effective, rallies up the women and lets the government know that this fight is far from over

General Evaluation:

Kavita Krishnan is a very powerful women figure and her speech is mainly pathos driven. She also uses the technique of stating where the government is wrong, and the holes in their arguments to support and make her arguments stronger.

Thanksgiving in my family

Malcolm X- “The Ballot or the Bullet”

So we're trapped, trapped, double-trapped, triple-trapped. Any way we go, we find that we're trapped. Any every kind of solution that someone comes up with is just another trap. But the political and economic philosophy of black nationalism…the economic philosophy of black nationalism shows our people the importance of setting up these little stores, and developing them and expanding them into larger operations. Woolworth didn't start out big like they are today; they started out with a dime store, and expanded, and expanded, and expanded until today they are all over the country and all over the world and they getting some of everybody's money. Now this is what you and I – General Motors, the same way, it didn't start out like it is. It started out just a little rat-race type operation. And it expanded and it expanded until today it's where it is right now. And you and I have to make a start. And the best place to start is right in the community where we live.

My Thanksgiving mimic

So my family is loud, very loud, very very loud. Anywhere we go we are told that we’re loud. You can only imagine how loud and rambunctious we are on Thanksgiving. But we do have some deep and meaningful conversations at dinner….we talk about the economic state of the United States and we talk about politics, primarily about how Obama is doing his job. Occasionally my snobby cousin talks about what amazing designer dress she’s wearing; what designer clothes she’s getting, and has, and what gifts she’ll get on Christmas, and currently what shoes are to die for and what aren’t and of course brag about her new iPhone 6. Now my other cousin and I- we just nod our heads, pretending to listen, occasionally throwing in some replies. And then there’s dessert and that’s of course my favorite part. And that’s always what goes the fastest and there’s never any left overs. And the best part is that I’ll be having an assortment of Italian and Arabic desserts.

Churchill vs. Hirohito vs. Goebbels

In the short time of a week, I have read three drastically different speeches, or so I thought. Although all the philosophers are addressing somewhat different topics and different audiences, they do have many rhetorical devices, claims and fallacies in common, in fact they even use them in close to the same ways. The most distinct similarity was the scare tactic and slipper slope used: if we don’t do something then we will die and eventually all of human civilization. Oh, and all the speakers were experts in making their country the victims.

In all cases they use slippery slope to say that they are doing the addressed action to make sure that the end of civilization does not happen, their actions are a benefit of the world.  Specifically, Emperor Hirohito was surrendering, and in some way said that this would benefit the rest of the world, “Should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.” But he also didn’t make it sound like a complete surrendering speech..he made it sound almost neutral, like there great loss was supposed to happen. In ways such as saying that the war was “not necessarily to Japan’s advantage…”, which was a complete litote. However Winston Churchill is talking to the British Empire to do the exact opposite, he needs everyone to stand up and take action, fight back! The beast has been awakened! Churchill says almost the exact same thing as Hirohito: “Let that be realized; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal.” And with that being said Joseph Goebbels also had the fact that he was rallying his people up in Berlin, Germany in common with Churchill, but also said the end of civilization was near if they did not do anything.

All parties also use the royal “we”, creating a sense of unity, making sure the society is united in whatever they do whether its surrendering or fighting back!