Blog Posting #3

I do think this class has raised a lot of questions in my head regarding language, but more specifically, rhetoric. I’m not an English major so until now I was completely unaware of what rhetoric was. I am not totally convinced that all language is meant to be persuasive but I am at least pondering the idea which is a lot more than I can say for before this course started. I like how we have open discussions and it seems like everyone feels comfortable enough to contribute. I also like the freedom we have to write whatever we are thinking about on our blogs. It helps everyone to get to know each other better than we could just meeting a couple times a week. The articles we read the first couple classes were really interesting and fun to talk about—maybe we could read more of those. I know it’s important to understand all of the theories too, but the other articles were more entertaining. I think it is helpful that you lead the discussions/lectures with a thesis to guide us; without the thesis I bet we could go off on a bunch of random tangents. Anyways I think this class is great and completely not what I expected.

Blog Posting #2

I am having a harder time finding my stand point on this issue because I think that SOME language is purely done for persuasion, but not all. I know a lot of people have ulterior motives when they talk with friends, but sometimes I think people do things without the mindset to persuade others. I think the reason I am not comfortable with saying that all language is rhetoric, meaning it’s persuasive, is because it makes all of our language seem “evil.” If we only say nice things to each other in order to persuade our peers it takes away the happiness and joy. Or if we only help the needy in order to persuade them, it takes away the selflessness. This goes back to our first class lecture about humans being innately selfish and evil… I’m beginning to see a trend here! Now I’m switching to the power that language has over humans and society. Without language we would have nothing. I definitely have a new respect for language… it’s not that I didn’t appreciate language before but I had never studied the effects as in depth as we are in this class. I don’t think this stuff is mindless at all… if humans know and understand anything I think it should be what sets ourselves apart from all other species on the planet.

Blog Posting #1

Today in class I really thought about how powerful written language really is. It was interesting to think that written literature can be an accurate part of history and reach 6 1/2 billion people. Moving on to the issue of cannibalism... I do not think humans are born with the gene to be cannibals. I think in extreme and desperate situations SOME humans will rely on cannibalism to survive. I'm not sure whether I think we are simply not born with the gene or whether we all have the gene to be cannibals but society suppresses this in each of us. Without language there would be no good or evil. It is because of language and society that humans have placed certain thoughts, actions and ideas into either the good or evil category. These topics can be so extensive because there are many tiers of severity within "good" and "evil." For example, telling a lie is evil but most would agree that it is not as bad as eating another human. I would describe myself as an optimist, but in a different way than a lot of people. I think that everyone desires to be "good" and your life is a constant battle to push away evil thoughts and actions-- but then it makes me wonder are people born good or evil. Some would say we are born evil since we are constantly battling the negative... others would say that we are good since we desire to push away the evil.