ARCS:
This reading made me think a lot about how important audience is in rhetoric. In the example of the editorial in the Daily Illini about how administrators didn't want to do anything about the controversy regarding the Chief as a mascot until a third party was involved and how true this is in life in general where people don't want to do something unless somebody else cares. Would people perform the same way at work if they didn't have a supervisor? Would students study if they didn't have projects or exams? This makes me think about whether people are really uninclined to do the things that have defined success for us without someone basically babysitting us and if so if we are taught that we need to have someone watching over us in order for us to actually get things done or if this is just a natural pattern of behavior. Furthermore, this reminded me of the Civil Rights Movement and how racial minorities in the United States have to have a voice that people want to listen to in order to really change anything-yet another case that stresses how important audience is in rhetoric.
RT:
In Line 21 of Helen it says "I have by means of speech removed disgrace from a woman." I wonder if speech is really so important and powerful as it was in ancient times. It is in some ways, especially politicians who get elected based on their speeches, but I wonder if the internet and multimedia becoming so popular has changed some of this, especially in the case of celebrities people no longer pay attention to what they say and more to what paparazzi capture them doing. I feel like this has also spread to the regular world-could you talk your way out of a really embarrassing facebook picture? I think that the popularity of the internet and the spread of multimedia is making speech less and less important and other forms of expression to be more trusted.
I think you have a very interesting point. Would people still try to do a good job in their work, school, and everyday life if they had no one forcing them to do better? I believe we would like to think that we would, that we would take pride in our work but deep down, I personally feel people would actually do the minimum. People today still do mostly the minimum especially if there is not a substantial reward for putting in extra hours of work and effort. To me, it is a result of thousands of years of hierarchy. This idea that the powerful people are on the top of the ladder and the lesser people are below, working for the upper class. In our own capitalist society, we have modeled our culture after the notion of working for what we get. I believe this idea of having someone above us, urging us onwards has been so ingrained in us we don’t think twice about it. We work for praise and acceptance and even love. It is cemented in our very being. Without that need to please or the worry that if we don’t perform in a certain way we will be punished,could very well cause society to cease to exist. Of course that is a doomsday scenario but society most likely would not resemble what we live in today.
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