The other day I was thinking about how this is the first actually beneficial English class I have ever taken (not including learning the basics of course). When will I need to read a book and then write about it to turn in for a grade in real life? That is practically what I did every marking period from middle school until graduation day of high school. But now we are being exposed to practical and useful concepts that go beyond implications strictly for the English world. Hopefully, one day I will either be a psychiatrist, clinical psychologist, or an ophthalmologist  and all of these careers require logos, pathos, ethos, kairos, common places and everything else in our course schedule. In regards to my psychologic job options, I will not be successful if I cannot appeal to my patients emotions, provide logical means of thinking, and I most certainly will need to form a connection with them so they can trust me as we talk about things and common places. I also have to be able to say the right things at the right times since some patients will be very unstable and fragile. If I choose to become an eye doctor (which I know is completely different from my other two options) I would still need to implicate those things. For example, I would need to build trust with the patient so they will feel at ease as I preform their lasik surgery, or speak logically with them when discussing the best options for their eyes. Who knows, maybe I will graduate college with a completely different career path in mind than I do now, but either way, I’m still happy I got to learn in depth about the importance of rhetoric.

My grandma ( my mom’s mom, we call her Gram ) and my dad always seem to get into arguments over absolutely nothing. They are both extremely conservative republicans, yet they fight about politics. They are both tell me  I need to “live a little”, but then behind each other’s backs they gossip about how the other one is a bad influence. They both tell each other that they complain too much, yet they are the two people I know who complain the most.

Imagine every single stinking family get together my family has with those two at the same dinner table. Believe me when I say it is one of the most obnoxious experiences of my life, especially after they have a few sips of their usual drinks! Its like two broken records saying snarky comments and rude remarks back and forth.
Gram: “Mitt Romney should have won the election”
Dad: “No, Mitt Romney really should have won the election”
Gram: “Oh stop complaining about how no one listens to you Mirek” (< my dad’s name).
Dad: “I’m not complaining I just want to get a word in edge wise!”
Gram: “Stop getting so heated in front of my family!”
Dad: “Me?? I’m calm! I’m calm!”
Rest of the family: “Oh will you two stop being dumb asses! Shut up and eat your turkey,
and no more politics.”

I guess you could say my entire family doesn’t provide the best example of rhetoric, my dad and gram especially. They certainly don’t know what effective communication is, and have no clue what kairos is because they never say the right things at the right time. It’s funny though: if they didn’t argue like they do it wouldn’t feel like my family. Its almost as if their bickering is just a way for those two old geezers to get extra energy out of their systems since they are so alike. It’s like they are arguing with themselves! Gotta love it.

As we all know by now, our next big project on the good ol’ Rhetoric and Civil Life agenda is the History of a Public Controversy Multimedia Presentation. This sounds rather intimidating if you ask me. However, once my group members and I got together to discuss some possible topics, the ideas started to flow. On the coarse website, it was recommended to do a project on a controversy at Penn State, but we came up with a different idea for now. Shalome had the interesting thought of looking at how social views of women have changed over the decades. Then Natalia, Rebecca, and I spun off of this notion and added some of our input on the subject, which spiraled into the formation of a truly interesting project topic thus far. This is not exactly feminism, but rather how the media and social perspectives on females have caused gender clashes and such in our history. There was not much debate on the topic and we all contributed great ideas to the group that expose truths, discuss stereotypes, and recognize the shift of what a girl should act and dress like over time. It will be fun working with my group because we all listen to what everyone has to say and we get along well, which provides the foundation for very effective communication and rhetoric. Being that we are all girls, that is subject to change, but we are are pretty down to earth so that should not be a problem. Working with a new form of media will be interesting, yet exciting because we have a chance to experiment with new technology. I also really liked how professional the example we saw in class looked and thought it was amazing that students could make something like that. Can’t wait to get started, wooh!

With all the  recent presidential election non-sense occurring, civic life hasn’t seen this much vivaciousness since 2008 when re-elected President Barack Obama won his inaugural election. This election, however, was filled with so much tension and staunch opposition because millions of people are so crazed with recession and economic issues (and rightfully so). Half believe Obama will drag the country down with his “useless” policies that they think have proven to be ineffective and fear that the U.S. is going down the tubes since Romney lost. My grandma always tells me the “your generation’s future has hard times coming for you, you just wait Jackie. Everyone is going to be jobless and the world will be shit” I hate it when she tells me this! As if we don’t already have enough to stress over! The other half of the American population LOVES Obama and thinks that Romney would sabotage any international relations that Obama has improved, or at least making efforts. Obama also gained support from numerous politicians in wake of the recent Hurricane Sandy that destroyed the northeastern shores because he supports environmental improvement, unlike Romney who is solely a tried and true businessman. I suppose that in the long run, everything will work out for our country. There have been many presidents who did a significantly worse job that Obama has thus far and the world did not go down in flames then. If we got through the Great Depression, two World Wars, and various other terrible situations, then we can over come whatever everyone is always so up-in-arms about right now. (yes I know, it’s the economy and jobs and blah blah blah). And hey, it was great to see how many students followed through with their civic duties and casted their votes on Tuesday! Our generations has shown a great interest in politics, or at least the majority of my friends do, and like my grandma would say “It’s great to see the young vote!”

I’ve noticed that what we learn in this class really assists us in everyday life. We all have those petty arguments with our friends, parents, or siblings from time to time and use stasis, kairos, and other means of rhetoric without even thinking twice about it. Obviously, stasis applies to any argument since its what helps rhetors pin point what the disgruntlement is about in the first place, thus getting a full scope of the real issue at hand. By knowing all of this information, one can create their stance on the situation. I feel as though this is the simplest, yet most important aspect of rhetoric because without forming an opinion on a topic or at least an idea about it, then how can you even use kairos, or pathos, logos, and ethos? You need to know your stance to be able to back it up and persuade someone else of your views. I’m not down playing the importance of the other rhetorical devices, however. Yes stasis is the base, but people won’t stop to look at the pretty tree if it is just a stump. I see pathos, ethos, and logos and the branches of this rhetorical “tree” since there are three “branches”. Karios can be the leaves since its emphasizes the branches because of it is the use of proper timing for making a claim. So all in all, stasis, kairos, and other rhetoric devises are used everyday, you can even see it in the trees.

Girls tend to have this stereotype of being overly dramatic and sensitive. This is not necessarily true, however two girls on my dorm floor gave that statement some validity. It all started with an open window:

A few nights ago, two girls who are roommates on my floor (lets call them Larissa and Courtney) got into a bit a of a scuffle. Larissa, who seems to have a somewhat negative personality, constantly picks battles with Courtney for no apparent reason. Courtney does her best to always roll with the punches because she knows Larissa is having a hard time adjusting to college, however one one day she snapped. My floor tends to get a little toasty at times so Courtney decided she wanted to open the window on her side of the room, which seems like a simple enough thing to do without needing any permission. This instantly sparked flames with Larissa, who hates the window being open due to cigarette fumes and the loud noise coming from outside. Courtney attempted to stay calm but she could not take Larissa’s constant melancholy attitude anymore. The two girls progresses into a full on argument that escalated into more than just a disgruntlement about a dumb window. All of the tension built between the two had suddenly erupted. Larissa stormed out of the door and complained to the RA about the whole window situation, which led to the three of them having a roommate agreement meeting that made a huge fuss out of such a trivial matter. If the girls practiced proper rhetoric, then these tiny little annoyances would not have turned into a whirlwind argument about such unsubstantial matters. The girls should have confronted each other each time they had an issue with something and talked about it rather than bottling it all up. When in doubt, rhetoric it out!

Pathos is, in my opinion, the strongest aspect of rhetoric today. In fact, if a speaker can appeal to an audience’s emotions, then he/she has done an excellent job of persuasion because emotion drives people to do things. For instance, the ASPCA commercials with Sarah McLachlan tug at your heart strings to donate to help save abused animals. If the somber song playing in the background and horrifying photographs of the animals do not evoke pity and sorrow in your soul, then you must be emotionally void! After seeing the 30 seconds of dogs, cats, and other pets struggling in agony, many viewers cannot help but pick up the phone and donate to save them. I know my grandma could probably open up a zoo with the amount of animals she supposedly saves (that lady is reckless when it comes to donating money to animals). Of coarse, there will always be those few who say “oh great, this commercial again. Shut up Sarah McLachlan…”, but this is because the advertisement has played so many times. The inaugural viewing of it would have very different effects such that the whole its so sad/gross/terrifying I can’t stop watching thing happens. Well, this happened for me anyways. So, next time you see the ASPCA commercial with Sarah McLachlan singing away in the background, take note in how it toys with your emotions and forces you to ooze with pity and guilt for the animals. Pathos at it’s finest.

Well, after three class periods worth of speech giving, I now have an excellent understanding of the different ways rhetoric pops up in everyday life. What I found most interesting about the speeches was how a few of my classmates used “hippie” examples. I really liked this because although the hippies are known for their drug use and go-with-the-flow lifestyle, they did have a good key message, peace. What is more civic than being peaceful and loving everyone in your community? I think these presentations gave a unique spin to the project and proved to have very valid points. I myself have a huge fascination with the 60s and 70s decades, music and just culture wise in general, and I never would have put two and two together. Well done classmates!

Of course, it was still very interesting to listen to all of the other speeches. They ranged from modern day to back during the WWII era. That being said, it proves that rhetoric is an important aspect of our lives past, present, and undoubtedly in the future. Civic engagement is also vital for the maintenance and growth of a community throughout history and beyond. People may question, “Why do we even need to take this class? We won’t need any of this information after the semester ends.”, but this is not the case at all. One may not realize the impact of rhetorics, however the world would turn to one big blasphemous free for all quarrel without it.