Monthly Archives: October 2012

Questions for the Masses.

Posted on October 31, 2012 | Leave a comment

Alright, all.  I really need your feedback on this one.  Or rather, I’m just really intrigued.

So today…something strange happened.

The conversation started out innocently enough.  After all, I was only relaying how I had an English paper to finish, couldn’t find any damn computers in the library open for printing, blah blah blah. Harmless texting with my boyfriend on a Wednesday morning.  But somewhere along the way, I entered into an explanation about this course, its ideas, and the premises of rhetoric and effective argumentation.

Boom.  Full-blown outside-of-class discussion about rhetoric and the ancients; culture and even its paradigms.  I don’t know yet whether I should be embarrassed or proud of myself…you may put in your input on that, too.

Quite frankly, I think he was being thick.  But then again, he hasn’t gained the same insights from this class, now has he?

However, some of his points seemed fair.  For instance, he argued that people are always going to fight about who’s right and who’s wrong, regardless of whichever culture serves as context.  True, this has an element of human nature.  However, my main frustrations today (especially with the realm of politics) is that our culture–especially the media aspect–enjoys a good battle a little too much, and seemingly only for the theatrics.  No one wants to collaborate, and rarely do the problems actually get solved.  And that very frustration caused me to ponder whether it’s always been like this.  Or did the ancients have it better? Were they all-around more effective communicators because rhetoric was viewed as a skill, an art form?  Does our culture’s problems with stubbornness of opinion exist today as merely a cultural trend, or is this a cross-cultural human nature issue?

Tons of questions, but I’m not done.

Furthermore, “how can you compare anything in present day to centuries ago” became his next point.  Simply, he could not see the relevance between the lives of the ancients with ours, especially when ours is considered so much more advanced.  Back then, according to him, “there was nothing to argue about besides land”.  No, sweetheart, YOU’RE WRONG.

Sure, it was centuries ago.  But were the ancients exactly primitive?  They weren’t as advanced in science, sure, but what about this ability to communicate well–this ability to value people’s opinions?  Decades or maybe even centuries from now, after our culture is over this whole “Technology Era” thing, will we return to valuation of philosophy, the humanities, and thought above all else?

So, the ancients. The fact alone that we still learn their names and philosophies must account for something…they must have been on to something that we as a culture have fundamentally lost.  So when will it become mainstream again?  I don’t know.  But when it does, I’m sure they too will boast this “new, advanced thinking.”  But no, sweethearts, you’re wrong.

 

So many question marks. I’m cutting myself off.

But give me answers.

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Cynics: The Enemy

Posted on October 25, 2012 | 6 comments

(Okay, I’m just kidding about the title.) But…

Perhaps there is one thing that optimists can’t be optimistic about.

C y n i c s.

We feel hopeless about changing them. A cynic is set in his or her ways, insisting whenever they defend their Debbie-downing that they are “realists” or “call it as they see it”.  But, to all you cynics:

How can you be so confident that you know the world better than anyone else?

Cynicism comes with a sort of arrogance that argues, “You all are just too ignorant to know any better.”

Perhaps the most important distinction to make here is that cynicism is not equal to wisdom or insight.  Cynicism is defined as “like or characteristic of a cynic; distrusting or disparaging the motives of others” whereas insight is defined as “an instance of apprehending the true nature of a thing, especially through intuitive understanding.”  Therefore, cynics cannot call themselves realists, for the quality of being “real” implies that there is no bias.  Quite honestly, I’m not quite sure realists exist, for what determines what is real? What happened to the value of different perceptions–what happened to everything we’ve been learning in class, that opinions differ yet may all be simultaneously valid?

No, cynics are not realists. Cynics, by definition, maintain a negative bias right from the get-go.

I believe optimists’ frustration with cynics is this sense of superiority and misled belief that they have a keener understanding of the world. Sure, optimists can be dubbed as ignorant, and there are plenty of happy people who simply turn a blind eye.  But, this isn’t a fair assumption.  Many optimists maintain a deep, complex appreciation of the world–understanding and experiencing its pain and brokenness–yet, as I’d explained in last week’s blog post, they choose a life of appreciation in spite of all the crap.

Cynics, good for you for recognizing the crap.  It’s there, sure, there’s no denying it.

But what’s the use in believing that that’s all there is? In d.w.e.l.l.i.n.g. in it?

What’s the point of (( bitterness ))?

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Rough Draft: Women in the Work Force

Posted on October 25, 2012 | Leave a comment

Shannon Wagner

Sarah Summers

Paradigm Shift Paper

25 October 2012

 

In the early 1960s, a feminist movement was on the rise.  Women sought a new role in the world; rather than being maintained between the four walls that their husbands had bought them to clean, they demanded a cultural shift including a work world especially that was not dominated merely by men, but rather had women’s contributions as well. Over the past few decades, women have attained this feminist desire to the point of cultural expectation, and a majority of families feature two working parents, and women have more than rose to the occasion; in fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics data, about 40% of working wives out-earn their husbands (cite). However, while many women have indeed “broke the ceiling” in the workplace, that success in infiltrating women into the work force has failed to carry over into the domestic sphere.  With all these women out-earning their husbands, as well as women out-numbering men on college campuses, came the general consensus that women belong in the work force. Yet, cultural expectations regarding the roles of women have also demanded they retain all their household duties as well, creating a common “two-shift” lifestyle that poses enormous stress on the modern-day woman.

While women’s roles in both the working and domestic sphere have shifted all throughout the 20th century, the two-income family with kids has only recently taken a stronghold in our society as cultural commonplace (?).  Dating all the way back to 1963, the emergence of Betty Freidan’s famously influential work, The Feminine Mystique, women have been looking beyond the domestic sphere and toward the horizon of other personal life choices that were radical in comparison to the “1950s Housewife” gender role.  According to “The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything”, a lengthy report issued by the Center for American Progress in (find year), President Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women recognized this change in American culture–a change that recognized the true economic and even social potential of women –and he invited former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt to chair the new Commission on the Status of Women.  The committee’s goal encompassed the idea of women’s equality with men in all facets of the public sphere.  However, the committee’s very first report American Women echoed the sentiment of still so many Americans at this time: that the role of women is “most generally approved by counselors, parents, and friends is the making of a home, the rearing of children, and the transmission to them in their earliest years of the values of American heritage” (cite- pg. 17).  While the early 1960s surely mark the emergence of a new idea of women outside the home, I argue that an idea of women in the workforce certainly was not dominant, for it was seen and generally accepted (commonplace?) that a mother’s homemaking and childrearing was a civic duty for the good of traditional American values.  Certainly, with single, head-of-the-house working mothers comprising only 10% of American families, and other working mothers’ jobs considered in the “low-paid categories”, it’s easy to see that America had a long way to go to our attitude today (cite).

While women’s transition out of the home and into the work force has been a stead, broad process over the past fifty years, points in our nation and culture’s history within that time frame have pushed women towards where they are today.  For instance, according to Liza Mundy, author of The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinning is Transforming Sex, Love, and Family, the recession of 2007-2009 obviously caused numerous lay-offs; however, three-quarters of these jobs lost were occupied by men (cite).  Therefore, many already two-income families instead underwent a shift towards a single breadwinner, the mother, while the “provider” of the family was left to search for another job, or instead stay home with the kids.  Because this specific transition was by force rather than by choice, many traditional-minded American families who perhaps had pushed against the women-as-breadwinners trend had to come to grips with the fact that the more practical option was for the women of the house to hold the jobs. As a result, families have had to discern for themselves what gender roles simply do not work for them anymore, and families division of money-making and child-rearing are no more cut and dry on the basis of this new, economically practical approach.

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Working Moms and Feminism

Posted on October 18, 2012 | 1 comment

Because my paradigm shift paper deals with one of the most important aspects of a woman’s life, it should come as no surprise that one of my sources is is CQ document regarding feminism.  It is specifically titled “The Future of Feminism”, and it outlines and described the different trends (dating back to the 1950’s) of women’s lives in accordance their traditional or untraditional beliefs, as well as the overriding cultural perspective of women at these different times.  The article also outlines contrasting views as to why feminism in reference to women in the workplace has failed: for instance, some women argue that the difference in men vs. women wages is due to women’s choices to divide their responsibilities between the workplace and the home, whereas some other women argue that the revolution is incomplete because while it has changed in the working world, it has failed to reshape domestic life. In all, though, this article (this entire CQ database!) offers a ton of useful information to use for my paper.

Glazer, Sarah. “Future of Feminism.” CQ Researcher 14 Apr. 2006: 313-36. Web. 18 Oct. 2012.

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The Epitome of Kairos

Posted on October 18, 2012 | 2 comments

I think that we, as children–good, manipulative, and wonderfully charismatic teenagers at that–have all mastered the art of kairos more than we realize. All our young lives (until now–freedom!!), we’ve been forced to abide by our parents’ rules, and we’ve been constantly at their mercy.  They tell us what we can and cannot do, or where we can and cannot go.  However we did have one weapon at our disposal.  It was a weapon that grew with power over time as we learned how to use it so that the epitome of its use was most likely the past couple of years.  That weapon?  Persuasion.

Persuasion does not merely exist by itself; rather, it is a complex working of many different tools and strategies.  However, one of its most important features is indeed kairos.  Kairos is utilizing the opportune moment to present your case.  It means taking advantage of a parent’s good mood, or taking advantage of your recent success.  It means not asking your mother for the car tonight when she just yelled at you for not doing your chores.  It means asking your mother for the car tonight after finishing your chores before she’s asked you.

For me, the most prominent example of kairos in my life dealing with my parents was a huge deal to me, but evidently to my parents as well.  You see, at my school, the tradition for senior prom is that many groups of kids go out “camping” on prom weekend after the actual dance, for Senior Prom was always Memorial Day weekend for us.  Quite simply: I wanted to go to a friend’s lake house.  Quite simply: my parents don’t approve of co-ed sleepovers.  Quite simply: there would be no parental supervision.  Hurting my case even more was the fact that at the time of my request, I wasn’t even a senior heading off to the freedom of college life; I was a junior.  So what did I do?

Ah, my mother and her head scratches.  I mean, who doesn’t love sitting down before bed and having someone relaxingly scratch their head as they are lulled to sleep? I had known presenting the request to my parents would be a big deal, so I wanted to create as favorable of an environment for me to make my proposition. So, while my mother and I were out in Ohio for my sister-in-law’s wedding shower, and as we laid there that night in the hotel room, I started scratching my mother’s head.  I let it go on, go on, go on.  I’ve rarely seen my mother more relaxed, and after a fun girls’ weekend, this. was. my. time.

I went in for the kill.  Long story short: I won it.  I got it.  It wasn’t immediate, but I got that consent.  All because of the kairotic opportunity that a nice, soothing head scratch creates (you’re welcome, Mom).

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Mrs. Brightside

Posted on October 18, 2012 | 2 comments

Ironically enough, this song is exactly what just came on on my iPod shuffle. Too bad it has nothing to do with the type of person I am (sidenote: why is this song called Mr. Brightside? Isn’t it a little too depressing for that??)

Anyway, here is my defense.  Here is my perception of the world.  Here is where I try to explain how, in a world that will challenge even the strongest and break even the best-intentioned, it is worth looking up.

I’m not quite sure how I came to be like this; I have the most fulfilling people in my life, I have passions that I have the time and means to enjoy, and I would say my life is pretty balanced.  I am truly, truly blessed, and I know it. But I am also human. In other words: I am not immune. Life has slapped me upside the head when I was looking away.  I’ve had bad years, and I’m only 18.  But more importantly, I’ve had amazing ones.  Also, you come to find that there’s a point amidst a trying stage–a trial, if you will–when you find that that time is now recorded in your mind as a thing of the past, and it no longer affects you the same way.  Often times, the only thing that tells you that you’re on the other side is a different, renewed perspective.  Think back to a time that’s sucked in your life, guys.  It feels different now with an after, doesn’t it? Yes, everything has a different flavor with the benefit of retrospect.  It’s simply about acquiring that patience to wait for the shift, and waiting for a time to pass and life to move on.

I think I went on a tangent again; somewhere, this turned into a pep talk.  Damn you, informal writing.

But my real point is: I don’t know how anyone (especially us, some of the most fortunate people to walk this earth) can live this life not in  w o n d e r.  Maybe I’m crazy, but an example: some days I’ll just be running with some friends through Sunset Park just outside campus, and I’ll see the mountains lining the sky, adorned with a colored canvas of leaves in hues of reds and golds, catching the sunset’s light. And I want to stop.  I want to take it all in.  I want to be present.  And I am.  This awareness–in all honesty–is my best theory to the source of my optimism: the fact that I don’t turn a blind eye to all the good and all the beauty in the world.

But what about people, you say? What about dealing with all the broken people?  The people you can’t stand to be around? How are you not cynical about people just want to use you rather than care for you, you ask?  A sunset won’t let you down, but what about your best friend?  To that I say: I’m not naive, and I don’t live in la-la land.  But remember that everyone–everyone–sets things into motion, and often times these consequences are unforeseen.  These people–everyone you encounter–will affect you in some way, but you really have no idea right now how that will be. We cannot dub these people as a nuisance in our lives;  how are we to know? After all, we live on only one side of time. Herein lies a second important aspect of optimism: recognition of purpose. With this, one also does not deny the possibility of failure or heartbreak; rather, one just confronts the challenge believing in a greater purpose encompassing that possible failure. And beyond that, the optimist recognizes that this purpose is often times beyond his or her current understanding.

Some final examples: Your heartbreaking rejections from other schools brought you to the people you now love here at Penn State.  As controversial as it is to say, the Jerry Sandusky scandal has caused other schools to crack down on abuse and assault, and therefore will benefit others’ lives.  It’s terrible, it really is. But. Good comes from bad:  I know it.  We just don’t always have the benefit of retrospect (and we never have the benefit of knowing an alternative outcome) to see it now.

So that is my hope for you all: just wait for that shift.  Also, wake up one tomorrow and really see the sky and the streets and the streams of people and all it really has to offer.  And maybe, just maybe, you’ll begin to see it through the eyes of an optimist.

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WIP – Trends of the Modern-Day Female

Posted on October 13, 2012 | 4 comments

Interestingly enough, upon logging into blog site, I saw Sarah’s most recent post regarding Sarah Jessica Parker’s part in creating a paradigm shift in which norms of the modern-day female evolved away from the traditional.  Somewhat similarly, I plan on analyzing the multiple shifts of a typical woman’s life as viewed by culture.  This could be age of marriage, age of childbearing, or perhaps (and I think most interestingly to me) the shift of mothers in the workplace.  The number of women in the work force has definitely increased within the past few decades, yet women still want the best of both worlds and raise children as well.  This creates an issue of women often time retaining the responsibilities of the traditional “homemaker” while also dealing with the stresses of a career, so I’d also like to examine how the expectations of a modern day woman have shifted as well.  There are many different angles that I could approach this with (for instance I could zero in on women and education, the effects of the economy on women in the workforce, or analyze more the dynamics of home life), so I appreciate any bit of feedback!

In other news, maybe Melissa McCarthy can better explain the issue at hand..

Upon researching the topic broadly during our session in the library, I found multiple articles that could be of use for how women are taking on this two-job challenge, but on the flip side, I also found an interesting article about how some women are actually asking for government compensation for “working as a homemaker.”  While this seems far-reaching, what was interesting about the article was that it addressed the fact that many stay-at-home moms, if they find themselves amidst a divorce, end up in near-poverty because they have no worked-for funds for themselves.  This, perhaps, could be another angle for the project.  Honestly, all three topics (working, marriage, and kids) go hand-in-hand, so organization might be a little tricky to figure out at first.  But that is precisely why I appreciate feedback!

 

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Happy Halloween!

Posted on October 11, 2012 | 2 comments

Ding-dong.  Trick-or-treat!!

Funny how one holiday can take on completely different meanings depending on age.

However, let’s discuss this in its purest form: in the context of a little kid’s experience.

Halloween consists on praying for not too cold weather, but going out with enthusiasm to brave the cold nevertheless.  It means rummaging through our brains and old baskets to compose an outfit better than all the others; it means flexing our kid-sized creative muscles.  Mommy, what should I be?!  Or, perhaps for us less creative folk, it means excitedly hitting up the Halloween stores that have mysteriously popped up everywhere around our hometown.  But for me specifically, it meant braving the streets with my dad.

Sometimes, many people question the point of Halloween beyond being a sales field day for candy companies everywhere.  While Halloween is one of the few holidays a part of American culture that does not feature a religious origin, and while it does not require a gathering of our families for a turkey dinner, it does serve its purpose in creating a night of shenanigans and fun for kids.  Perhaps I am biased because I have arguably one of the biggest sweet tooths in existence.  But, as insinuated before, to me Halloween was a time to become a team with my dad.  He would sometimes even dress up in his bear costume, and I’d help him hide behind bushes around the Breckenridge neighborhood, scaring anyone in our path.  I am a lover of shenanigans, and such memories are some of my fondest with my dad.  For many kids, sure, Halloween is for greedily acquiring as much sugar as humanly possible.  But don’t forget the kids at heart–the little ones in their princess and Star Wars costumes with a widening grin as you dump a little bit of chocolate and happiness into their pillow case.  Halloween may appear to be about witches, goblins, and other dark creatures.  But for many, it is just an innocent night to conquer the streets with your goony father by your side.

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Is This a Discussion?

Posted on October 11, 2012 | 4 comments

A back story: Upon going back home this past weekend, I was able to reconnect with my oldest brother.  Now Connor is the type of person who loves to share: share ideas.  He loves showing me TED talks, cool videos he found online, but mostly his favorites from StumbleUpon.  Connor also is big on English; he holds a degree with a minor in writing (from a small Indiana college, Sarah!), and he loves discussing politics and philosophy.  So, at the beginning of this semester when we were assigned our first reading assignment describing rhetoric in the ARCS, I immediately told Connor, knowing he’d hold an interest.  So, this past weekend he decided to share this with me, knowing it ties in with the class.  So, people, take a look…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clever, right? The poster highlights the many different flaws of peoples’ arguments when they don’t participate rhetorically.  Right off the bat, the poster poses the question of whether the participant is willing to change his or her mind; recall from our first chapter reading from ARCS that with effective rhetoric, “all parties to a rhetorical transaction must be willing to be persuaded by good arguments.  Otherwise, decisions will be made for bad reasons, or for interested reasons, or no reason at all” (5, ARCS). The next arrow downward deals with the logos of the participant’s argument, stating that if his or her logic is proven to be faulty, then he or she may no longer use that argument to further the discussion.  The flow chart, from there on, continues to unfold.  Most boxes pertain directly to ideas we have discussed in class, but there is one thing that does stand out to me as a potential conflict.  Once the discussion is indeed deemed a discussion, the creator of the poster lists four “rules” to abide by; the fourth of these rules reads: “Do not argue that you do not ‘need’ evidence.”  While this initially makes logical sense, we need to remember that the premise of rhetoric is that “factual evidence” is not the only form of relevant and valid points of an argument.  This poster leaves out entirely the other forms of rhetorical proofs: ethos and pathos. Where this poster implies that a true discussion does not value mere opinions, rhetoric takes such person ideologies and resulting opinions into account as valid.  In all, it seems to be a very logos-centered description of a valid discussion, which isn’t always the entire picture.  Thoughts???

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What Are We Doing Here?

Posted on October 4, 2012 | 1 comment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW20gHstfzU

 

I am currently a member of Global Brigades, and I am hoping to travel with them to Panama this coming May for a service trip.  However, even though the club is centered on the service trips that they offer for Medical, Business, Global Health, and much more sub-areas of work, we have meetings throughout the year here on campus as well.  A couple days ago, I received an email regarding tonight’s meeting: we will be watching a documentary, and above I linked the preview to this film dubbed, “What Are We Doing Here?”  Upon watching the preview, I immediately thought of how this documentary about NGOs’ effectiveness and ineffectiveness in Africa could serve as a very interesting artifact to analyze.  Though I haven’t actually watched the full film yet, there are still plenty of things I gathered from the preview alone.

For instance, the preview brings up right off the bat how we are pathetically inclined and persuaded to donate to charities and make an effort to make a difference.  However, it poses the question, how effective are these one-time investments and short-lived emotional investments to the actual cause? People are relatively easy to persuaded to at least feel something when presented with an emotionally and pathetically saturated movie, poster, or book about the horrors of poverty around the world. But what about when the emotion is lost a few hours later? Do these short-lived feelings translate into short-lived and unsustainable projects in third-world countries? Does pathos work in the long run?

In addition, I think this documentary really seems to question the ethos of American NGO’s in Africa.  Many times their work is unsustainable and ineffective, and the preview not-so-subtly suggests that Africans’ attitudes toward the relief effort is one of frustration. The documentary seems to explore, or perhaps question radically, if we even belong there in Africa, and what we should be doing differently if we want to truly help this poverty in the long run.

But I’ll let you all know 🙂

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