Rhetoric and Civic Life

Alexa Decatur
Professor Raman
CAS 137H
Oct. 29, 2012

THIS IS WHERE THE TITLE GOES

Mental Illness is an inescapable part of society that has been around since the beginning of mankind. Its presence has not changed, however, our reactions to it have. Over the past two centuries, man has gained knowledge and insight into the brain and the things that go wrong with it. Early theories on the causes of mental illness and psychoses ranged from demonic possession to excessive masturbation. Cures involved exorcism and various forms of torture, and when these failed patients were put to death. The 20th century brought about new technologies that led to a better understanding.

The 1700s and 1800s were dark times in the history of mental illness. There was little knowledge surrounding the causes of the diseases that caused abnormal behavior. The hallucinations, abnormal movements, and delusions of a mentally ill person were often interpreted to be signs of demonic possession. Ritual exorcism were performed but had no effect. The demons were thought to be deeply embedded within the person and could only be driven out by torture or death.  At that time, mentally ill patients suffering from psychosis were viewed as lesser parts of society. Supposedly “civilized” societies looked upon psychologically disturbed humans as subhumans, to be tortured or locked away and forgotten. Patients were often chained up for long periods of time in crowded rooms, neglected for days on end. During this time, asylums weren’t treatment facilities looking for cures but rather a place for the rejects of society to be hidden.

Stasis is used by a rhetorician to help clarify the main points of their argument. I am going to use stasis in my essay to help me do that.

First I will adress the question of conjecture or fact. What is my topic? My topic is the change in treatment and overall view on mental illness. In the past mentally ill people were thought to be possessed by a demonic entity. Therefore it was treated with an exorcism. When that didn’t work, the patient was put to death. The mentally ill were viewed as ‘subhumans’, a lesser part of society. They were tortured and exiled in psych wards and hospitals. Early 19th century was the age of psychosurgery. In the 60’s, psychotropic drugs were introduced.

Next I will answer te question of quality. Was the shift good or bad? In my opinion, society has moved onto the lesser of two evils. Antipsychotics and antidepressants aren’t a perfect cure. Sometimes the patient is unaffected and still exhibits the disease. Other times the side effects are worse than the actual symptoms of the disease, for example, suicide.

A couple weekends ago I decided to take a trip down to University Park’s own Palmer Museum of Art. I was surprised at how much the museum had to offer. There are two different floors housing 11 different galleries. Each gallery is home to a different cultural art movement. From 21st century modern art to 700 year old pottery to 18th century European art, there is something for every one here. I was particularly interested in the modern late 1900s-2000s art work. The Palmer offered a bunch of great pieces from this period. The museum also has a gift shop. I browsed through it on my way out and it has some cool, cheap stuff, i.e., necklaces, figurines, hand made pottery, buttons, pencils, pens, and more. So, if your want to kill time between classes, need a unique, inexpensive gift for a friend, have a paper to write on japanese art, or are looking for fun laid-back first date ideas, consider the Palmer as a perfect resource for all of these.

Salvador Dali is a European born painter, photographer, sculptor and filmaker. Most of you may be familiar with his most famous painting, The Persistence of Memory, the one with the melting clocks. Although this piece is wildly popular and recognizable it is just the tip of the iceberg of Dali’s incredible art work.

Salvador Dali was at the forefront of the surrealist art movement of the 1920’s. Surrealism combined abstract artistry, deep symbolism, and aspects of many Freudian perspectives. The combination of the characteristics often led to a mind-bending, dream-like, work of art. Dali was notable for his ability to translate his dreams into artwork. He integrates his dream world into reality, creating an alluringly surreal, trans dimensional piece. Dali brought this mysticism into everything he did, including his experimental films and his brief excursion into photography. Everything Dali created, even his quirky persona, left the viewer questioning.

Salvador Dali is one of my favorite artists. He put his heart into ever painting he made and challenged the everyday realities creating things people had never seen before. He was a visionary and an inspiration to all those who challenge conventions and looked to push the boundaries of their art work.

In recent years there has been controversy surrounding the use of certain drugs used to treat depression. These drugs, specifically Paxil, Prozac, and Zoloft, caused some patients to commit suicide. Theses people committed suicide just a few weeks after starting to take these antidepressants. People have spoken out against the continued use of these drugs. Many have tried to get them off the market and out of the hands of the public. There has been little progress in the way of this. This is an example of how kairos is operating in keeping the issue of treating mental illness relavent. Problems like this will always be relavent because illnesses like depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia have no know cure.

1. Societies view on mental illness and the changes in ways we treat the mentally ill.

a. Changes in the standards of medical care in hospitals. New laws and organizations arose to help prevent the mistreatment of               patients in medical facilities. These laws set rules and regulations regarding what can and cannot be done to the patient to ensure   their safety and comfort.

b. Decrease in the amount of psych wards and facilities for the mentally ill due to the introduction of psychotropic drugs. These pharmaceuticals can prevent or lessen symptoms of certian mental illnesses so that an afflicted person can live a fairly normal life with out aid or assistance.

c. Society once viewed serious mental illnesses as an extreme taboo. Although there is still a certain stigma surrounding mental illnesses, it is a lot easier for people to understand rather than fear or shun a mentally ill person.

I want to write my paradigm shift paper on the changes in people’s views on mental health. In the early 20th century there were tons of psych wards and mental health facilities, many of which tortured or abused its patients. Lobotomies and ECT’s were frequent forms of treatment. Now there are far less mental health facilities do to the introduction of psychotropic drugs. The ways we treat and look at mental illness is drastically different now then they were 100 years ago.

1. Purpose, Audience, Context

• Purpose-  To get people to advertise and make the organization and cause publicly known.
• Audience- From the music and content in the video you can tell it is geared towards younger people. This ad assumes that the audience has already seen the first video because it doesn’t explain who Joseph Kony is or what he has done.
• Context- Youtube Video

2. Choices

• The editor chose to open the video with different clips of media coverage about Kony. The music was an obvious choice, meant to “pump up” and empower the people watching it. The makers of the video chose to use a montage of short shots instead of longer ones and to use text instead of narration to give the audience information

3. Strategy

• The media coverage was to underscore the importance of the cause. If so many news shows are covering it, it must be important. The music builds up and makes the video exciting. I havent figured out why the text is used instead of a voice over narration.

4. Anomolies

• The video is definitely geared toward a younger audience they could have geared the video to a wider audience maybe using a more sentimental approach. The first video, which was sentimental got millions of views, this one only has about 240,000. Also, again, the text instead of narration. Not sure why they chose that, maybe not to interfere with the music.

It wasn’t until today that I decided on a topic for this blog. It had a hard time thinking of something interesting to write about that wouldn’t bore you guys to death. Until this morning I was still undecided, but a  fascinating blog opportunity presented itself to me in the form of a new Twitter follower, @4gottenboneyard. I proceeded to engage in , what most internet savvy people would call “creeping” on this random, unknown follower’s profile. After reading a few 140 character or less blurbs and looking through a bunch of “twit pics” I realized that @4gottenboneyard, who’s real name is Tim Prince, was a very skilled and specialized artist who’s medium is anything but ordinary.

According to his twitter bio, Tim  “…uses real animal bones to create bizarre creatures and other dark artwork…” Basically, Tim repurposes the skeletons of animals, rearranging and combining them into awesome works of art. This type of art is a little on the macabre side, but undeniably cool. After seeing some of his work you can tell it requires meticulous planning, concentration, and an insane amount of creativity. These creations are completely innovative and totally original.

If you like Tim’s art you can find more at   http://www.facebook.com/ForgottenBoneyard

I recently came across this ad on facebook. The ad is from an organization called Truth that sets out to inform people about the tabacco industry and the consequences of smoking. On Truth’s facebook page, there are tons more ads like this. I picked this one in particular because I thought it had the most appeal to pathos. This ad is very simple, using uncomplicated graphics and minimal writing. The ads message is explicitly clear: 94,000 fetal deaths have been related to tobacco use since 1964. This statistic is especially emotional because it deals with not only death, but the death of children. The pathos is also due to the fact that this child died from something out of its control, caused by the poor decisions of its parent. This fact is not stated directly in the ad but can be deduced by the viewers logic.