Pathos

In the picture a large seal is depicted, holding a blunt object, which may be a club.  On the ground in front of him lies a vile depiction of a recently beaten infant.  As terrible as this picture may seem it is an actual advertisement against human cruelty to animals.  To understand why this image has an explicit appeal on human emotion it is important to examine all the elements of this image, disturbing as it may be, in their entirety and how they are connected.

             The first thing that can be examined is the seal holding a bloody club.  Seals of course are not capable of such actions.  This fact is important because it is giving human traits to a very non-human entity.  What it suggests is that the animal is in fact capable of human actions and therefore causes the audience to consider that it might also be capable of human emotion.   In this depiction the animal is the dominant, as is the case for humans in human-animal relations.  Here the roles of dominance have been reversed for emotional appeal.  Furthermore the incident is taking place in the animal’s home environment as to suggest that the infant is the intruder in the animal’s home.  This is summed up in the only text found on the advertisement, which reads: “Don’t treat others the way you don’t want to be treated.”  The audience feels compassion and remorse for the abused infant, which in this case assumes the role of the animal.  What it makes the audience consider is the idea that not good or normal person by basic standards of society would ever treat a child that way, why would we treat any other entity, in this case animals, the same way if they are at all capable of emotion which is what the image suggests. 

            This poster might appeal to animal abusers.  If the picture does in fact cause the reader to consider things like remorse or compassion for animals, those who are currently abusing animals might encounter feelings of regret or disgust for their actions, thus causing the reader/viewer to abstain from such actions.  In the most desired case those who are affected will not only avoid animal cruelty but also assume a proactive stance against it.  The sole objective is to both propose ideas of circumventing animal abuse and conceive notions of pro animal protection in those currently lacking or opposed to the idea.

Everyday Life

Stephen James

Professor Mulliken

English 1113

8 September 2011

The Ordinary World

            Chapter one, Everyday life in Our Weird World, of the book The Virtual Self: a Contemporary Sociology by Ben Agger is about the sociological structure of today’s society. Ben Agger’s main argument of chapter one is a major aspect to a wired sociology.     

Agger introduces his chapter by explaining the worldliness of ourselves through the use of the technologies of today and he states that “The more people know about ephomora- things that come and go – the less they know about what really matters”. According to Agger, Agger believes that the themes of sociology that entail economy, politics and culture and how they impact people’s daily lives are things that we take for granted. In other words, he argues the fact that people normally expect the themes of sociology to impact people’s daily lives when essentially people do not appreciate the sociological themes. Agger argues that sociology entails daily experiences that create who you were and who you are and he uses his own personal experiences to see if he has an everyday life because he makes a simple run to the grocery store an exercise that deals with theory. Agger also evaluates the sociological structure by stating that “I assess the relationship of self and social structure in this unprecedented stage of capitalism” which shows that his view between self and social structure is a major factor dealing with sociological structure.

In the middle of chapter one Agger starts to argue how historical sociological events and theories are important to everyday life. Agger argues that “ Everyday life, is transacted between practical reasons, with pragmatic if not pro competence, who thus renew social structure by in effect, “doing it” “ (22) which simply means that people have the power to make decisions throughout everyday life to make a difference in an impactful way. Agger also points out that capitalism will become a crisis while others may say it will become a success. In addition to Agger's point he evaluates that people tend to depart from politics because of everyday life where he argues that before you make assumptions about capitalism you have to be knowledgeable about historical and social context backgrounds before you can comprehend capitalism issues.

As the chapter begins to end, Agger starts to make arguments that involve socialism and Marxism to convey how they are important to everyday life. Agger has strong beliefs about the importance of Marxism and how it is important to everyday life but he makes it clear that he is not trying to change the readers beliefs to Marxism. Instead he states that he is “defending the concept of everyday life as centerpiece of a weird sociology” (35). Agger also argues the reason why our everyday life is in this wired world by stating that “Everyday life implies on ordinariness corresponding to a mode of consciousness or natural attitude, contrasted with a theoretical attitude that view the taken-for-granted world as strange” (27).

According to Agger, the meaning of chapter one is that there is a relationship between everyday lives and social structure. In support of the relationship between everyday lives and social structure agger states that “The Internet and other Electronic connections that alter the distinction between self and society” (40).

Work Cited

 Agger, Ben. "Everyday Life in Our Wired World." The Virtual Self: a Contemporary Sociology. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004. 20-41. Print.

My Infosphere

In Michael Vlahos article “Entering the Infosphere” he mentions the fact that the world is going through a big change in a way that deals with migration and revolution. Michael Vlahos declares that the reason for the world’s big change is because the society passes information down to other people where everything that has or had happened can be received. Vlahos simply states that his argument of the definition of Infosphere is “shorthand fustian of all the world’s communication networks, databases, and sources of information into a vast, intertwined and heterogeneous tapestry of electronic interchange “ which simply means that the infosphere can assemble all knowledge and people in one place. Vlahos points out how his definition of infosphere is compared to a personal infosphere by stating that “The infosphere changes through a storage, but not alien, blonding of technology and culture…Technology’s network ecology brings fundamental change to us… Ultimately, we decide we want to be in the Infosphere”. Vlahos also points out another reason how the infosphere is important to a personal life by saying that people have to realize the importance of the infosphere towards life. Michael Vlahos explains that the infosphere has to involve a place when essentially you can make anywhere a place by simply knowing where you are. For Instance, the cyberspace is an actual place because you know where the cyberspace is. Vlahos definition of info sphere is quite similar to my own personal infosphere because everything that I watch, listen, and read are the types of things that I can put into my own infosphere.

My Own Writing Style

As I was writing my essay for my English paper, I noticed that I had started and ended my paper in a descent amount of time with no interruptions at all. I realized that the type of environment that I was in was in a serene type of environment. When I was writing I played instrumental classic music, turned on a small fan, drink water, and eat a box of hot tamales. I noticed that playing instrumental classical music began to make my brain more relaxed and think more clearly. The one thing that was a battle for me to deal with at times was keeping my fan on while I was writing my paper. When I am in the process of writing my paper my fan causes me to get too cold or not cool enough at times which hinder my train of thought and my whole entire writing environment thoughts. The whole idea of listening to instrumental music, drinking water, and eating my box of hot tamales all stimulate my brain to write in a serene type of environment that causes me to think of ideas that will make whatever I am writing about more effective and thought out. The one thing that I can do to ensure that my writing environment is comfortable is to wear warm clothes so that my fan is not much of a hindrance to my writing and to turn my small fan on and off from time to time. I realized that writing is a cycle that has a beginning and an end along with a good writing environment that will make anything that I am writing more effective.

The Pure Truth of the Web

In Andrew Keen         ‘s book on chapter one called the great seduction he makes it clear that he wants to make the world a better place. He wanted to make the world more musical in a way. Andrew Keen argues that democratization on web 2.0 is taking away the most important things around us involving our culture as well. Keen states that “Because democratization, despite its idealization, is undermining truth, souring civic discourse, and belittling expertise, experience, and talent “ which shows that the fact that everything is so democratized diminishes the pure honest truth. For instance, Keen had joined a camp that was going to change the world, FOO Camp, which had directly been aimed at Keen’s goals. The FOO Camp had started to see and realize the new web called web 2.0. The FOO Camp had saw that web 2.0 was categorized to democratize everything that was put on the web to an extent of being the loudest or most entertaining on the web. The overall argument of this chapter is that the world is entirely consumed of their own selves that they do not see the actual truth in the world and everything around them which is also a type of argument called evaluation. Chapter one also entails other types of arguments such as cause and factual types of arguments. For example, when there was an incident about Wendy’s involving people putting their finger in their chili it had caused people to stop eating at Wendy’s and the fact that Wendy’s business had lost two million dollars of business for a while which is an example of argument of cause and fact.