Walt Whitman Poem

I read “A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Grim” by Walt Whitman.  It is about a soldier in a war.  The soldier wakes up in the early morning and walks to the hospital tent.  He sees three dead bodies.  One is an old man, one is a boy, and one is a young, probably middle-age man.  He compares the middle-aged man to Christ.  He compares the deaths of these soldiers to the death of Christ.  The main argument is that war is bad and causes death and destruction. He proves it by equating the death of Christ to the death of a soldier.

Whitman uses lots of imagery to help further his point.  The reader gets the sense that everything is cold, gray, and bleak.

He uses inverted syntax. An example is “As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless.”

It is interesting that he has it take place in the morning. Morning is when everything is waking and the sun is rising; it’s usually associated with life, not death.

Weekly Blog 2

I read "Morning Conference: the Meaning of 'Gay'" by Murray Armstrong. It was posted on Guardian UK Online.

The main argument is to provide facts about the issue of whether using the word "gay" in place of "stupid" or "lame" is an indication of an increase in hostility toward homosexuals or just a semantic change.

The author backs up this argument by providing information from both sides of the issue. He uses the Oxford English Dictionary to explain how the word "gay" has changed in meaning over time. He also writes that some people believe that the use of the word "gay" in a negative fashion is a sign that hostility towards homosexuals is rising.  He gives evidence to support this. A teachers' union survey reported a rise in hostility toward gay people in schools, and the Dutch government reported an increase in opposition to homosexuals in Dutch schools.

The author does not give his opinion on the issue, so he can't acknowledge an opposing viewpoint. He gives evidence to support both sides of the issue, but does not try to make the reader agree with one over the other.

The author uses argument by example.

I don't think that negative connotations of the word "gay" mean that people are more hostile to homosexuals. Many people use the word as an insult without thinking that it could be offensive to homosexuals or promote hatred of the gay community.

After reading this article, I could construct the argument that a word's meaning is likely to change over time. I would use the information the author provided from the Oxford English Dictionary to show the different ways the word "gay" has been used.

Weekly Blog 1

The article I read was "Psychological Motives and Political Orientation- The Left, the Right, and the Rigid: Comment on Jost et al." by Jeff Greenberg and Eva Jones.

The main argument is that many of the general impressions of liberals and conservatives are untrue. Negative characteristics commonly attributed to political conservatives can also be applied to people on the far left. Instead of associating rigidity and closed-mindedness with the right-wing and tolerance with the left-wing, people should view rigid and intolerant ideologies and open and tolerant ideologies as completely separate from political ideologies.

The authors backed up their argument by rebutting an opposing article that said that conservatives are resistant to change, favorable to inequality, and driven by fear. The authors provided examples of how leftists can exhibit these same behaviors. They explained how China and Cuba have very repressive and unchanging governments. They also argued that liberals are affected by fear because they do not trust people to take care of themselves. They backed this point up by listing issues that liberals generally support, like anti-smoking laws. They argued that many liberals support inequality because programs like affirmative action supposedly favor some groups of people over others.

They also provided examples of how conservatives can show opposite and more positive characteristics. They argued their point that the right-wing is in favor of change by explaining how republican Ronald Reagan changed many things when he was president. However, they did not say what changes he made.

The authors understand that not everyone will agree with them. They spend the entire article refuting the opposing argument that political conservatives are rigid in their beliefs and are resistant to change and in favor of inequalities. They do a good job and effectively get their point across.

The authors use argument by example.

I think that the authors do a good job proving their ideas. I agree that not everyone who shares the same political beliefs is the same. I agree that it is unwise to equate political conservatism with rigid intolerance and liberalism with openness. My problem with the article is that sometimes it seems as though the authors are trying to prove that liberals should be associated with only negative characteristics. They showed how conservatives can be open and favorable to change but did not do the same with liberals. Also, some of their arguments were weak. Affirmative action was a poor example of liberals supporting inequalities because the whole point of affirmative action was to reduce inequalities.

I could use this article to argue that generalizations of political parties are untrue by using the evidence that conservatives can be open to change. I would also use the evidence showing that the left-wing can be resistant to change and affected by fear and the need to resolve uncertainties. I could also argue that far left governments are not perfect and can be oppressive. I would use the examples of China and Cuba and the Soviet Union.

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We have been learning about ads in class. It has been interesting to see the messages that different ads convey in order to sell a product. Many of the ads are able to attract attention, but it is still easy to forget what company made the ad. Some ads are more effective than others. Funny or attention grabbing ads work better for me. I liked the ad for the framing company because it was amusing.