Thoreau Rhetorical Analysis

P. 112, "Society is commonly..."

Thoreau’s novel addresses generally applicable life anecdotes in an extremely personal way, making his words hit home with any audience.  Here specifically, Thoreau’s deliberate structure of his paragraph, use of parallel structure, and tone attribute to his success of getting his philosophy that we do no value others to hit home in a simplistically eloquent way.

Thoreau begins his paragraph with his aphorism that “society is commonly too cheap” which grabs and holds on to the readers attention- he gets right to the point. He follows this up in a unique way- with what you would think he would use to build up to the aphorism. He gives a real life example, in this case eating meals or working in a factory, and then concludes with another philosophically loaded aphorism. Thoreau masterfully gets down to the core of his general truth, through which he is able to maintain the readers attention, and spotlight the point that we do not value others and do not recognize the deeper parts of others, without over explaining or creating a hyperbole out of it.

Thoreau also uses parallelism with “we” for the bulk of his paragraph, further pressing that men, humans, are the ones devaluing other humans and taking them “cheaply”. “We” is used to reinforce that humans create routine, and by creating routine, we don’t appreciate the true value of others. By using “we” repetitively, Thoreau manages to press that collectively as humans, himself included, we are guilty of this. 

The tone of this paragraph also weighs heavily on Thoreau’s ethos as well as his awareness of his audience. He has control of every word with his calm voice and short sentences. He nonchalantly transitions from aphorism to support for the aphorism, which through not drawing attention to it actually draws attention to it. Having such control over his words and how he says them builds Thoreau’s ethos and gives what he says a confident tone. It also keeps in mind the audience- the everyday person. By presenting such a heavy idea in such a simple and nonchalant way, Thoreau makes what he is saying accessible to the everyday reader.

Thoreau is skillful in his argument. His carefully crafted paragraphs, use of parallelism to develop his argument, and his controlled tone work proficiently to support his statement that we take each other for granted and at surface level. 

"Army, INC." Timed Rhetorical Analysis

In his article "Army, Inc.", JAmes Surowiecki explains his argument that the United States Army has become a corporation, leading him to arrive at his final claim that the military, as a business, cannot be outsourced. Surowiecki's argument is very effective due to his strong diction, authoritative and knowledgeable, yet accessible tone, and his powerful use of syntax.

Surowiecki uses strong, commanding diction to add pathos to his argument to further sway his reader. His use of "villain" and "most despised" to portray Halliburton, his proposed enemy, works to give the company itself an almost sinister human like quality, driving the readers emotions to be against the big bad monster, Halliburton, that is corporatizing our military. This appeals to the readers sense of national pride and leads into his use of logos to legitimize his argument. His scathing diction leads to his scathing facts of "multi-billion dollar contracts" and military "private contractors", which leads his readers to be more compelled to support his claims.

Throughout the piece, Surowiecki also takes on an authoritative and knowledgeable tone, revealing indirectly to readers that he knows what he's talking about and that he's sure of his claims. By using phrases such as "no serious person believes" and "an annual prize for the worlds most despised country", Surowiecki is able to build up his ethos as a knowledgeable speaker without ever addressing himself or his credibility directly. His tone does this for him and leads him to be able to convincingly make claims such as outsourcing being "the era's biggest fad" that Washington "fell for." His tone is harshly critical while still maintaining his credibility without being offensive or distasteful, which makes his claims more acceptable and accessible to the average reader. He is not making references beyond his readers understanding, yet he is not insulting them by speaking incredibly casually.

Surowiecki's powerful syntax makes his argument and claims strong, memorable, and leave the piece on a patriotic note. When delving deeper into the harshness of his argument, he expertly crafts his claims into be clearly and strongly against corporations dominating the military, while still making it digestible for the reader. His use of imagery and juxtaposition when saying "It's a tidy pictureL the Army becomes a lean, mean killing machine, while civilians peel the potatoes and clean the latrines" clearly gets across his own stance, even in a critical way, while still making it non-offensive to the reader. In the final sentence of the article, Surowiecki's syntax leaves the reader with a powerful message: "Dont outsource the iron until you can outsource the blood." He blends imagery of blood and iron and the emotional connotations that go along with those images perfectly to leave his reader deeply thinking about his point against outsourcing military needs and turns it into a profound final thought to take away.

Surowiecki's strong diction, powerful tone, and skillful use of syntax make his argument complex and thought provoking. He is able to take a strong, opinionated, even possibly controversial stance and fully express his points without putting off the reader.

Chinese Outsourcing

As "China's outsourcing market is in its infancy," it is showing promise as a leading competitor in our global economy. Domestically, its outsourcing market is in its early developmental stages, so its impact on the countries overall economy as a whole is meager, but proving itself to be a promising major role.

A VanceInfo Technologies report "forecasted China's outsourcing growth to soar 30 percent annually from 2009 to 2013, compares with an impressive but modest 19 percent growth elsewhere in the world for the same period." Chinese outsourcing is largely composed of IT, which alone with BPO exceeded "$9 billion and $6 billion, respectively" in 2007. As of 2009, China had "more than 6,600 outsourcing firms that provided services for foreign companies, according to the PRC Ministry of Commerce." 

Looking at these numbers, China seems to be taking a role as a major competitor in outsourcing, especially in the IT and business areas. However, Chinese companies are new to outsourcing. Chinese companies have “recognized the need for outsourcing, complementary skills, local and international experience, and industry practices together with cost saving”, proving them to be a major new competitor in respects to outsourcing in the global economy. Chinese companies, although new to outsourcing, are ready jump in with both feet and test their best new technologies and business approaches on the global playing field.

In regards to technology and engineering, China has found this to be a strength and will build upon this in how they approach outsourcing. According to the PRC National Bureau of Statistics 2007 China Statistical Yearbook, “China graduated more than 1.5 million engineering majors… In comparison, the United States graduated 124,388 engineering and engineering technology majors in 2006, according to the US-based National Science Foundation. An inequity with this would be the difference between what is defined as an “engineering student”, which Wright points out in her report. What is considered to be a standard for Chinese may not be what the United States defines the position as. This leaves one country at more of an advantage over the other, depending on which has higher standards. This creates an inequity in regards to offshoring between the U.S., China, and other competing countries (ex. India).

Overall, the Chinese attitude toward offshoring is positive and is thought to bring their economy prosperity and success. Their education system, population, and business-mindset give them an advantage in the global economy, as they have an influx of people to offshore. China is a rising competitive power in the global economy, not only through their relations with America which we are all familiar with, but also through their rise in outsourcing IT businesses and their companies attitudes to globalize.

"China’s Emerging Role in Global Outsourcing." China Business Review. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2014. <http://www.chinabusinessreview.com/chinas-emerging-role-in-global-outsourcing/>. 

Living Language: Autocorrect Poetry

Language slows us to communicate 
Without languageOur ideas would benefit mantillasAnd without our KawasakiAnd our through a And our ability to express themDo w werewolf have an identifying If we are unable to communicateIf we are unable to express If we are unable to articulate I'd we are unable to convey Our thigh Our beliefs Our ideasOur moralscodicilsAre we really able to be who we are?If the essential Thu. is that define us At winnable you be spoken And understood Are we really who we are?NoWe are notified 

Clearly, I am not the best texter, so this prompt suited me and quite frankly I thought it would be the funniest. Even writing the title to this blog post, my MacBook wanted to change "poetry" to something probably along the lines of "possum". Communication, now, is conveyed mainly through technology. Think about it, whens the last time you got a personal letter in the mail of any sort of substance (the letter from that same college you get every week doesn't count)? Now, we send emails, Facebook chats, and texts, among other things.  And with all of these, we deal with autocorrect. 

When phones first came out with the option, my friends and I would frequently stop and laugh at all the ridiculous things we would end up sending each other. I even call my best friend Nesty now because that’s what my first smartphone would always change her name to. But now, its such a commonality, that we find ourselves reading around the autocorrected ridiculousness and somehow our brains are able to, for the most part, still understand what is trying to be said without dwelling on the corrections. The idea that we can understand “gob” as “go” or “duck” as pretty much any word my phone feels should be duck, is quite telling. Although I don’t think this means we will necessarily begin to adopt these silly changes into our language, I do believe it changes the playing field for how we are able to communicate.

Going back to the idea of the letter, autocorrect has allowed us to significantly decrease the formality of our language. Because we are able to understand words that very loosely resemble the other words they were intended to be, we lose the sense of responsibility for going back and editing what we are trying to convey and our desire for conciseness. With letters, the ritual was you sat down and wrote in the most understandable language as neatly and correctly as possible. Now, we don’t think twice when we get a text from a family member saying “meat you at DEA mall tonight!” The meaning still gets across, but our ability to understand has become heightened.

So what does this all mean? Well, I don’t think we can entirely throw all our rules about language away, because after all, without a basis and a “standard” to go off of, would we really be able to understand autocorrects madness? Without standards to language, nothing would be able to be understood. There would be no right or wrong to guide us to understanding each other. However, putting all of this into perspective, language does reveal itself to be adaptable once the standards are solidified and widely understood and recognized. Once a standard is established, something that everyone can make have basis of understand off of, then there are no limits to how it is manipulated and utilized. And autocorrect is no exception.  

Ukraine: News

            Without a doubt, the Ukrainian crisis is going to be one of the largest news stories we see this entire year. It is going to be a historically significant event for the border country, and potentially for the countries involved in the conflict as well. As weve seen in America, news surrounding the Ukraine has been pro-Ukraine and anti-Russia. When we offered our $1 billion dollar deal to the border country, we were quick to highlight our own heroic actions and villainies Russia.

            In Russia itself, the news is surrounded by controversy. A news source called Russia Today has had an incident that sparked huge online conversation. Abby Martin, an American reporter for the “Kremlin- funded” network, openly expressed her reaction to the situation in Ukraine on air, and has found herself in hot water. Her anti-Russian reaction involved her saying "What Russia did is wrong, I will not sit here and apologize or defend military aggression." As you can tell, saying this on a Russian news source would cause quite a stir. Although the network did not fire her, they did say that they would be sending her to Crimea, so she can experience first hand the conditions and situation she was commenting on, as if her seeing this would convince her otherwise.

            In Canada, the news is taking a more diplomatic and conservative approach. As CTV News reported (A Canadian network), “Canada will send representatives to be part of an international observer mission to Ukraine, the Harper government announced Wednesday, as well as impose economic sanctions on some members of the former Ukrainian prime minister’s regime.” The Canadian report of events was subdued and calm, much different than the more exited and hyped-up news coming out of America. Canada comparatively seemed to be taking a critical, reassuring, and subdued report on the acts in the Ukraine, compared to those of Russia and the U.S.

            The similarities and differences are slight between American, Russian, and Canadian news reports of the situation in Ukraine. America and Russia, being major players in the crisis, respectively, have seen very animated news stories, while Canada on the other hand is taking the critical approach. These differences can be easily accounted for, as Russia and the U.S. are key players in this decisive moment for Ukraine, while Canada doesn’t really have much involvement (yet, at least). Because Russia and the U.S. are looking to gain civilian support of whichever actions they take, the news they report must be lively and rousing to build up the situation.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/canada-to-send-observers-to-ukraine-impose-sanctions-on-former-regime-1.1715729#ixzz2vBe7bHJX

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/abby-martin-russia-today-news-anchor-criticizes-ukraine-invasion-on-air-1.7302349

The Bluest Eye

Question 3: In his introduction of Morrison to the Swedish Academy (when she was receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature), Professor Sture Allen argues that "in great minds, gravity and humor are close neighbors." Certainly, The Bluest Eye is filled with gravity. But in this text, is it a close neighbor to humor?

The Bluest Eye is a dark, macabre, and shocking story about an eleven year old girl, Pecola, who is not only raped by her father and becomes pregnant with his child, but becomes a poster child for the shame of her town. Morrison's novel is certainly filled with gravity, but I'd have to argue with Allen that it is, in the case of The Bluest Eye, is not a close neighbor to humor. 

Pecola’s character is intended to be pitiful and saddening. She is described as ugly throughout the book by all whom she interacts with- even by her friends Claudia and Frieda. Pecola is bullied, harassed, blamed, and looked down upon in all respects. Even without considering she was raped and pregnant with her father’s child, her life is heavy and full of sorrow. Nothing surrounding our protagonist, nor her backstory and experiences leading up to her being raped, are humorous or can be considered in the sense a “close neighbor” to the gravity of her story.

Putting aside Pecola, even the buildup of Claudia and Frieda’s characters shows no humor to accompany the gravity of their own lives. Frieda is molested by her families tenant Henry, they are constantly on their toes regarding their mothers mood and whether or not they will be punished and to what extent, and are destined to live under the shadows of the Maureen Peels of the world. The only semi-humorous thing surrounding the sisters was Celia’s vendetta with Shirley Temple, and the nicknames she creates for Maureen in order to pick out her flaws when others saw her as flawless. Even these lighter, childish seeming moments are surrounded by an underlying current of darkness, as they reveal that the two girls are oppressed by the ideals of beauty and physical appearance which are simply out of their reach: light hair, light eyes, light skin, and fancier clothes.

With respect to Professor Sture Allen's argument, I do not believe at all, in the case of The Bluest Eye, that "in great minds, gravity and humor are close neighbors." Morrison, our great mind, does not seem to be using any humor whatsoever to accompany her dark and twisted story, leading me to believe that in the case of this particular novel, gravity and humor are far from being close neighbors. I'd venture to say that in The Bluest Eye, they don't even live in the same town.