Meme

Sharing on Your Wall Was a Lot Harder Back Then

I saw this funny meme on facebook a week or so ago. (I couldn't actually find the original so I just made one by myself with the same words). The audience of this meme is definitely people with an LDS background. For one to understand the joke being displayed, they have to know who Samuel the Lamanite was; preferably, they will have also seen this painting of him. The audience also has to also be in touch with modern technology or rather facebook. More specifically then, the audience this meme is directed to is LDS people who are up-to-date with popular social networking. The appeal that this picture is making is definitely geared towards the audience's emotion as they react to the humorous context. By making this humorous appeal, the creator of this meme sets his/her audience up to react positively towards his/her underlying argument as they (the audience) are put at ease. By implying the ease of sharing on your facebook wall, I think that perhaps the creator of this meme is trying to express the concern of social networking completely taking over human interaction in its normal sense, or more specifically, sharing the gospel as experience in expressing ideas and beliefs to acutal people (even in the midst of possible rejection) becomes lacking if not nonexistent.

Analyzation of Favorite Quote

One of my favorite quotes is this: "Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect, it means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections." For me, this makes an appeal to pathos as I connect with it through means of a personal trial that I endured. It was my junior year of high school during soccer districts when I hurt my knee, got an MRI, and discovered that for the second year in a row I had torn my ACL, a vital ligament in the knee that requires surgery and months of physical therapy and recovery. I was distraught when I realized that yet another soccer season would be cut short by the same injury that had severed it the year before, not to mention my perfect knowledge of the incredible pain involved with this injury and subsequent surgery. At first, it was very difficult for me to be happy despite the inner turmoil that I was struggling with. Soon however, I realized that circumstances do not or rather should not determine my happiness--I always had a choice in the matter. And why would I choose to be miserable? Once I made this discovery, things were so much better. Sure, nothing really changed with my physical situation, but everything had changed in regards to my attitude about it. I began to feel immense gratitude for things like the incredible ability for the human body to heal, for modern medicine which allowed me to curb some of the pain, and for the love and support of my family in helping me during a time where I couldn't hardly do anything by myself (including showering, going to the bathroom, and getting upright from a laying position). This experience I had and the lessons I learned is the reason why I am the perfect audience for this statement, and why I was impacted so. Whenever I ponder it, I think back to this difficult and rewarding time in my life as I was able to better myself through the lessons I learned. It thereby, became a self reflection as I recognized the truth that if I could, I wouldn't take back this trial of tearing my ACL twice because I wouldn't want to live without the knowledge I gained and the better person I became as a result. Being happy in spite of the imperfections in a way, then helped me to gain perfection, certainly not with implications of freedom from error, but rather as Elder Nelson put it, in achieving a distant objective (mentally in being happy no matter what and physically in  working to gain back the use and ability of my knee). The rhetorical impact that this quote has on me is clear  when I consider the elements at play.

Rhetorical Analysis: Advertisement About Following the Speed Limit

I saw this shocking advertisement the other day. What strong visual rhetoric is being displayed here. First of all, the fact that the person depicted in the advertisement is a child (of perhaps 6 or 7), already ellicits in the viewer either maternal or paternal feelings. The viewer immediately connects the child with any other children in their lives, whether it be a sister, brother, son, or daughter. This obviously engenders an emotional response as they subconsciously put this child that they know in the shoes of the child in the advertisement. As girls are usually seen as more vulnerable than boys, the gender of the child in the advertisement also plays a key role in evoking emotion. Perhaps the most shocking visual rhetoric being displayed however, is the huge impression in the little girl's head designed to look like that of a dent in a car. As humans, we respond to pain and suffering with a great degree of emotion. The designers of this advertisement know this. They use this knowledge to create a shockingly, almost horrifying image of a young girl in a serious, life-threatening condition to engender a strong emotional response. To top it all off, the little girl's warning eyes, on the verge of tears, are sad and pleading. The message in the bottom of the advertisement verifies the pain in her eyes and calls for action: "In town car accidents don't just happen to cars. Slow down." Certainly, all of these visual elements are crafted in order to appeal to the viewer sense of pathos, and thereby, prompt the viewer to action in heeding the advertisement's direction to slow down and go the speed limit, especially in town (because children are around and their lives are at stake). Despite the success that the advertisement has in elliciting emotion, it is always a risky move to use the fear factor to motivate a group of people to do something. However, in this case, I believe the move accomplished what they (the advertisement designers) desired. Whether or not it is ethical to use fear as a means of making someone do what you want them to do, it is effective, and that is why the designers of this advertisement chose this visual image.

The Paradox Involving Government "Restricting" Individual Freedoms

Let's be honest, government is invovled in many aspects of our lives and very much so involved when it comes to globalization. Many condemn government action in the name of "restriction" of individual liberties. These people would be shocked if I told them that their liberties rest in their own hands, not the governmnet. Let me explain. To begin, it is important to know that I believe government action acts as a harbor to freedoms and as a fundamental key in establishing and maintaining law and order within country. It is true that when a lack of regulation is prevalent, chaos reigns. Iraq provides a good example of this: because of a lack of consented, governmental regulation, competing forces resulted in wars fought and lives lost. Contrastingly, let's take for example a country whose stable regulation encourages their citizens to actively participate in legislation. The exercise of their speech then acts as an avenue to accurate representation, while its inactivity results in their being bound to laws for which they had no say in (because they chose not to). In other words, it is not government action which inhibits individual freedoms, but rather a citizen’s decision to not participate in this action. Ergo, individual liberties lie in the hands of citizens. Okay, well then how does government action act as a harbor to freedoms, you might ask? Simply put, governmnet action provides the necessary structure to exercise one's rights through the establishment of laws and consequences. Not only this, but it also provides protection to these rights through law enforcement. Now, I'm not naive enough to believe that government's role in all of this has never been blown out of proportion; certainly, it has in other countries and in the United States as well. All I'm saying is that the next time you go to complain about how governmnet is restricting your liberties, you better not also admit to having not voted in the most recent election.

Fallacies are Among Us!

I was walking to campus with my friend a month or two ago and we were both explaining to eachother why neither of us ate breakfast. I gave her a rundown of my crazy morning and why I didn't have the time to eat. Jokingly, she replied, "Yea right. You are just still anorexic, aren't you?" I immediately thought, "Complex question fallacy... complex question fallacy!" Okay, not really though, because I couldn't remember the actual name of the fallacy. But, I did recognize it as a fallacy, and I told her straight up! Yes, that put her in her place. ha ha. My point of all of this though, is that fallacies are everywhere! They are in politicians' addresses, our friends' remarks, and yes, even our beloved toilet paper commercials. The important part then, is to be able to recognize them as such and thereby, make an informed decision about what toilet paper to by, for instance, without being inappropriately influenced save with our active consent (though knowledge of the fallacy and what it is trying to accomplish--and our decision in spite of it).

Think Before You Do

I recently watched a movie called, “Lords of Nature: Life in a Land of Great Predators,” and was surprised by the effects of man’s decision to extract predators from an environment. The movie’s main claim is that predation is the dominating factor that structures ecosystems.  Moreover, that a lack of predators threatens the life of the entire ecosystem. It then proceeded to explain the situation that was facing Yellowstone in the late 1920s. The general consensus at the time was that “the only good predator is a dead predator.” This perspective is shown by the fact that wolves were extracted out of Yellowstone. Just at the same time that the wolves were extracted however, experts began to realize that the Aspen Trees had stopped reproducing. Not only this, but all the forestation was experiencing a difficulty in growing. The only thing that experts could point to was the fact that this issue began at the same time that the wolves were taken away. Through this discovery came a montage of other supporting evidences. First, that because the wolves were taken away, the elk population had thrived to a level at which the forestation was literally being destroyed by the elk’s eating habits. Second, that because of the elk’s overpopulation, drinking habits resulted in weak to nonexistent streams, thereby negatively affecting the organisms that lived in or benefitted from the streams. I had never really considered the impact that such a seemingly harmless and beneficial decision (i.e. protecting tourists) could have. Why does this matter? Well, with the every growing destruction of animals and habitats (which follows globalization) for purposes such as constructing cities or extracting nature-made products for man’s use (such as trees), it becomes ever more important that we consider the effects which these choices will have on these habitats lest we destroy them in a way that is irreversible, and which proves detrimental to both nature’s organisms and humans as a whole.      

Global Warming: Here a Little and There a Little

Disregard for mounting facts associated with global warming and its effects have soared over the decades as a major and controversial issue of our day. Increased technology and machinery that emits carbon dioxide such as cars, airplanes, and farming equipment greatly contribute to the growing damage. This carbon dioxide more specifically has increased by about 6 billion metric tons worldwide since 1990; this is a major problem as it is recognized as the gas primarily responsible for global warming. Growing concerns about the affects of global warming hold a great amount of validity. These may include the transmission of diseases (as disease-carrying insects migrate to warming Northern countries), destructive storms and the economic impact thereof, health concerns due to smog, animal extinction resulting from habitat destruction, droughts, and wildfires to name a few. Even so, many disregard global warming as an issue in our day. They argue that although the world has certainly contributed to the warming, that the earth experiences a natural and inevitable heating curve and because of this, there is no reason to worry. There is also significant evidence to support this point of view. With the two polar opposities presenting themselves, how can the gap be bridged between the two in order to come to an aggreement on the matter? Perhaps the answer is not to strive to acquire an aggrement about the claims but rather about the common sense improvements that can be made in order to increase the safety of people everywhere. One example of this is pollution. Though many have their varying opinions about pollution in relation to global warming, we can all agree to strive to make decisions that will improve pollution for the health safety of people, if anything else. By dodging the core claims and implications, and instead focusing on aggreeable improvements that can be made for obvious reasons, we are able to actually take action, rather than reaching a stalemate of progress because aggrement cannot be made.