Visual Argument

           In my presentation titled “The Fall,” I make the claim that not all homeless people are crazy substance-abusers who don’t deserve our help and pity. Most of us have interacted with the homeless in some fashion and we often do our best to pass them by, whether it’s by stuffing our headphones into our ears or simply ignoring their calls. The homeless have commonly been characterized as substance-abusers or people too lazy to get on their feet, which leads us to view them oftentimes without pity and even disgust. My presentation aims to remind us that many of the homeless are just victims of circumstance and deserve as much compassion as any other person.

            My first image is of a group of young college graduates smiling triumphantly after what one would assume is their graduation ceremony. For many Americans, graduating from college is the first step towards becoming a true adult and finding a career that will sustain you for the rest of your life. As college students, most of us identify strongly with the goal of graduating and finding a job, thus eliciting some emotions of eagerness, hope, and happiness. The following image is of a young couple surveying the classic American home complete with green grass and a white fence. For many Americans, home ownership has been symbolic of the American Dream, the surest sign that one has made it in life. All of us identify strongly with our homes, something the homeless no longer have.  These two images together are designed to remind the viewer of the common goals they and the homeless all share in our pursuit of the American Dream, evoking a sense of fondness, content, pride, and optimism.

            The next series of images are more somber as they depict a kind of fall from grace. The third image is a black and white photo of a man clutching his head in seeming grief as the stock listings loom before him. This image is representative of the financial crisis that we are all familiar with and more specifically, the first step that led professionals like the ones depicted in the second image down the path to homelessness. The next image is a photo of a child crying as her parents argue in the background, an image that probably became more common as families across America began to feel the stress and pressure from the crisis. These two images inspire not only anger at the financial crisis but sadness and sympathy for those who suffered as a result of the financial collapse. The fifth image is of a young woman looking despondently at a past due bill notice. This is another image that likely became more common as people lost their jobs and livelihoods, thus preventing them from meeting their financial obligations. The sixth image is a cartoon of a man evicted from his home, another image all too common as part of the housing collapse. The fifth and sixth images both evoke sadness and pity in the viewer as they can sympathize with the trials that many Americans were forced to face as a result of the financial crisis. The seventh image shows a long line of people standing in front of a Californian Employment Development Department while the final image depicts a homeless man holding a cardboard sign stating "Will code HTML for food." In conjunction with the previous images, these two photos show that not only do the ranks of the homeless include those who held reputable jobs but that they are still human beings who continue to look for work but simply cannot find any. As a result, the viewer feels not only sadness and pity, but also shame as they realize some of their conceptions of the homeless may not be entirely true.

            Together these images are designed to make the viewer feel sadness and shame with the intent of making them rethink their views on who the homeless really are. The sadness felt by the audience at the plight of regular people who become homeless combined with the shame felt as the viewer realizes he or she has unfairly demonized human beings who may just have been victims of circumstance translates those emotions to a new belief: the homeless are not all crazy druggies and drunks who don’t deserve help and pity. With this in mind, I hope the viewer can look upon the homeless in a different and more sympathetic light.

Photo Credits:
First image: http://www.cs.wayne.edu/~suj/Retention/index.htm 4/4/11

Second image: http://austinpubliclibraryblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/rethinking-american-dream.html 3/30/11

Third image: http://www.world-crisis.net/ 3/30/11

Fourth image: http://nwso.net/2010/05/20/co-parenting-skills/ 3/30/11
Fifth image: http://blog.gocollege.com/the-college-students-guide-to-personal-finance/ 4/4/11
Sixth image: http://www.foreclosuredataonline.com/blog/foreclosure-crisis/foreclosure-crisis-the-booming-foreclosure-crisis/ 3/30/11

Seventh image: http://www.the-iss.com/2010/05/alternate_careers_for_when_the_1.php/ 4/4/11

Eighth image: http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/has-the-american-dream-been-outsourced 3/30/11

Written Pathetic Appeal

My written pathetic appeal addresses the growing focus on athletic programs at American universities.  I argue that this increased focus is financially detrimental to most universities and fails to aid in the academic mission of universities in others.  In order to convey my message, I cite the works of others and use indignant language to express my incredulity over what I perceive to be a ridiculous and infuriating situation.  I also try to employ enargeia with a hypothetical scenario.  I hope my readers feel anger and shame after reading my appeal, which will move them to push for a reform of the current athletic model, or at the very least rethink their stance on university athletics.  It's my wish that readers will interpret their anger and shame as results of the deplorable behavior of many athletic departments, moving them to protest against the system and call for change.

Appeal

A Hoot in the Dark: The Evolution of General Rhetoric

George Kennedy presents a series of  theses arguing that rhetoric is prior to things like speech and writing, using observations on animal communication to do so.  While I was intrigued by some of his propositions, I did find myself questioning some of his theories.  I was particularly skeptical of thesis VI ("Among the traditional parts of rhetoric (invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery), delivery is prior to the others") and thesis VIII ("Rhetorical invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery are phenomena of nature and prior to speech").

While I agreed with Kennedy's assessment that "Physical motion in response to some exigence occurs in the earliest and most primitive forms of life" (Kennedy 12), I was not convinced that that meant delivery comes before parts of rhetoric like invention.  I can certainly conceive of delivery coming before memory, style, and arrangement, but it seems highly unlikely to me for delivery to always come before invention.  Although Kennedy notes that he is referring to "action, not subtleties of vocalization" (Kennedy 12) when talking about delivery, I find that even this can't be held as a good rule.  I don't think everyone makes a discernible physical motion in response to someone's speech, unless the action of opening the mouth counts.

My criticism of thesis VIII is similar to that of thesis VI, namely that I can't see Kennedy's listed categories of rhetoric as always being prior to speech.  Perhaps I missed something in my reading, but does a baby's first words necessarily indicate that rhetorical invention took place before he/she said something?  I understand memory and delivery coming before that, but I can't get my head around rhetorical invention being prior to speech.

Damasio - Feelings vs Emotions

In chapter 7 of Descartes' Error, Damasio discusses the distinction between feelings and emotions.  Damasio further divides feelings into three varieties: feelings of basic universal emotions, feelings of subtle universal emotions, and background feelings.  The discussion of background feelings is particularly interesting to me; Damasio rather eloquently describes it as "not the Verdi of grand emotion, nor the Stravinsky of intellectualized emotion but rather a minimalist in tone and beat, the feeling of life itself, the sense of being" (Damasio 150).  Damasio argues that these background feelings, which corresponds to "the body state prevailing between emotions" (Damasio 150), are so important that without them "the very core of your representation of self would be broken" (Damasio 151).  Drawing from this view, Damasio proposes that the reason anosognosics have irrational responses and inappropriate emotions and feelings is due to a lack of ability to sense the current body state, which is is connected with background feeling.

What I began to think about was the connection between this background feeling and instincts, but of a slightly different kind than the animalistic instincts Damasio discusses earlier in the book.  Rather, I wonder how this applies to instincts in activities like sports or music, perhaps what Aristotle would have called knacks.  Is there a difference in a person having a good feel for a sport and performing the right move or play, and in the ability of a person to respond appropriately to a situation? Or to ask a different question, would a pro athlete be able to continue his/her high level of play after suffering an injury like Phineas Gage's?  I guess it would be unlikely, but how does this explain the gifts of so-called autistic savants?