Cultural Rhetoric

In Mr. Cline's class a few weeks ago. We took the day off in a way from our normal classes. Instead of continuing to read the books we were assigned and discussing them, he read us the sermon by C.S Lewis "The Weight of Glory." Its a long sermon, but one worth reading. It is about the confusion many people have on the topic of what we desire the most. He explains after much background information, that we all desire true happiness. And through that happiness, we long for heaven, our true home that we were designed for. He explains that glory is not what many people think of as being "famous" in heaven. But more that we are honored by our Lord and Father. For it to be like the scripture passage "Well done, good and faithful servant." C.S Lewis does a fantastic job at being persuasive here, and if read by the right person aloud, can have an excellent effect. He clears up lots of points that people bring up that are not true. Such as the point of glory...

I was watching a movie on TV, and I saw an infomercial for a garden hose. The hose was called the “Pocket Hose.” It would curl up when not in use to a very small and convenient size, but when you connect it to the water spout and turn on the water, it expands into a full size hose. It sounds good, but they began the commercial assuming that people can't perform basic tasks. It began by asking you if you were tired of your hose getting tangled up and unusable to the point of frustration with your current hose. It wanted me to feel like was also annoyed with my lame and boring garden hose that gets tangled easily. They also pointed out that anyone can use it. So this made me feel at first like it's a really sensible option since it's easy for even simple minded people. So in all, it tried to make me feel first angry and frustrated, then feel like there was an easy and obvious solution to my “problem.” It also made me feel like I was being jipped, and that I should get what...

Last night, i watched on youtube a very unusual video for me. I watched a Ted talk, called “Why you should talk to strangers,” by Kio Stark. She talked about how in many western societies, we are told from a very young age, that strangers are people to avoid. That strangers can hurt us, and are just non desirables, in a sense. But her argument was that talking to strangers, can actually have a very different effect than we think it does, or should. She attempted to persuade her listeners to realize that talking to strangers, can make you feel understood, in a different way than a friend or even family member can. She talked about how just starting a fleeting conversation with a random person on your street, can make you feel accepted as a person, and feel like someone understands you. She pointed out that even though you only talk to strangers for usually a few minutes, those few minutes can feel very pleasing, and important. Her argument seemed very reasonable, since she shared pers...