Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Analysis 1: Aristotle's Influence on East Side High


 In the film Lean on Me, Morgan Freeman’s goal as the principle to the notoriously criminal and underperforming East Side High School is to make the students want to get an education and become something of themselves.  The above clip contains his motivational speech an hour before they take the state test that they’ve prepared for during the past two and a half months.  Almost as soon as he begins to speak he says that “they say you are inferior, you are just a bunch of niggas, and spics, and poor white trash.”  This type of language is pathos-based language that rides on the audience’s emotions as it did in the clip when the students expressed their disapproval towards such notions.  More pathos is used in the claim that the outside world believes that an education is wasted on them and that they cannot learn.
 Using such language may seem counterproductive at the surface but as the principle of the school he channels Eunoia which is the culmination of his qualities that make him trustworthy.  In this case Eunoia comes from his professional attire, his posture, and his position as the principle.  It is in this way that he rallies the students against the outside world and for their own success and the principle’s message when he finally says “you are not inferior.  Your grades may be, your school might have been, but you can turn that around and you can make liars out of those bastards in exactly one hour when you take that test, pass it, and win.”  Through his use of Eunoia, he is granted the agency to use strong pathos-based language in order to make the students believe in his good will and thusly rally behind it as a motivational tool.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Aristotle; O'Neill Lecture


              Artistotle put his main emphasis on logic and the way language can be used to persuade.  He made a science out of being an orator and a wordsmith.  A major facet of his assertions has to do with his dissection of persuasion into ethos, logos, and pathos.  Ethos has to do with credibility of the speaker and his license to speak on the subject at hand.  A mechanic would have more credibility from the audience to speak about cars then an astronaut. Logos is the appeal to reason and just the general us of logic to convince people.  People just like common sense, people generally agree and it keeps everyone on the same page.  And then there’s pathos which has to do with manipulating emotions in the audience as a way to almost undermine contradictory logos to your own persuasive use of logos.  If a murderer is having a public debate with you and is making really good points you can strategically use pathos to direct anger from the audience towards said murderer by reiterating his crimes and slinging mud his way even if it’s off-topic. 
                However on another level there are aspects of persuasion and rhetoric that are outside of the way words are used.  There’s a presentation aspect which Dr. Kevin O’Neill discussed in his lecture.  Eunoia for example would be the need to look like you have good will and good intentions.  The audience will not be moved by someone they do not trust.  To burrow further into this, Aristotle believed that you had to understand what people desire, what brings them joy, and what makes them angry in order to effectively use Eunoia.  There is style which is the tone of voice and dressing appropriately to your topic.  Other things discussed were techniques such as syllogisms and enthymeme.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Plato; Another Old Man


Plato is dated.  He just is.  He was a man that sought the truth and the true goodness in the world but his definitions of goodness and his process of going about the systemic uplifting of society can be held in stark contrast to our American ways.  We value individuality and freedom of speech yet the entire Book II of his Republic is completely about how he will censor what is written and what may be read for children and adults.  He feels that anybody, especially children, shouldn’t be exposed to untrue, distorted images of nature and of Gods and how they behave, what they do, what form they take, and so on.  However, his own ideal of what is acceptable or not isn’t the end-all-be-all and even he uses rhetoric and manipulates the language by nature of the book.  He presents logic, he leads the conversation, the one he is conversing with always agrees.  He attempted his own sophistry but in the context of today’s world, people question everything, we’re told to question everything.  Even now this blog is devoted to a critical theories class that promotes critical thinking and questioning and interpretation of theories.  It all boils down to Plato’s ideals being simply theory and that his assertions only stand on the basis that we believe him to be the absolute authority on goodness and truth which of course, many of us don’t.  He wants us to censor lust but America sells sex, he wants us to be stoic but movies and drama are major sources of our entertainment, he wants to censor the greed and violence in heros yet we have the egoists in Superman and Thor, alcoholics in Antman and Ironman, the rage of The Hulk, and many various figures praised for the beatings they give the villain.  Plato wants a lot of things and society has eventually grown to counter it.  The kicker is that in spite of our society being unparalleled with his utopia the way we live today is satisfying despite our fair share of troubles.  He is just dated.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Our Introduction to Critical Theory

It is our introduction to Major Critical Theories as I myself have not put in any thought about this subject before taking this class.  I am Olvard Smith, a 3rd year student at CSU Northridge and as an English major I dedicate this blog to critical literary theory, a class that I always hear other students make reference to taking multiple times.  That being said I won't let that be the case with me as this blog is here as a medium of my thoughts and as a medium for exposing my readership to informative, unique, and somewhat accurate notions of the literary theories of the past 3000 years.  

It is worth noting that the primary source for all of the postings in this blog is The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism Second Edition.  The book is an anthology of major literary theories from theorists in the last 3000 years. Literary theory is not all that is found here as there are many theorists of society, history, psychology, etc.  There are various fields of study that create this book of literary theory that is being taught in a college-level English class and at the surface it makes little sense but there is a method to the madness.  The core gathering the collective works of theorist from various fields and backgrounds in an anthology for an English class is because all of these theories are relevant to the act of writing or analyzing various texts.  It is the ability to solidly apply these theories into various texts that lends this book its authority over a high-level college English course.  Through this primary source is how I wish to back up the authority I possess over that which I will speak of in my following blogs.