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Alix Tucker's e-Portfolio


As an Classics & Ancient Mediterranean Studies and an Anthropology major, I get asked the question: "What are you going to do with that?" everytime someone hears it. Most people ask this out of ignorance of what the majors actually entail. Yes, the first is the study of classical literature but not classics such as Pride & Predjudice, moreso The Illiad and other ancient texts. Classics & Ancient Mediterranean Studies (CAMS) is the study of religion and beliefs. It gives us an idea of how and why people have done and created the things they have. My second major, Anthropology is the study of people. Basically its definition is what the major is. With these two majors, I learn a more complete, in my opinion, knowledge of the human race.

So what do I plan to do with this? I plan to enter into a field of the government that deal with foreign affairs. Without complete knowledge of humans, negotiating or understanding people of different nations require some understanding of that culture. Whether I work for the United Nations, or the federal government, this skill and knowledge is necessary.

This class, Rhetoric and Civic Life, hasn't helped my knowledge of other cultures, but it definitely has helped my knowledge of rhetoric. The leaders of the past were master rhetoricians. They moved whole nations to follow the laws, enter into wars, and in some ancient cases, believe in gods. Although I didn't learn how to do those things, I did learn how to effectively communicate with others. I also learned how to identify what a rhetorician, or speaker, uses to persuade an audience. They engage the audience using ethos, pathos, and logos. They use the exigence of situation to help persuade action. The kairos of a situation is used to show an opportune moment to act. All of these I can use in future situations to help persuade or understand the affairs of other nations.

I learned in this class that while rhetoric is defined as a means to persuade an audience to take certain action, it uses much more than just simple words.

A Simple Text Message.

This week, my best friend had a dilemma. A dilemma? How does a dilemma involve rhetoric?

Well. Let's view the situation here. The boy she "likes" invited her over to his place to hang out, she's sort unable to do this at the moment due to a previous obligation, mainly homework and her Ben & Jerry and chick flick night. His text consisted of a basic: wanna hang out later? Or something along those lines.

She did. Trust me, she did. But she was restricted due to the um obligations. SO here's the dilemma:

How do you construct a text that says I want to, but I can't, but at the same time i dont care if you hang out with another girl, but yet know that you should ask me another time?

My response was that she was overthinking this message and she should just send "I can't tonight, but some other time. Sorry :(." But she was afraid that this would make it seem like she was blowing him off.

But how much information is too much information? How is it even possible to construct a message that can't be taken more than one way, but isn't too in depth? What is flirtascious, yet casually turning him down?

Oh the power of rhetoric, making words have a desired, or undesired effect.

Well after discarding the message "I can't because I'm having a chick flick night and doing homework, but you should hang out with someone else. Unless you want to hang out later?" I mean it got the message across, but does it sound needy? Does it sound like the message is trying too hard? Or should I add a frowy face? Or should I say something along the liines of a raincheck? Honestly, I'm still sticking with my original text that was to the point. But eventually we came up with:

"Yeah I would, but I can't exactly because I have homework, so you should hit someone else up".

Then came the waiting, while waitng she was reminded of this:

Just the first 30 seconds or so.

But what I'm attempting to get at in this story is that words, when not spoken, can have a whole other meaning, a meanig that wasn't desired. Trying to convince someone one things can be misconstrued, or a message that you thought was clear, might be confusing to someone else. Choose your words wisely, or choose you non-response wisely or you may end up like Dumbledore.

But maybe you shouldn't stress over simple messages like this too much, they're not really THAT big of a deal. Focus more on life altering speeches, like your motivational speech!

Take Back the Night

After passing the poster in the hallway of my dorm about 200 times, I decided to look at it while the elevator was taking forever. I noticed something called Take Back the Night, and after reading what it was about, I realized that this was an example of a group of people using the exigence of situation to motivate a change.

In this case, the problem is the violence that occurs while walking at night. The first Take Back The Night occured in October 1975 in Philly after a woman named Susan Alexander Speeth was killed a block from her house by a stranger. The walk is done yearly, across the world in such countries as Italy and Germany after over 16,000 rapes occured in Rome in one year. Obviously, in the years 1975-1976 there was a definite need for change.

It continued in England, where the Jack the Ripper killing were happening during this time.

The Take Back The Night campaign attempts to spread the word that this type of violence is unacceptable. While it started as a women only event, it has now broadened to include men that have been assaulted at night as well. Why can't we walk at night? Why is it dangerous? Obviously because people are getting attacked, but why?

This campaign holds walks in places around the world. In fact, next week this walk is occuruing here at Penn State in front of Old Main at 6pm.

Take Back The Night, or Reclaim the Night (as it was called in Europe), is trying to motivate people to take initiative and come and support this rally as they try to fight the violence that happens at night.

Believe by Yellowcard

September 11th, 2001. A time of heartache, fear and a coming together that America hasn't seen in a long time. Where were you on 9/11? Were you in a classroom, where the teachers were instructed to tell you nothing? Did you know someone who was a hero?

Yellowcard's song, "Believe", recorded sometime in 2002 and released in 2003, pays tribute to those heroes, those men and women that lost their lives on that day:

The song has us think about what the saviors went through, "climbing higher through the fire", a mantra that goes through the minds of those in danger to calm, "everything is going to be alright, be strong, believe". An assurance that they will get through this.

The song is told through the point of view of the person being saved from the chaos. There's thanks for letting them see their families again, for giving up their lives even though it wasn't clear if they're lives would be saved too.

In the background, and excerpt from Mayor Michael Bloomberg's speech the year after is heard:

     "Again today, we take into our hearts and minds those who perished on this site, one year ago, and also those who came to toil in the rubble to bring order out of chaos, and helo us make sense of our despair."

This excerpt drives Yellowcard's meaning even further, hearing a speech commemorating the victims of 9/11. The use of political rhetoric and musical rhetoric in one, gives an even deeper meaning to the song, it unites two fronts.

Another excerpt is heard, an even more famous one, one that united the nation at a different time:

      "The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."

The Gettysburg Address, read by New York Governor George Pataki, was used during the Civil War. The original speech was read at the site of the Battle of Gettyburg (one of the bloodiest battle of the war) to give thanks to those who lost their lives for the war. Governor Pataki repeated the speech at the one year memorial of 9/11 to do the same, but instead in the memory of those who lost their lives in the start of the "War on Terror".

Yellowcard combines their lyrics and the speeches to create a rhetorical song that persuades the listeners to give thanks for the heroes of 9/11, and to never forget the event.

   

Photo by: jonathaneric on Flickr.com

BroTips?

Recently, I was exposed to this blog on tumblr called brotips. The website for it is brotips.tumblr.com.

The website is handled by two girls and one guy and it pretty much just gives a bunch of tips for anyone, boy or girl. Some of them are funny, some of them are serious, but in the end they all are giving out a good message.

Some of them are:
            

            


and my personal favorite:

The site uses positive rhetoric to tell people to be better people, let things go, and baically live life as best you can. I personally think a lot of the advice is really good, fantastic to tell your friends. Going through the tips, I can relate to most of them, know people who should really take that advice, and laugh at the ridiculous ones, that I actually can kind of understand. They don't discriminate and mainly try to convince the audience, people reading the blog, to live life and don't let little things bother you. The site does a good job of promoting this mesage, updating five new brotips each day.

Instead of giving the usual "bro" tips which could consist of "wear you hat to the side" or "popping the collar on your shirt isn't cool", it appeals to everyone and as the person running the site said: "They're just tips for your every day life. They're tips that we'd share with our friends, our bros, hence brotips."

By promoting things that enhance life they send out a good message, rather than limiting the message to how to be cool. It's just a site that gives advice, in a funny way, that most everyone should take, most of the time at least.


All images from brotips.tumblr.com.

When In Doubt, Turn to Music.

Recently, I was introduced to the song "The Cave" by Mumford and Sons. I fell in love with it immediately.

The lyrics give a clear message: to not let what happened in the past effect your hopes for the future. It's a common thing for people to let past regrets effect what you do in the present or even what you want to do in the future.


Maybe you failed at trying something, The cave by Mumford and Sons uses lyrics like:

"The sun, it rises slowly as you walk
Away from all the fears
And all the faults you've left behind"

and:

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I'll know my name as it's called again

It gets across the message that things are looking up, don't let the fears of the past keep you from moving forward. It's a motivatinal message that I think more songs should use. More songs should incorporate messgages like this; the same old songs about lost loves and loving someone are great and all, but sometimes I think we really need more songs that are more than that.

Another message that's present in the song  is to not let other people's thoughts and opinions effect you or change you:

So make your siren's call
And sing all you want
I will not hear what you have to say


Cause I need freedom now
And I need to know how
To live my life as it's meant to be

I think this song is a little different, well a lot different, than most the other songs on the top 40, but it also has a very different message than those. It tries to persuade people to be their own, to move on from mistakes instead of wondering what they should have done or wishing they could change what they did.

The song uses rhetoric to persuade the audience to take control of themselves and be their own judges.

Penn State Rugby

How does rugby relate to rhetoric, you ask? Simple. We Are 60 as one and every time there's a problem we are to respect the other person, or people, and address the proble or understand that people make mistakes.

A couple weeks ago we had a team meeting to talk about what are goals for the season are as a whole. After brainstorming for about five minutes, each group came up with ideas such as:
-Help those who need help.
-If you weren't chosen to play, support the one who was.
-Leave judgement off the team.
-Respect that other's are different. Don't judge them on what they do.
-Accept advice form others.

Penn State has won two back to back national titles, and this year we're going for the third. How can we get there? Through the use of rhetoric and of course hardwork. We try to abide by respecting eachother and playing Penn State rugby.

Is this reaching? Maybe, but I think that rhetoric is more than just using language, it's using it to persuade others and in the case of my team, it's using it to persuade the team to try your hardest because we can be the best. Because being on a team is more than just being there and playing the game. It's trusting your team to be there when you need them to pass the ball, and if they're not, then being understanding and not holding it against them.

Everytime we step on the field, our coach has us picture the first hit, the first time we pass the ball off. Our team uses rhetoric everytime we step on the field to play Penn State rugby, because persuasive speech is more than just for speeches or advertiseing, it can persuade an audience to be motivated and to respect others. Rhetoric can be positive too.