For Real?

Satire in political cartoons or obvious plots on TV shows are entertaining to the observer while making a point. The use of satire is attacking something the author thinks is immoral, using wit. Unrealized satire can serve an even greater purpose when not known it is occurring by the viewers. For those who misread Twain’s use of satire in The Adventures of Huckle Berry Finn could be lost and offended by the plot while Twain laughs as his point gets pushed further.
Twain tackled human nature in his satirical writings of The King and Duke. They were frauds who ripped people off and Twain satirizes the civilization of people through the town’s brutal reaction. The town’s people seem like civilized good people, but they stoop to the level of the King and Duke and tar and feather them. Twain shows that crooks are not the only ones who can be evil and the hypocrisy that lurks within us. There are countless other examples that Twain writes that shows the idiocy of and malice of people. For example when the man with Packard watches another man drown and thinks it is vastly different from killing him to justify just watching. Satire is not only present in books written long ago, but sometimes can be caught today.


While staying up and catching the David Letterman show I saw one of the strangest interviews. Every night Letterman interviews guests that are promoting their newest movie or TV shows. The interview is usually light and humorous. Days before Joaquin phoenix went on the David Letterman show he publicized ditching his acting career to become a rap star. He revealed that Diddy would produce his music and the director Casey Affleck began filming a documentary on his journey. Many people that watched this interview were baffled when a disheveled Joaquin was muttering and incoherent. Most comments on the Youtube video are speaking of how strange and sad it is that Joaquin has gotten himself lost and on drugs. When I first saw this I was also mystified if this was real or an elaborate joke, so I furthered researched it. It seems that it is more than a joke, Joaquin is commenting on actors who take themselves too seriously. He is doing this through the expense of the media and people who don’t catch on. Joaquin follows Twain’s steps and becomes a satirist, and his point on actors and the media taking themselves too seriously are revealed through their reaction to his new found career.

I Do or DON'T

The power of a lifetime guaranteed with ‘happiness’ and companionship has fueled most individuals to decide and go against the odds. The little girl playing with her Ken and Barbie marriage set doesn’t act out an unsightly custody battle or child support payment fights with her dolls. The idea of marriage lasting till the end of time is not seen as idealistic in America. If you were to take the plunge in any endeavor knowing that there was a fifty percent chance that it would fail people would warn you, you would think twice, be considered and optimist, even crazy. As a society knowing that the divorce rate in the U.S is around fifty percent, we throw you parties, buy you presents, and marvel at you.
Do we as a society choose to ignore the fact that marriages end? Do individuals think they can transcend the statistics that many of them eventually become? Easy to say that one can’t go a week without spotting the carbon copy, picture perfect bride on that wedding magazine that smiles at you while making your purchases or be channel surfing only to find yourself an hour later weeping at the final scene of The Notebook. The ideals of love and marriage are always around us making us go for it weather in the media or Aunt Sally pressuring you to ‘get married already’.
We are also shown the other end. From reading about the ugly divorces of celebrities, listening to the complaints of our single parent friends, and watching T.V shows like Desperate Housewives where divorces are what the main characters deal with. We are as much exposed to the matching bride dresses we see to the realities of friends’ divorces.
We see what we want to see and close our eyes to the rest making ourselves blissfully unaware.

The people at Barbie will go on selling their Ken and Barbie marriage sets for generations to come, insinuating the stance that an everlasting marriage is inevitable. While the girls will continue to play and cling to the idea that a faultless matrimony is obtainable for all, while temporarily shutting their ears to the yells they hear in the background.

They are Coming...

We all have that picture of an over dramatized mob running through the streets burning down buildings and causing destruction thanks to the movies and books that we have all have seen like in chapter 22 of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. A mob started out after Sherburn shoots a rowdy drunk man in front of the drunk’s daughter. A crowd gathers and turns into a livid mob that encompasses the streets. The people keep gathering and in fury become one and knock down Sherburn’s front fence. They approach Sherburn to hear his speech about the mob mentality compared to the average person’s scared ways. After this speech the crowd separates. This scenario of a mob being overly controlling have been evident through history like the relatively recent Rodney King riots.

When I think about a mob mentality only massive groups of people developing in far off places come to mind. The power of being faceless in a large group gives the people in the group a prospect of not being judged by society’s norms, because they are all anonymous. They could never be blamed for it just being their fault, because behind others they all become one blameless entity. The other day when I was walking back from gym class there was a group of ten or so kids all yelling bad-mannered things at every single person walking by. I couldn’t help but think how many people would do that if they were by themselves. Zero. The power that they all felt could only be possible in a group of people hidden behind others. I thought giant mobs were the only kinds that developed and would only happen far away in a land of exaggeration brought on by movies and T.V shows. I discovered that this universal human sensation can start anywhere, like the halls of New Trier.

Small Talk or a Longing for Nice Words?

In class we acknowledged our seemingly superficial interactions with others in life after reading what Thoreau thinks in Walden “We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are.”
Thoreau is arguing that many times we only talk and see each other for the sake of talking and seeing each other, not because we actually have a strong need to reminisce with this person. I see this everyday in my life and the lives of my friends around me sitting down for dinner and making conversation that seems too trivial, making small talk with people you kind of know, that repetitive conversation that comes every day or so “how are you?.. “I’m fine, you?”.
We all know we do this, but the question is why, when many of us don’t care about the questions we are asking?
I have come to a conclusion that we use this form of communication to fill an emotional void of a desire for a connection to others. If we didn’t engage in this small talk there would be no kind words from strangers and faces that are familiar, to fill our days.
If people decided to stop replying or asking the same artificial questions then our days would be faced with less human interaction which is what we long for. It is the fact that we are asking at all genuinely or not, makes the days go by more pleasant.

The Herd

I was saddened to hear the news this holiday weekend about the mob of bargain hungry shoppers on Black Friday that killed a Long Island Wal-Mart employee. The idea that people were willing to lose all self-control enough to end up killing and injuring others in order to buy “bargains,” is a frightening picture of the people of our nation. Even in a time of financial peril where to some every dollar has more value we see ourselves spending our money instead of saving, which points to the extreme pressure upon this society as a whole that says consumerism is the way to go. People are so encouraged in so many ways (TV ads, magazine spreads, fashion magazines etc, etc) to keep buying mindlessly. This idea of so many conforming, because of what surroundings says is the right thing to do sharply contradicts Emerson who believes that “Who so would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself and you shall have the suffrage of the world,” as said in Self-Reliance. Emerson thinks that a great man cannot come to be by following the crowd . That this conformity seen in wanting these possessions and literally following the herd for these possessions speaks of the decadence of our society.

Key to Winning

During class last week my ears sprang up as Mrs. Logan was about to announce the key to winning a debate every time. If you are in control of the framing of the debate and how the questions are phrased then it is undeniable that you would win. At the time this suggestion was not crystal clear to me. I was confused as to how exactly this would work out. At home this idea became apparent to me as my dad was asking me about my dinner “You didn’t eat your asparagus did you?” which, was followed by my mom’s side comment “you have to eat it, why didn’t you?” I actually had eaten all the asparagus and before I had time to answer, these assumptions were made. The way my dad framed the question made it seem as though I did not. By putting an implication in the question, made the suggestion seem like the truth. If my dad phrased the question “did you eat your asparagus?” Then the slate would have been clear of a biased question that wouldn’t trick others into thinking it had to be the truth.

On the scale of a dinner table argument, what they thought did not really have much of an importance, but imagine if an actual question of relative importance was phrased on a large scale. The public could go along wrongfully believing a mistaken point of view, because of the fragment of the question.In general this would always work, except in some cases.

Recently vice Presidential candidate Biden did an interview for an Orlando television station. The interviewer Barbara West asked some probing questions, which gained a significant amount of media attention. Her questions were formatted in a skewed way in which she would not be offering a neutral base for viewers to rightfully judge. Barbara asked if Biden recognized this famous quote, “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.’ That’s from Karl Marx. How is Sen. Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?” By associating Karl Marx to the question she is implanting the idea of communism in the minds of viewers before the viewers can even hear another side. If a question sways one way then that is the same as giving one point of view a platform. If Barbara had been more professional she simply would have asked about Obama’s plan of spreading the wealth. Phrasing the question of a debate or argument can make a win, but in this case Barbara went too far. She was too obvious and her questions did not come off subtle by blatantly comparing Obama to Marx.

Even though formulating a question to win an argument is guaranteed in swaying people, there is still an art in doing it right.Less conscious viewers could have taken those randomly implanted references to Marx to heart and made up their minds before the question was asked. The media attention that this interview received gives me confidence for our nation’s inability to just listen and not question.

Deal or No Deal:The Making of an Idealist?

While watching the nationally aired television show Deal or No Deal on NBC, I started to notice some similarities in the decision making process compared to what we have been learning about idealism and pragmatism in class. The basic premise of the show is that there are twenty one cases each consisting of a different monetary value. The values are known at the start of the game, but which case contains what value is unknown. The contestant picks a case that they hope has the most value to hold on to. Then the player chooses other cases each at a time to remove them from play, the cases amounts are then instantly disclosed. By the process of elimination the monetary value in the case the player picked to hold on to is gradually revealed. During the game the banker offers the player an amount of money to quit the game. This offer is based on the amounts remaining in play.
This man like many others on Deal or No Deal made a choice that can almost always be seen on this show, but none the less shocks me every time. There were 8 plays still remaining only one was over the offer the banker gave. He had less than a ten percent chance to end up with more money than the banker would offer. The most sense would have been to take the offer. Why he didn’t could be as simple as putting him into one of two categories, an idealist or a pragmatist. Going against all practical odds for a small chance for a lot of money risking any money at all could define an idealist. It would seem that in general most people would be more sensible then end up walking away with considerably less based on an irrational whim. Recalling other Deal or No Deal shows the pattern of looking past logic is constant. From many of the episodes I have seen, this happens which makes me think there could be more than idealists and pragmatists, since I imagine the majority of people couldn’t be that idealistic. Maybe the crowd cheering and the incessant excitement creates an ambience of anything is possible, which could possibly fuel this hope in an idealistic ending, which hardly ever happens. An idealist could be made in his or her surroundings. Even though I see the logic behind taking the banker’s reasonable offer, I might be in a different state of mind when being cheered on and watched by millions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggERMTeC14A