Commentary # 3

Samie's ethical argument paper is written      to call attention to animal testing. Her thesis is concise and clearly worded and it is easy for the ready to understand that she will be arguing that animal testing should be put to an end. 

Samie's main points were that it leads to animal suffering and death with the criteria that inflicting pain and death is unethical. She does a great job painting a picture of the life of animals that are living in laboratories to undergo testing. Samie's essay has an informative and moving introduction that kept my attention and made me want to continue reading to be presented with her arguments. 

As a supportive audience I would absolutely be moved by her essay. However as a skeptical audience I think I would look for a little bit more information as to why animals should not be treated inferiorly to humans as far as inflicting pain. The majority of the paper focuses on the cruelty that these animals must undergo but she does not clearly state why that is an issue that her audience should take into consideration. 

In the first body paragraph she states that "Every living organism was born into the world with different emotions, characteristics, and purposes." I thought this was a great way to start her argument. It could be expanded upon to be a little more impactful. As it is written right now it is left to the reader to draw the connection as to how animals have emotions like humans and therefore should not be intentionally subjected to suffering, which I believe is the point she is trying to make. I would also recommend that Samie build into her essay a refutation for the argument that a human life is worth more then that of an animal, as that seems to be the most commonly presented argument in favor of animal vivisection. 

Samie presented two main criteria to support her ethical argument, I would recommend maybe adding one more criteria to solidify her position and have greater opportunity to convince a skeptical audience to be interested in supporting her cause. 

In addition to adding one more criteria, I believe that finding another source to support her argument would be useful. A few ideas we discussed were adding a source that presents statistics about the pain an animal goes through, maybe one that has run brain scans while an animal is in pain. Another idea was to include the point that testing on animals is not necessarily indicative of results on humans and is therefore not worth the pain of the animals. 

Overall I believe that with a few minor tweaks and additions Samie's argument would be persuasive enough to make a skeptical audience believe that animal testing is not ethical. 

Response to "vivisection"

Vivisection falls under one of the categories of questions that I will never know how to answer. It fits right in line with abortion and gun control. For me, it is far too easy to be swayed by an argument from either side. They re all topics that I think have valid reasons that all truly need to be considered on a case to case basis. This excerpt proved that to me. As I was reading nodding along to each of the authors points on the matter, regardless of which side the argument would be coming from.

One of the points that really struck a cord with me was when the author referred to the arguments of Darwinists and those who believe in natural selection. He states "The very same people who will lost contemptuously brush aside any consideration of animal suffering if it stands in the way of 'research' will also, on another context, most vehemently deny that there is any radical difference between man and any other animal." That is something that I never thought to consider, and though I'm not convinced that pointing that fact out to anyone that supported that point of view would change their opinion, I do think that it's worthy of noting. 

What is alarming to me is the parallel the author draws between animals and other human beings that some one society co slider inferior. It's frightening to me that anyone could use that argument in good conscience.  I suppose that because I feel that way I must be of the opinion that vivisection, assuming it would be used to avoid human suffering and was completed in a manner that would inflict the least amount of pain possible, is reasonable. 

Commentary #2

For the Rhetorical Critique I peer reviewed Samie's essay which she chose to complete on Susan Sontag's article "9/11". Her introduction did a great job of setting up the background I formation necessary. She made a point to include the depth of the disaster which I get was helpful to her argument that Susan Sontag did not emply rhetorical appeals in a way to help support her article.
The one suggestion I had for Samie on her introduction was to include a concise thesis that stated her position. This information was no difficult to discern based on her body paragraphs but was never really stated as a matter of fact.
Samie did a great job of critiquing Sontag's misuse, or rather lack of, kairos. She used this as her final body paragraph which I think was instrumental to concluding her essay as it was her strongest point.
Samie also discussed Sontag's use of pathos. There were some appeals that she felt were successful and others that she thought did not enhance Sontag's work. I suggested to Samie that she clearly state whether or not the specific passages she quoted were ones that she felt were successful. All together I think that she used strong arguments with solid passages to support them. Samie had not included examples of Sontag's use of ethos or logos in her initial draft, but we did discuss some of those uses in class together and she will be incorporating them in her final draft.
I also suggested that she rearrange a couple of her body paragraphs so that each rhetorical appeal was grouped with the other paragraphs of it's kind.
Overall I believe that with a few minor changes and the addition of ethos and pathos critiques Samie's paper could successfully convince someone that Sontag's peice was not wholly effective in swaying an audience.

A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid

Questions:

1. Why is it that people find relaxation in countries that live in poverty?
2. Will there ever be a time when English and North American people are forgiven for their ancestors?
3. Should there ever be a time when English and North American people are forgiven for their ancestors? 

The first half of  this excerpt hit really close to home for me. In June my good friend and I bought ourselves plane tickets to Panama to celebrate transferring from Saddleback (it took is long enough). As Kincaid narrated the way through a tourists arrival in Antigua it was difficult not to draw comparisons. She talks about the ease of going through customs as a tourist, while implying that a native carting necessities home would suffer through the process. I can't speak for any Panamanians but I do know that when my friend and I booked a last minute flight to Panama City from Bocas del Toro and forgot to remove the liquids from our carry ons security stopped the bags, looked at us, and waved us through anyways. Kincaid also mentions an old library that was closed for repairs for over a decade and scathingly writes of how the English and the North Americans chalk it up to being quaint. The view from the rear of one of our hostels was dilapidated housing, with mattresses on the ground outside to escape the heat, boards on the windows, bone-thin cats and dogs wandering around looking for food, and it was considered quaint, I can't say how many people I saw sitting and appreciating the view that it offered, taking pictures of it to remind them when they got back home. I did too. 
It's hard to imagine that in countries such as Panama and Antigua, that are plagued with tourists as a constant reminder of the insensitivity of the "civilized" world to their desperation, that we will ever be distanced from the deeds of our ancestors. Kincaid asks her readers "Do you know why people...are shy of becoming capitalists? Well, it's because we, for as long as we have known you, were capital..." And when you think of it from that point of view I really don't know that we ever should be forgiven. 

"9/11" & "A Few Weeks After" Susan Sontag

Questions:


1. Can 9/11 be America's fault?
2. What other than strong should America be?
3. How do emotions effect your responses?

In her article "9/11" and her thoughts in her interview Susan Sontag addresses her concerns regarding America's response to the attacks on September 11, 2001. I don't think I've ever read an article written so soon after the incident that is forthright with animosity towards America's responses. It is clear that she is unhappy with the was the Bush administration handled foreign policy, and that his response to the attacks was no more in her favor.  After reading Sontag's thoughts on use of the word "cowardly" to describe the days events I would have believed that she would be one of the "American intellectuals" that her inteviewer refers to who believe that 9/11 was brought on by America's own actions. However, I believe that Sontag's response was well defined and made me understand where she was coming from.
I was only 11 years old Tuesday September 11th,  I couldn't possibly understand the magnitude of what was happening around me, but the gravity of the situation was impressed upon me by the solemn veil that seemed to envelope everyone around me. When Sontag goes on to say in her interview that her article was written from Berlin, where she could only feel the grief of America through the television,  I was no longer surprised by the tone in her article.  Distance has an effect of desensitizing. If I had been immersed in the reality of the impact of the attacks on America, and had I been old enough to make the distinction, I may have responded very similarly to Sontag. You can tell her interview that coming home to New York made a significant impact on her responses to the aftermath.

"Believe Me, It's Torture" by Christopher Hitchens

Questions:

  1. Is waterboarding torture?

22. Should waterboarding be an allowable means of extracting information?

33.  If waterboarding is acceptable, what else may be?

      I personally do not believe that waterboarding in any way, shape, or form, should be considered an allowable practice. It is easy to watch something on television or read about it in a newspaper and have a glazed over view of it’s reality. We, as a community, truly are desensitized. I think that the fact that Christopher Hitchens actually subjected himself to the waterboarding process makes his argument significantly stronger than any debate based on principals alone. It was hard to read about the physical effects that waterboarding had on him and dumbfounding to believe that it all can happen in less than two minutes.

      I would argue that the inhumanity of inflicting such strong emotional distress on another human being is inherently wrong and call it day, though I realize that is not the strongest of arguments. Hitchens summarized the opinion of those who took him through the process by saying “…a man who has been waterboarded may well emerge from the experience a bit shaky, but he is in a mood to surrender the relevant information and is unmarked and undamaged and indeed ready for another bout in a short time.” But, is undamaged really a fair description? Hitchens later recalls that he still has nightmares about his experience, that being short of breath triggers vivid flashbacks. That sounds damaged to me.

      Emotions put aside however waterboarding still seems an unreasonable technique. Hitchens references Malcolm Nance’s argument that waterboarding is “…a means of extracting junk information.” This alone is cause for alarm and questioning. Why should we employ a policy that would grant us the authority to obtain faulty information? Hitchens questions his own mental state while being waterboarded and whether or not he would give false information to end the experience. Any rational human being enduring that amount of stress would have the natural drive to end it. There is no reason that we as a country should invest time and money into investigating information earned through such methods.  

Commentary #1

For our first commentary I peer reviewed Shastin's classical argument, which was written in response to Nicholas Carr's article, "Is Google Making us Stupid?" I believe that Shastin is in agreement with Carr in that the Internet is having a direct effect on our ability to focus on lengths of text. However, I think that her opinion could have been more clearly stated at the end of the introduction to make the essay more organized. 

The points that Shastin makes in support of her own argument are sound. She uses multiple academic journals to help support her case. One of these journals references a neurologist and her study of the way Internet usage is changing the brain. I thought this was a very solid reference. My only suggestion would be to expand on how the study specifically relates to Carr’s article. Carr mentions the brain being re-mapped due to our constant use of technology many times, and the correlation between his conclusions and the neurologist’s work would be strong asset to swaying a neutral audience.

            Shastin is fair in her acknowledgement of the benefits of the Internet, although there may be some room for expansion. Most of the recognition is tied in to her original points. It may be more effective to separate them out into their own paragraphs and refute them, or agree with them, one by one. The defense of her points is a little lost in the combination of her paragraphs. Again, this could be easily clarified by separating the refutation from the main points.

            The only suggestion that I thought might be helpful is rearranging a couple of the paragraphs to keep a flow of logic. On the third page of the essay the first paragraph ends with the sentence “So once again, it could be said that maybe there are people who worry and obsess over the internet’s change in our brain functioning and yet again, the benefits may outweigh the cost.” That paragraph is then followed by two that refer to studies that indicate negative impacts of technology on our brains. I think that her point may come off more clearly if the first paragraph follows the two that include the studies.

            Overall I believe Shastin has great points to be made and that she can effectively do so with a few minor changes.