Leonid Fridman’s essay “America Needs its Nerds” is to inform the general American public that “nerds and geeks” is what a country needs. He feels in today’s society, intellectuals are being looked down upon, while athletes are idolized. Fridman believes what this country needs is high academic achievements and intellectualism. Throughout the essay Fridman displays examples of how knowledge is extremely important and anti-intellectual values needs to be stopped. In this essay Fridman uses antithesis, irony, allusions to support his argument.
He emphasizes how everywhere around the world, university professors are the most knowledgeable and prestigious positions except in America, where average ballplayers are more respected and better paid. Undeniable facts like how long would America remain a world power and still be able to compete with its rival countries if students who have the will and potential to study, are compared to people biting off chickens’ heads, help Fridman demonstrate how important of a problem that might be, and ultimately knock some sense into people who do that. “It is high time to face the persecutors who haunt the bright kid with thick glasses from kindergarten to the grave” demonstrates Fridman persuades the readers by
The problems with having massive population of pigeons are being described by the writer as his second argument. He creates a very negative view of pigeons in his readers as he describe these ‘pests’ presence as a ‘plague’. By telling his readers about how the pigeons attract ticks, cockroaches and rats, he attempts to build an undesirable idea of the pigeon in the readers’ minds. Bonella also implies the inconvenience and harm that the citizens have faced. He explains this using the strongly negative terms such as ‘clogging’, ‘stumbling’ and slithering’ to put a clear image in the readers of the great impacts they have on people.
Rhetorical Essay Michael Moore makes a clear proclamation in his excerpt “Idiot Nation” that America’s education system is drastically failing. Although America is the richest country, education has become less and less of a priority. Not only does Moore state the issue but he also explains ways we can resolve the situation and put the country back on top. Moore uses a plethora of different persuasive and rhetorical strategies to get his audience to understand his claim on the issue. One of the most unique rhetorical strategies he uses is belittling the public figures of the nation.
In “America,” Hoagland uses metaphors to illustrate the growing influence of consumerism, capitalism, and most of all the greed that rules the modern American society. Consumerism is a modern day blessing and a curse for America. Consumerism is the theory of society’s preoccupation with consumer goods. This is evident in the beginning of “America.” Hoagland writes, “Then one of the students with blue hair and a tongue stud/ Says that America for him is a maximum-security prison/ Whose walls are made of RadioShack’s and Burger King’s, and MTV episodes/ Where you can’t tell the show from the commercials.” Here, Hoagland lists the details of American “trendiness” by mentioning hair color and body piercings. Also, Hoagland describes modern day businesses like Radio Shack, which market and sell consumer based goods, and fast food restaurants like Burger King that gives super-sized food portions.
Journal 03: America Tony Hoagland’s poem “America” uses specific nouns and metaphors to tell readers that America is too obsessed with material objects and self-satisfaction. Hoagland uses these nouns and metaphors to hide truth from the naked eye, specific diction is also used in combination with these metaphors to expose corruption in American society. In the opening lines, Hoagland writes, “Then one of the students with blue hair and a tongue stud / Says that America is for him a maximum-security prison / Whose walls are made of Radio Shacks, Burger Kings, and MTV episodes.” Hoagland almost lists the details of American trends by mentioning hair color and piercings, and by describing businesses like Radio Shack which sell 70-inch flat screen televisions, which are completely unnecessary, and fast food restaurants like McDonald’s that give super-sized food portions. These allow readers to immediately see the ridiculous
There are those who wish to portray public education as a failed experiment. To do this they attack teachers and learners, blaming the best for the failures of the system. All of us need to actively respond to such attacks, telling and retelling the stories of the lives that heroic teachers make possible in our schools. Mike Rose awakens us to the promise of American education that is still a possibility. Free public
Western Civilization leads in categories of politics, economics, science and technology and in each category the West gained efficiency and effectiveness. It is seen by many people that Columbus used his power to conquer the people of the new world and commit genocide and slavery but at the same time Columbus brought knowledge to these people and enabled them to become as powerful as Western Civilization. Over time, Western Civilization has faced adversity but like Columbus, they have done whatever was necessary to keep expanding Western influence. The article also clarifies the debate over Columbus because it shows that Columbus cannot be looked at as good or bad; Columbus has to be looked at as an admiral, who took necessary action in the new world to keep Western Civilization on top. If Columbus had not taken the actions that he did, the people of the new world may have overthrown him and the western influence and that could have changed the world as we know it forever.
This quickly became a battle of superiority while Japan thought they were the superior race as everyone else was scum. John Dower notes in his essay, “Race Language, And War In Two Cultures” that the fight against Japan was a different battle than our fight against Italy and the Nazis. This quickly became a war with racial overtones. The U.S. saw Japan as cockroaches or rodents while they claimed the U.S. and Britain were a bunch of dumb ogres. There were many racial names that made several news headlines such as yellow belly, yellow rats, tree monkeys, and several others.
America has won nearly every war that we’ve been involved it. Even when we were a nation divided amongst ourselves in the Civil War, the stronger side still prevailed. Americans hate to lose, which is why we are still the dominating country, Tony Blair stated this in the second paragraph of his article. To contradict this statement, I was presented with an article negatively facing America, it said, “China and Japan are rapidly advancing and will soon be so far ahead of the U.S. that we will not be able to catch up”. These statements are both argumentative, but the fact is, you can’t beat America.