The Disdain of Total Equality Total equality may seem fair and justifiable in the eyes of some people, but in many cases it turns out to be little more than a form of oppression, in which a group of people limit the abilities of others. Throughout the story Vonnegut speaks of this necessity for equality and the means that the government goes to achieve it by using devices called ‘handicaps’; one example of this is George’s earpiece, “A buzzer sounded in George’s head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm.” Vonnegut’s simile here creates a sort of loud diction, which expresses the sheer discomfort invoked by these restraints on the person wearing them. The governing body in this society views this as the solution to a problem, one that happens to be relatively impossible to solve, this is how Vonnegut incorporates satire into his story. He is poking fun at the age old concept of ‘equality,’ one that has inspired wars and movements alike; he accomplishes this by creating a system to make everyone equal, a system that happens to be just as stupid as the idea of ‘total equality.’ Under this system equality is achieved, but it is at the cost of individual freedom and a society full of stupid people, this in-turn creates the situational irony found in the story.
Super Bowl Exploited: Sexism and Logic Fallacies within Commercials By Mollie Ray Associate Professor Heck English 1010-124 9 October 2012 Outline Thesis statement: While Super Bowl commercials are often very entertaining, blatant sexism and logic fallacies can cause an unappealing effect on the audience. I. Toyota Camry “It’s Reinvented” A. Sexism B. Logic fallacies 1. Hasty generalization 2. Non sequitur 3.
In William Lutzs’ essay “With These Words, I Can Sell You Anything” , he explains how advertisers use weasel words in advertisements. These words are misleading and often times leave it up to the consumers to fill in the blanks. This type of technique often lead the consumer to believe the product will do exactly what that want it to do. Many contemporary cosmetic ads use some of the techniques that Lutz addressed in his essay. Some of those techniques include: the use of unfinished comparisons, unfinished claims, scientific words, and the use of words that make consumers forget about the product and focus on something bigger, better, and more attractive.
“The Catcher in the Rye” heightens the knowledge and appreciation of “Igby Goes Down” by providing an erudite commentary on the superficiality and cultural values of modern American culture. Through the exploration of aspects such as their cultural values, relationships, inner thoughts and the protagonists themselves ones appreciation of Burr Steers’ film “Igby Goes Down” may heighten to some extent or degree. The character of Holden and the cultural values he represents in captures the key components of Igby’s mindset. The anti-hypocrisy perspective Holden holds and his disrespect for adult society results in his alienation of society and in turn, his lack of clear directions. This “pretentious” nature of society is one that Holden will not conform to and this is the key idea is the relationship between the two protagonists.
How does Dawe’s poetry challenge us to be critical of consumerism? Consumerism is the process of selling, advertising and promoting goods and services. Society tends to become acquisitive, that is, it becomes a desire to acquire and possess goods and services. Consumerism is suggested to be an obsessive consumption of goods because of the ‘ism’ associated. Bruce Dawe describes the negative aspaects of consumerism in the poems: Enter Without So Much As Knocking; Televistas and Americanized.
Popenoe says, “It is in marriage that…individual desires [are] fulfilled, and the central tensions and challenges of Azawagh Arab culture [are] played out, especially those of sexuality” (Popenoe 98). However, it is otherwise visible that sexuality has a minor role. For women, she says that “in the crudest, most simplistic terms…[they] want material things,” and that they claim that “the men bring us what we will eat” where “boys’ work is head work; girls’ work is stomach work” (Popenoe, 111). For men, under cultural logics, “guarding honor and maintaining power [and] the power of milk and blood” are listed (Popenoe, 81, 76). Another benefit is that they can emphasize their social status by choosing a fat wife, because this would suggest that the husband has married a woman from a higher class and can therefore maintain her standards of
One way would be conformity, to surrender to the government’s wishes by reserving any criticism for trifle thoughts. The other way would be individuality, to criticize the authority and be its target. This theme, conformity versus individuality, is ubiquitous not only in today’s society but in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Distraction and pleasure seeking is the trademark of the culture in which Montag lives in. Even though these
This institutional economic view of the west presents readers the facts of a west that is not that disorderly, but disciplined; by capitalism and investors. The morale of this article is that the Hollywood images of the old west are not accurate, well-defined property rights links to wealth and prosperity, and that institutional entrepreneurs are heroes who civilize the world and even provide proper management to natural resources so that they are not
‘HHMM’, Hollywood, Harvard, McDonald’s, and Microsoft, were selling not only their products but also America's culture and values, the secrets of its success, to the rest of the world.' However, employing only hard power or only soft power in a given situation will usually prove inadequate. Nye utilizes the example of terrorism, arguing simply utilizing soft power resources to change the hearts and minds of the Taliban government would be ineffective and requires a hard power component. Nevertheless, in the Middle East, in the eyes of Islamic fundamentalists, the openness of Western culture is repulsive, which we have a term for it ‘anti-Americanism’. As a result, Joseph Nye, suggests that the most effective strategies in foreign policy today require a mix of hard and soft power resources, the ‘smart power’.
Gender Roles on Arrested Development The Arrested Development episode Top Banana details the business and family dealings of the Bluth family (Hurwitz, Michael). This episode introduces traits in the characters of George Michael Bluth, and Maebe Bluth Funke, his cousin. In a sitcom, gender traits and roles are typically exaggerated with great effect for comedic value. George Michael and Maebe defy the traditional societal roles for gender by both exhibiting reversed and exaggerated traits from the opposite gender. Gender roles in society are the general expectations that society places members of particular genders, whether exhibited through traits or actual occupations.