Does Globalization Equal Contamination?

We as individuals are able to consume technology and adapt it to our needs. Technology has been adapted to the point where even underdeveloped countries are able to skip several steps in getting to a higher technological level without having the modern equipment that more more modern countries had to go through. One such example is the people of the African Congo. As Dr. Blevens explained in class, these people are using advance satellite phone to communicate and receive information on their crops without even having the most basic forms of electricity, and charge their phone with the car battery. Is their use of technology making them a less "authentic" culture, even though this intrusion of modernization is helping them? I don't thinks so.

Change allows people to have more choices. change has also made the quality of life better for these farmers. This use of technology isn't hindering them in any way, so why would people want to force them to go back to using more primitive techniques, when they could feed their families better when they have more access to information? In our country new knowledge allows us the ability to choose what we want to use and what we want to discard. This is true for other counties as well. As Dr. Appiah put it in his article, “The Case for Contamination”, he mentions that when scholar Larry Strelitz showed several popular American soap operas to different counties, each took away a different meaning, based on their cultural values and beliefs. This means that an individual will take what they want to take from an new medium, and will mold it fit their needs.

I agree with Appiah that "Talk of authencity now just amounts to telling other people what they ought to value in their own traditions." Globilazation is a way to mix and match cultures, to evolve through the new knowledge received from other people. Once people are valued, instead of concentrating on cultures, globalization will be viewed differently.

Ask e Me No Questions, I'll Tell You No Lies

Secrets are a big part of everyone's life. Everyone has a secret they have, and for the most part, its difficult to keep it that way. When I was younger, I was a bit of a compulsive liar, nothing big, mind you, but about little things. On the off chance that I would have done something that I shouldn't have, I got pretty good at covering up my little white lies, so when my friend called me and told me to lie to her parents, I felt confident that I could pull it off.

My friend Jane Doe called me one afternoon and told me that she had woken up in some stranger's house after a rough night of partying and had the worst hangover of life. She was supposed to be at her parent's house by 9 am, but when she called me, it was almost 2 pm. I knew her parents well enough to know that they had been very worried and would be disappointed in her. I knew she would do it for me in a heart beat, so I agreed, even though I felt that she shouldn't have involved me if she insisted on lying.

I was surprised by how conflicted I felt. On one hand, I felt pretty bad when I would tell her parents that Jane had stayed with me that night. I didn't expect that to be the case. I guess it was because in the same situation, I would have told my parents as much of the truth as I could although I would never tell them the entire truth. It was uncomfortable, but I knew that her parents would be more comfortable with the the truth that Jane had created, and the real events would worry them more and cause them to be disappointed in her, and she couldn't take that.

On the other hand, I had this secret that I was itching to tell. I had known Jane since high school, and all of our old friends would be shocked at how much she had changed. It was juicy gossip and I had to try really hard not to break. I felt like I held this power over Jane and over my other friends. But I know that I won't tell them, because after all, if they gossip to you, they'll gossip about you, and I don't want that.

Lost in Translation

Everyday, words are used to convey messages to people and these words, when used in the proper order and and context, give meaning. Sometimes though, people make intellectual mistakes, through ignorance or by the simple reason of using the wrong word. I myself seem to have these moments more often than I should, if I were to be honest with myself. I can't seem to process the words I want to speak with the words that I actually speak. Most of the time, I just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, without filtering the words and sometimes without even trying to be politically correct, and most commonly, without even realizing that I haven't explained myself all that well.

One of these moments happened to me last week. I was hanging out with some of my friends, one of which happens to be gay. I can't exactly remember what the conversation was about, but I remember saying something to the effect of Conan O'Brien joining Twitter, and how surprised I was that he gained over 100,000 followers in the first three days since he first joined in comparison to Craig Ferguson, the host of the Late Late Show on CBS, who has been on Twitter for about three weeks and only has about 120,000 followers. I assumed that I had said that I was impressed with how popular Conan was and how people were still rallying behind him, even though he's not on tv anymore. Apparently, my friends were convinced that I had said that Craig was more popular, even though he clearly isn't (although he is my favorite) and that I was bashing Conan or something. I guess that I wasn't able to explain myself properly and that caused my friends to misunderstand me.

Another way I have made an intellectual mistake when I have tried to communicate is through the differences in dialect. I was with one of friends from El Salvador and with Spanish, there are many words that have different meaning in different countries. One of these words is fresa. Fresa in Spanish, means strawberry, but the slang meaning differs a great deal. In Mexico, fresa is used to describe a preppy, often daft and silly girl, but in El Salvador, fresa is like fairy, a negative term that is used in reference to gay men. I said that even though my cousin was a fresa, she wasn't that bad. My friend, who happens to be gay, took offense to that and I couldn't understand why. Luckily, one of my friends happened to have lived in Mexico City for a couple of years and understood what I meant and explained. It's amazing how one word can create so much conflict and confusion. That one word changed the entire meaning of what I was trying to say and this can create a lot of trouble in situations that can be more serious than the one I experienced.

Thes experiences that I had, although not very significant, shows that misunderstandings can happen between people of the same age, socioeconomic group and educational quality, and can obviously happen across different generations, cultures and nations, and continents. Although people may understand the words that people are saying, the meaning can get lost. Different people may not understand the context of the words and people can sometimes misuse words altogether, or forget to add words, or simply don't think things through, and this can create messages that are understood incorrectly and when this happens, conflicts may arise.

My Media-Your Media

This past week, I was asked to take on the media consumption habits of a classmate. That's right, all of them. My partner, Else Puig, has very different media habits than I do, and after 48 hours of this, I think I may have gone into withdrawal.

One of the major differences between the two of us is the fact that she watches television to bond with her family. For a period of two to three hours a day, she sits with her parents and sister to watch Hispanic television, and discusses what they saw that night after the show. This is different for me because I do not watch Hispanic television and since I am no longer living with m family, I don't really have the opportunity to watch television with them. Watching shows like A Mano Limpia and MANAHIBIRA (SP), as well as Spanish News, was a completely different experience for me. I will be the first to say that I have a strong dislike for Hispanic television. I feel that is poorly produced, cheesy in the worst way, and show news that is worthless in the grand scheme of things. I may be biased, but watching some of these news shows makes FOX news look good(well, not really, but you get the picture) and that's saying something. I am not saying this to be mean, but compared to its American counterpart, Hispanic news has a long way to go. But viewing this show with the mindset of my partner, I was able to appreciate it a bit more. Else watches these shows to connect with her Cuban parents, and after sitting down and watching this with an open mind, I was surprised that I was able to actually receive some interesting information,

Another difference that Else and I share is the fact that the only show she watches in English is The Secret Life of the American Teenager. This was the hardest part for me, not only did I have to watch this shoe, but I couldn't watch the regular shows I watch Like House M.D. and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. It was horrible! The Secret Life is very corny, but if I was slightly more romantically inclined, I could see why it has viewers I suppose. But what really hurt me was the fact that Craig Ferguson had Stephan Fry has his guest for the entire show! It was very painful for me to not grab the remote and start watching. Stephan Fry is an amazing man, and I follow him on Twitter and on his blog, so not being able to do any of this stuff, seeing as she doesn't do this, was hard.

After experiencing Else's media habits, I found that I was surprised to find that although I didn't actually keep up with my normal media habits, I still stay informed. It broadened my perspective on the world around me, and I was able to understand that people stay informed in very different ways. This experience has thought me that the media I consume is shaped by the values I have, abd while Else's value don't necessarily match mine, out values expand our access to "actionable information."

News Information Black Out

News is everywhere, you can't escape it. When you stop to think about it, you will be surprised by how much news seeps into our everyday life without us even realizing it, i certainly was. I was asked to perform an experiment that made me black out all news media for 48 hours. Before this experiment, i thought that i would be able to go through with my days as usual, but i was surprised to find myself jittery and anxious.

But why? Why was I incapable of spending the day without reaching for my phone to check the New York Times? I would try to substitute ways around that, but it would seem my life is saturated by news. Twitter, Facebook, and even entertainment shows, like The Daily Show, have some type of news involved. Even speaking to my freinds was a challenge, and the result were empty distant and boring conversations.

In Deresiewicz's article, The End of Solitude, he explains that people of my generation are bred for boredom. We have to be doing things constantly, connected to someone at all times, and i find this is true. I can never really find an instance where I am not doing something. I have no time to find solitude and I sometimes I think I don't really want to either, but with this experiment, I was surprised by the fact that I did enjoy the moments that I had by myself.

After this experiment, I think that news is a necessary intrusion in our lives if handled correctly. It influences our actions and thoughts in a way other sources cant. It breaks through out solitude and gets us to think about things outside of ourselves.

Aristotle's and Plato's Influence on How We Communicate Today

Aristotle and Plato are some of the world's greatest philosophers. They are viewed by many scholars as the pioneers in the written discourse in English composition. Aristotle and Plato have both had a big impact on how we, as writers, use rhetorical analysis and how this has affected how we communicate today.

To being with, Aristotle was the first to devise a total rhetoric for arguing toward probable truth and deduction to convince one's audience. He made the rules, a systematic method for rhetoric. It uses deduction to convince the writers audience. This has, over time, degraded to the point where the rules have made for predictable, if well-structured, persuasive discourse. Students tend to become complacent when using Aristotle's method of rhetorical analysis. he used three methods to achieve a higher level of deductive reasoning, ethos, the appeal to the will, logos, the appeal to the intellect, and pathos, the appeal of emotions. All three are needed to write a good composition. But these can cause problems as well. Today, we are so accustomed to having to keep these three proofs , that we tend to ignore everything else but making sure that our composition is grammatically correct and includes all the proofs. This forces us to focus our attention on the superficial aspects of out paper, instead of going in deeper to find a more in depth analysis.

On the other hand, Plato says the writer discovers new knowledge. His method is of a more contextual conversational method. This is sometimes seen as the weaker method compared to Aristotle, because it needs an outside force, like a teacher or professor, to direct conversation into a goal that can be the subject of a composition. Plato believed that dialect were the key to a great discourse. By being able to debate, finding contradictions and counterarguments, students are more able to find new ideas and knowledge. Plato's three part structure consists of defining particular terms, analyze subject matter into smaller categories, and moving up from concrete thoughts to more abstract thoughts to reach a satisfactory conclusion. This method is more flexible and inductive than Aristotle's method.

Aristotle's system of invention is influential in teaching writing, but Plato's dialectical invention is also important because it affords a communicative context for writers to rehearse and practice their thinking relative to the composing processes.

Why do we write things down?

The written word has existed for many centuries and will continue to exist for many more. Writing things down is not a novel idea by any means of the imagination and is used by billions across the globe for a lot of reasons. The reasons can be as simple or as complex as the people who write them down, and this reflects on the culture we live in today.

Historically, people have written ideas down since the development of the written language. People wrote things down because they wanted to document and to communicate information to other people and to spread news, ideas, and later on for entertainment purposes.

Today, people write things down for simpler reasons, such as remembering what's on the grocery list. People fear loosing knowledge, so writing information down, like when taking notes, for example, helps the information go from short-term memory to long-term memory that much easier. People also write things down to help them analyze complex thoughts and concepts, like when writing an research essay.

I feel that people want to be remembered and putting their thoughts and feelings on paper will help immortalize themselves. We also tend to be egocentric, so we write about ourselves and our experiences. People write in journals to document their lives. Even novels have some aspect of the author's personality embedded in it. Blogs, like this one, helps us to helps to impart our thoughts and opinions to the world and where others could respond to these ideas.

Social media, on the other hand, has changed the way and reasons we write things down. Social media, like facebook, twitter, and texting, has seeped into our everyday life. It is impossible to exist without running into some of these mediums. Twitter, for example, allows people to follow other people and read what they are doing at that moment. This means that writing has now become something almost trivial in the way it is being used, although for artists, this is a great way to communicate with other people where they are performing, for example, and this form of the written word will help them get more revenue. But at its core, this is for people to generate attention for themselves. Texting allows us to keep in touch with people constantly and immediately, we write messages to people to stay in contact with them at all times.

Although the reasons we write things down differ, it is important to realize that the written word has changed the way we live and interact with each other as a result.