paper blog ...

Here are some arguments from my paper; however, I must say I'm begining to feel qutie differently about the act of persuasion. I think I'm a little too critical on how it is harming us, and not considering at all how (or if) it is helping us....

After examining some of the acts of persuasion I can’t help but feel like I am living in a Big Brother society, where although it appears to be free willed, every move I make and every desire I feel is ultimately controlled by the persuaders. This is demeaning to humanity. To say that the average man is in adequate to make his own decision, and must be swayed by the act of persuasion is very scary. We are United States citizens, we are suppose have freedoms to do and feel however we want, and although exteriorly it appears that we do, essentially we are all just dictated by society.

The common belief is: we are a democracy, we elect our own leaders, our leaders work to coincide with our values and ethics. However, as Walter Lippmann points out in “The Disenchanted Man,” this is very far from the truth. “The actual governing is made up of a multitude of arrangements on specific questions by particular individuals. These rarely become visible to the private citizen. They are altogether too numerous, too complicated, too obscure in their effects to become the subject of any continuing exercise of public opinion.” (36) Lippmann explains that the average man is incapable of playing a role in our democracy. It is not the common or private citizen who plays a role in our society, but instead an elect few who are not only smart enough to persuade us into voting for them, but also smart enough to persuade us into believing that we have a say in our democracy.
One of the conservative’s real strengths is their use of language. They use words such as “Healthy forest,” “No Child Left Behind,” these words “mollify people who have nurturant values (progressives), while the real policies are strict father policies (conservatives). This mollifies, even attracts, the people in the middle who have qualms about you. This is the use of Orwellian language- language that means the opposite of what it says- to appease people in the middle at the same time as you pump up the base. This is part of conservative strategy.” (22). For instance the “No Child Left Behind” bill which President Bush took credit for; the connotation of the bill sounds like it is implemented to improve education, and make sure America’s schools are giving each student a rightful chance to succeed. In reality, it is implementing standardized test, rewarding the schools that do well (usually wealthy districts) and taking away from schools that do poorly, the ones who really need the money.