The Rhetoric of Peace and Justice

On March 31st, I travelled to a bookstore in Boulder, Colorado to observe a discussion about peace and justice. When I got there, all I found was an empty table. Did I miss the meeting? Why is no one here? Surely peace and justice themselves cannot be as empty as this table. I then realized the message being sent is how peace and justice cannot coexist equally at any moment in time. The meeting failed because one cannot have equal representation of peace and justice at the same time because they are opposites. This failure by opposites conveys the most powerful message that can ever be sent. This message is silence. Through the failure of the meeting along with the message of silence sent by absence, peace and justice are shown in a new true light within society.

Peace and justice can rarely coexist. In any situation of discourse there is the choice between peace or justice. This shows how peace and justice are opposites. Even though in modern society they are often placed together. This is represented in the clips showing marriage. However, it is actually impossible to be fighting for both peace and justice. Most people assert that peace and justice is a marriage because if someone (Jack) does something bad. Jack then goes to court and get sentenced and is removed from society. This creates the peace that people most commonly think about. The problem however is much more cloudy if a group of people do something considered bad. Consider terrorists for example. Peace between terrorists and non-terrorists would be for each one to get what they want. Justice between terrorists and non-terrorists is for one to succeed over the other and then the justice is defined by the winning side. By these definitions, peace and justice seem similar but are also substantially different. Peace implies co-existing compromise, justice implies power over the other. By this discourse peace and justice cannot exist equally within any society.

Another difference between peace and justice is that justice is an opinion. One individual may think one action is the appropriate response. Another individual would have a different and perhaps opposite response. This is also represented by the terrorist vs. non-terrorist example. The terrorist’s justice would be killing all the non-believers. The non-terrorist’s justice would be to rid the world of extremists who believe it is their power to rid the world of opposing views. Therefore it is the people themselves on each side who have the power to influence a change toward more justice or more peace. The discourse is within society itself. Although opposites, justice can possibly lead to short span of peace. This is represented by the Jack example. Jack goes away then peace follows. However, peace does not prevail forever because sooner or later another problem will arise where justice would be needed. This suggests that there is an illusion of equilibrium between peace and justice when actually it is each situation rapidly fluctuating between the two. Peace and justice is actually a cycle where one leads to the other. The meeting did not happen because the core purpose of the meeting itself is contradictory. The meeting failed because peace and justice cannot coexist equally in society, therefore the meeting about peace and justice cannot exist in society.

Though the meeting itself did not happen because of its core contradiction, it still sent a message. That message is the very powerful message of silence. At first this silence means nothing, as in nothing happened because nothing existed. But is this what silence really means? Well silence means there is nothing to be said. This could prove how the meeting can not exist, or it could prove a more powerful message that any words could ever convey. The latter is true because historically silence has been used as a tool to influence change and thought. This is shown in my clips though the pictures of dead bodies and such. An example showing the power of silence is the infamous picture on the “tank man” or also known as “the unknown rebel.” This is the man who stood in front of a column of tanks in Tiananman Square in 1989. He simply stood there blocking the tanks. His existence at that position was enough to stop the tanks, not words. Another example of this are silent marches. The most moving marches can be silent marches because it makes you actually think about what they want instead of listening to them shout it at you. Both of these examples show the power of silence in provoking thought and illustrating the true message being sent. The influence of the silence makes one think harder about why the meeting would not happen. The truth of the message sent by silence at the bookstore meeting about peace and justice is how such meeting cannot be held in a bookstore. Peace and justice is held within the world on the streets and in the buildings of power. That is where one should look to find peace and justice. This is because peace and justice are all around us. They cannot be syphoned out of society and placed into a bookstore meeting. It is in every person, in every action. The silence shown at the failed meeting shows this.

Peace and justice cannot coexist in society at equal levels at the same time. There will always be either more peace or more justice for each situation. The rhetorical artifact of this theme succeeds and fails. The theme fails by showing how peace and justice cannot coexist equally. But though that failure it inspires activism to try and make it so. The message is that what you search for cannot be found here. One must go find it. In this aspect the artifact succeeds.

Writ pres 1

View more presentations from gjmcnally.

Denver Rhetor Plan; re creating black light theatre

Denver rhetor plan

View more documents from jp21736.

Analysis of "Fox Games"

Analysis of "Fox Games" by Leah Stang on Prezi

ERIN KOLAR

I went to the Santa Fe Art Walk with the intention of viewing local art. What I did not realize was that I was not just going to be walking through galleries of photographs and paintings, but I would be observing and learning about people from all walks of life. I discovered that this art walk was not solely a place for local artists to display their work. Moreover, it is a place for people to come together and form an extraordinary culture made up of numerous unique individuals.

One painting that I saw was of a mermaid and her reflection. I was immediately drawn to this painting because of its intensely vivid colors. Upon closer look, I noticed that the mermaid’s reflection was wrong. The mermaid’s hair was sticking straight out of her head, yet in the reflection, the mermaid’s hair appeared to be hanging around her shoulders. I gazed at this painting for quite some time, and I realized that perhaps the placement of the mermaid’s hair was not a mistake. Rather, the artist must have been trying to portray some message or idea. Perhaps the mermaid’s hair represents imperfections in every day life. All artwork is created to represent some kind of significance or opinion.

Another particular artist that inspired me was local photographer Cameron Stone. His photography was developed in a way that I hadn’t seen before. He captured images of influential people in his life and took the film he had and developed it through a process of darkroom solarization. The uniqueness of the photography reminded me of the uniqueness of the group of people surrounding me at the art walk. The art walk participants were in a way walking art themselves. Art itself is anything you make it. I at first was surprised at the amount of bands paying throughout the art walk, but then realized they too are displaying their art.

Mason Jennings is a musical artist from Minnesota. I chose to use his song Living In The Moment from the album Century Spring in my video to embody the sense of friendship. Cameron Stone took all of the photos displayed in this video. These photos all depict his closest friends. Without this song, it may seem as though the people in the photos are random. However, when lyrics such as, “I’m living in the moment with the friends I love” are sung, the notion of friendship is implied.

Ars Gratia Artis

The initial three paintings shown in the center of the first slide are all apart of the same exhibit in the Denver art museum. Each image was created during a time of hardship, such as the great depression, World War II, and the Korean War. As the viewer first glances at each piece, they can see hardship and destruction. Each painting depicts a scene of human struggle and suffering. Initially there is a sense of pity for those who are enduring the worst. Upon reaching deeper into the rhetorical effect of each painting one must look to the artists. Each artist produced their piece during a time American history when hardship and suffering were common to many. Without experiencing those adversities it is impossible to fully connect with the painting and understand what motivated the artist.

Much of the western United States could be described as majestic. Scenes equivalent to those in the paintings are common. The action in each scene serves to show the viewer that the majesty came with at cost. Much of western American history was left undocumented due to lack of organization and frequency of oral tradition. This is part of the reason that stories in western films are often fantasized, thus providing an inaccurate recount of the actual events. These paintings not only stand to show us certain events that occurred during the development of west, but also to recall the events which were occurring during the time which they were created.

The artists bring the hardships to the foreground, while portraying the background with beautiful, majestic scenes. The rhetorical exigence of the exhibit as a whole relates to the fact that most modern day viewers can only see the image portrayed, and not the symbolic image of hardship and struggle of the past. The final image, which comes out of the negative images, is displayed after the initial three in the exhibit. This painting serves the purpose to present the true beauty of the backgrounds of the previous paintings. Though painted in the past, is splendor can be appreciated by all those who view it. The goal of the visual was to allow all viewers to see what is unpainted by the artist by bringing it to the foreground. After showing the viewer the hardship and suffering, the visual transitions to the final painting in the exhibit. This painting brings the actual painted background to the foreground by illustrating the true beauty of the western landscape.

Do Like the Animals Do!

A Public Service Announcement for DenveRhetor

View more presentations from nicksantucci8.

As I walk into the Wildlife Halls at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, I mentally transform back into my five-year-old self. I look at all of the displays in the halls and travel from the arctic to the savannah to the forest. I am mesmerized by the animals and their ways of life. In all of the exhibits, I notice a mom, a dad and little babies all working together to create a productive environment. Then, at some point, I transform back into my 19-year-old self and realize that everything the museum has portrayed as ordinary life for a variety of different species is inherently unnatural. Although the museum would like me to think otherwise, not all animals mate for life and nurture their young. Nature is nature, and it is not a fairytale. However, the museum’s primary objective here is not present the realities of nature, but rather to enforce popular human culture upon the easily influenced minds that enter through the doors of the Wildlife Halls.
In order to convey the ridiculousness of the museum’s Wildlife Halls setup, I have chosen to create a pseudo- Public Service Announcement that reinforces the museum’s “Positive Moral Value” system. These “Positive Moral Values” – that is traditional marriage, pro-life, family and friendship ideals – are not necessarily correct, they are just the most popular in American society (and obviously the ones the museum is trying to help preserve). Since young kids are perhaps the most impressionable and the ones most likely to be visiting the Wildlife Halls, the museum is trying to force their idea of positive values onto the kids in hopes that they will use them in their adult life. However, upon listening to my Public Service Announcement, it becomes clear that human traditions (which have been created in a specific cultural context, for different cultures have different traditions) are completely nonrelated to animal interactions. For example, animals do not marry like humans do. In fact, most male animals leave their female mate once the babies are born (and there are no divorce proceedings, for it is merely their way of life). Animals also do not preserve pro-life values, for many mothers abandon their babies in the wild which results in the death of those babies. Therefore, the objective of my Public Service Announcement is neither to persuade one to abide by popular societal values nor to explicitly reveal the workings of nature, but rather to make a subtle argument that challenges the listener to identify the evident flaw in the museum’s forms of persuasion.
The reality has always been, and will continue to be, that humans are not animals and vice versa. Animalistic ways are unnatural in regards to human nature, and ultimately there is not much to learn about human life in an animal’s. Although my five-year-old self wants to believe that monkeys get married, have kids, and live as a family forever, my 19-year-old self is less naïve. Animals do not build a culture like humans do; animals live in nature and have essentially been living the same ways since they first came into existence. Human traditions have evolved and changed over time, and ultimately cannot be compared to the ways of the natural world.