In our last class meeting Mike suggested that the “light bulb” should be coming on for us by this time in the semester and Dr. Devries responded, “We would hope”. That got me thinking about what I have learned from this course.
A couple of days ago I received a forwarded e-mail with an attached Power Point message declaring “The United Kingdom erased the Holocaust from the British school curriculum because it offended the Muslim population beliefs that the Holocaust never took place. Yes, the United Kingdom”. I’m not sure if the allegations are true on either front, but my experience with reading and responding to the e-mail is directly related to what I’ve learned in 5001.
First, the e-mail begs the question about what should be taught in schools. It shows that education is unavoidably tied to the cultural/social construct of the times. Next, it seeks to persuade the audience by using pathos and ethos. The tone of the text is angry. The writer uses the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Edmund Burke to validate the message while offering no citations or evidence for the allegations. He/she also inserts graphic pictures of Holocaust victims on every slide and uses bold red words and repetition for emphasis. The syntax and word choices are informal and there are several errors in grammar, usage and spelling. The title of the message is “JUST VIEW IT AND FORWARD IT!” Although I agree that the Holocaust should be taught in schools, I have yet to forward the message for three reasons. First, I’m not sure the allegations are true. Secondly, I don’t like the way the message has been conveyed. I find it ironic that the writer seeks to honor the victims of the Holocaust while attempting to incite anger towards the United Kingdom and Muslims. Third, the grammatical errors and informal tone lead me to question the validity of the author.
Whether our traditions focus more on oratory as with the classical rhetoricians or on reading and writing as with the modern and postmodern rhetoricians, I’ve come to believe truth or the probability of truth, based on the best education and knowledge available, is the most crucial aspect of effective communication. But even if a message is truthful and is presented with the best intentions, inaccuracies can result in the development of fallacious ideologies and/or simplified views of complex issues.
So, I’ve learned to question long-standing stereotypes and power structures, motives, institutions, methods of communication, modes of learning, and anything that says, “JUST VIEW IT AND FORWARD IT!”
Kathy, I think what you’re saying is that maybe we should consider telling the “truth” for a change. When I was growing up I thought that the text books were accurate. In social studies now, for example, Columbus did not discover America; he landed in Hispaniola, an island to the south east of north America. The point is that history is made by the culture that “writes it”; the power of the written word.