The Touro Communication Club Notes - #126–October 27, 2010
Contents:
1. Five Quotes about “Politics and Elections”
Change of program!
2. UPCOMING CLUB PROGRAM: - “Midterm Elections 2010”
Wednesday, October 20, 2010 @ 2 pm in Room 223
3. Logical Fallacy of the Week # 15 – “ The Bandwagon Fallacy”
4. Professor Geo’s “Communication Thought of the Week”
5. Note to Communicators: “In Politics, We Get What We Deserve”
6. .NEXT WEEK’S TOPIC “Money”
7. Upcoming Conversations - please add your topic to the list
8. What happened last week: ““Civility”
1. Seven Delicious Quotes about Politics
“Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.”.
Oscar Wilde, (1854-1900), Irish poet, novelist, dramatist and critic.
“Any 20-year-old who isn’t a liberal doesn’t have a heart, and any 40-year-old who isn’t a conservative doesn’t have a brain.”
Attributed to Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British politician and statesman known
for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the World War II.
“If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.”
Margaret Thatcher (b. 1925, British politician and Prime Minister
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and then misapplying
the wrong remedies.”
Groucho Marx (1890-1977), American comedian, actor and “singer”
“Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by
those who are dumber.”
Plato (425BCE-348 BCE), Ancient Greek Philosopher
“Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize
that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."
Ronald Reagan (1911-2004), 40th American President (1981-1989
“Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous
and the unpalatable.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006), American economist and diplomat
2. The Touro Communication Club
Wednesday, November 3, 2010 - 2 pm – Room 223 – Midtown
“The 2010 Midterm Election Results”
We are changing this week’s topic to the most heated subject in the news these days. What will happen on Tuesday, November 2, 2010? By the time we have this discussion we’ll know the winners and losers. This year’s elections are remarkable for several reasons::*the emergence of a divisive Tea Party which has so many aspects it is hard to get a handle on its position(s); * the diminished power of the Republican party as it has been seemingly dominated by the Tea Party; *the dubious influence of President Obama on the Democratic candidates; *the timid nature of the Democrats to brag about their accomplishments in the last two years; * the importance of money and media in the election; * and the coarsening of the political dialogue between candidates where opinions become facts and facts are invented. For Communicators to cast an informed vote, you really have to sharpen your critical thinking and listening skills. There is so much to learn about Communication and the lack of it just a casual observer of what’s going on.
MAKE SURE YOU VOTE ON TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2!
3. Logical Fallacy of the Week #16:
“Appeal to Emotion”
With just a few days to go before Tuesday, November 2nd, the
Midterm Elections have reached a fever pitch. Both parties plus the new Tea Party are dumping everything they can into an unprecedented a media blitz fueled by bags of money from all measure of individual and new corporate sources.
Midterm Elections have reached a fever pitch. Both parties plus the new Tea Party are dumping everything they can into an unprecedented a media blitz fueled by bags of money from all measure of individual and new corporate sources.
In such a heated campaign, all pretense to logical and rationality virtually disappears. When reason disappears, our emotional nature runs amok without any guidance system. The candidates become hoarse in their shouting to their slogans. The speakers whip their audiences into the fervor of a mob in their attempts to persuade their supporters to their side and, more importantly, motivate them to vote.
Theatrical strategies like banners, marching bands, patriotic tunes, buckets of thanks to everyone, booming sound systems are among the techniques to create and build emotion. Observe the similarity between 2010 elections and the films of Adolf Hitler haranguing his Nuremberg audiences in 1935. There is a frightening similarity. With different tools, a horror picture or a movie thriller manipulates its audiences to capture its audiences.
All kinds of logical fallacies reappear again and again. Name calling (Ad Hominum) is always a favorite. Making dubious statements (Slippery Slope) compete with each other. Labeling (Vague abstractions (Glittering Generalities) are standard tools. “Take Back Our Country!” “Change We Can Believe In!” are choice slogans, representative each side.
Even with an awareness of how the media and the candidates manipulate their audiences to get them to vote, we can get drawn into the emotional excitement. It remains a constant challenge to every individual to operate in the emotional world and the world of reason at the same time.
| In his poem, “If,” Kipling asks his young mentor “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…”, then he – we - can function effectively in this hurly burly world. |
4. Professor Geo’s “Communication Thought of the Week #3:
Epictetus (AD 55-AD 135) reminds us, “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
5. .A Note to Communicators:
Is Civility An Impossibility?
Sometimes I wonder. I suppose if I took a view of the several millennia, perhaps. You might argue there is some improvement in civility when we move from animal skins for clothes to Gucci and Northface. We don’t burn witches any more in America that I know of, but the threat of stoning is prevalent in other parts of the world.
The targeting of minority for discrimination seems to have changed. Historically, Jews have been the personification of scapegoating, which reached its ultimate horror in the Holocaust. Yet discrimination remains – more clever, less immediately visible.
In America, blacks have moved from outright discrimination with slavery to subtler institutional racism. Since the 2008 Presidential election, racism has taken on other costumes – denial of legitimacy, the refusal to cooperate, the invention of facts, among other masks.
Women remain a target for uncivil behavior. Despite passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 and the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s, women’s rights continue to be challenged through exclusion and wage discrimination. Women’s rights are an international issue as well.
Human kind seems not to want to give up its instinct to diminish those who we think are less than we are. Reaction boils over when these minority groups seek equality. Asians, gays, Arabs, Mexicans are just the latest groups who are different who are on someone’s short list to discredit.
Even being “P.C.” (politically correct) has limited long term impact. Yes, we’ve added “Ms” to our vocabulary, but not much more.
The criterion for incivility remains the same: Any person who is different from me is a potential target.
· If I am male, the female is fair game. Tradition says the male must prevail; the woman is inferior.
· If I am white, someone who is a different color can be a target.
· If I am straight, my discomfort with someone with a different sexual orientation can lead to violence.
· If I believe in one religion, a person of another faith is automatically suspicious.
· If I am American, my culture is the best and I will do my best to Americanize the world – and make a few bucks in the process.
The tactics of communicating incivility remain the same.
· Labeling and other ad hominum behavior is an early tool of incivility.
· Avoidance, isolation and shunning are informal strategies.
· Ghettoizing the minority – redlining real estate - becomes a more formal technique.
· The creation of myths about the minority which become stereotypes are clever devices.
· Intimidation tactics like fire-bombing and burning crosses are effective tools.
· Negative phone calls and now threatening emails are among the technological tools.
With the recent suicide of Rutgers’ student Tyler Climenti off the George Washington Bridge, a new form of incivility – cyber bullying – raises incivility to a new level.
In the short term, I am beginning to think civility is an impossibility. Nobel laureate William Golding’s 1954 allegory, “Lord of the Flies,” is a not so unrealistic example of man’s inhumanity to man.
So do we give up? “Denzel Washington’s “The Book of Eli” offers a dreadful future for civilization.
Or do we adopt the Sisyphistic view of doing our best to create a civil society with baby steps. The “Chinese water torture” strategy is my strategy for changing our immediate uncivil environment – Drip, drip, drip.
Then teach people to pay it forward. If you’ve learned anything, then teach two other people to do the same.
6. Next week’s Conversation:
“Money”
Wednesday, November 3, 2010, 2 pm, Room 223- Midtown.
Expect this topic to promote lots of heat. Although money is often invisible in many of our daily activities, its presence or lack of it can provoke the most extreme human behavior. Money can be a measure of self-esteem, a tool for measuring accomplishment, a springboard for greed, a sacrament of poverty, a replacement for love, and on and on. Everyone has a different relationship to money which may be conscious or not. Let’s start the discussion with “The love of money is the root of all evil.”
7. UPCOMING CONVERSATIONS:
What about one of these topics?
“Repetition”
“Meaning”
“Why Does History Repeat Itself?”
“Heroism”
“Concentration”
“Coping with Adversity”
Student Poetry showcase
“Empathy”
“Connecting the Dots”
Role play of Cynical people
“Cold Calling in Sales”
“He’s Just Not That into You”
Critical Listening Institute II – Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero”
Critical Listening Institute III: “Abbott & Costello’s ‘Who’s On First?’”
“Criticism – Giving and Receiving”
“Logical Fallacies”
“Freedom II”
Faculty Colloquy I: T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”
presented by Professor Carlisle Yearwood
“Gender Communication II”
“SPAR Debate”
“Distraction II”
“Negotiation II”
“Imagination II”
“Rodney King: ‘Can’t We Just Get Along?’ II”
“Political Savvy”
“Emotions: Anger II”
And dozens of others!
Compare the notice of the session with what really happened!
9. What happened on Wednesday, October 27, 2010?
“Civility”
Since the 2008 Presidential election, civility has been in the news. People shouting at one another at town meetings. Certain cable news attacking each other, using ad hominum language. The President being called a "liar” during his Congressional presentation. Attacks on Islam with the almost burning of the4 Qu’ran. Hate crimes such as the video that caused the suicide death of Rutgers’ student Tyler Climenti who jumped off the George Washington Bridge recently.
A large crowd of over 20 people participated in this extremely valuable film and discussion. Newcomers, many from Touro’s DMX program, included Floralba Leomeli, Jeannette Febus, Gabriela Rassi, Shamir Plummer, Natalie Scarborough, Emmanuel Shemilov, Lettie Lachirca, Robert Gilmore, Jamal James, Tan Smith, Marcus Bryant, Ajenis Mercedes, Peter Bryan, Steve roman, Cassandra Deen, Alan Steinberg.
Familiar faces included Yi Cai, Pamela Shephard, Carlisle Yearwood, Lorinda Moore, Rich Cohen. Sara Tabaei, Carneil May, Richard Green and Hal Wicke.
Our special guests were Ben Barenholtz, the filmmaker, jazz drummer Bob Schuller (son of Gunther Schuller, one of the later moving forces of the Music Inn who appeared in the film as an infant and young child) and Vladimir Spitzberg, of the DMX program, who made the program happen.
Hal introduced Vladimir who in turn introduced Ben Barenholtz. Ben spoke for a few minutes about his involvement in the film and introduced Bob Schuller, a live “artifact” of the years of the Music Inn.
Using archive film footage, stills and interviews the hour-long film recounted the founding vision of Music Inn in Lenox, Massachusetts, its attraction of seminal folk and jazz luminaries, its growth into a virtual commercial enterprise in competition with Tanglewood, the venerated classical music festival.
Concluding its final years with the establishment of a music school, the 10-year life of the Music Inn from 1950-1960 became an almost forgotten experience without the efforts of both Schuller and Barenholtz.
The film included performances and comments of folk singer of Pete Seeger as well as Jazz icons of Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, Mahalia Jackson, Sarah Vaughan among many others.
The documentary has yet to be released because of music releases that are necessary for commercial distribution of the DVD. There are over 100 hours of film footage which both Ben and Bob indicated could make several films.
Following the film, Ben talked further about his involvement as did Bob, who served as off-camera interviewer of many of the historical figures in the film. Asked about what he was thinking as he watched the video, Ben said he was thinking of ways to further edit the film.
As Ben pointed out, the most important statement in the film was jazz great Charlie Mingus’ exclamation, “Finally, we have roots!”
One student exclaimed, “I didn’t know this existed! I was boggled.” Another student asked about jazz performer Josh White’s interest in rap and hip hop.
The entire session was an inspiring experience, providing an almost lost fragment of American music history. With this documentary, Ben Barenholtz has provided a vibrant record of the most innovative American art form for future generations to understand.
---
We always have a great time exploring these issues. So often our daily life never focuses on these Communication issues. If you have something you want us to discuss please let us know and we’ll add it to the list.
Next time bring a friend. The Communication Club is always an open discussion, limited only by time. Everyone gets a chance to speak. All opinions are welcome. Here is an opportunity for students to challenge professors’ views outside the class without any homework or assignments. You just have to show up and listen and talk if you want.
No comments:
Post a Comment