A pressing issue

My analysis of the an article by Mona Charen for Rhetoric class.

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/charen120707.php3

Mona starts off by telling us where she was during the infamous Virginia Tech school shooting. We immediately remember where we were, what we were doing when we heard the news. While she has us thinking with her, she tells she felt anger, and we feel it with her. Already, by the end of the first paragraph, Mona has touched the pathos of our emotions.

She goes on to call to mind other, equally horrible shootings, and shows that there is a common theme to them all. We would expect that such horrible crimes are committed by the devils of humanity, for the cruelest of reasons, but we are surprised, and our souls are deeply disturbed by what she is suggesting. These “outcasts” of society are generated by society and are doing these things for fame. A man has two things that are his and his alone; Life, and a name, the former which is fleeting, and the latter which more often than not passes away silently with the first. People will kill to be remembered. It reminds you especially of Achilles in Homer’s Illiad, where he chose fame over a long life. Recalling to mind a verse I wrote:

“A Mortal has but life and name,
Long life or e’erlasting mem’ry gain
‘Twas Achilles choice to choose;
Fore’er in mem’ry, but life to lose”

The main point of her essay is that the media is giving them the fame they desire. What disturbs the soul the most is that what makes the popular media popular is the people. The middle class audience with multiple TVs and about a computer per person, with the paper delivered to their door cannot but take another look at themselves. If a plead for fame, no matter how horrible, is presented right, we are persuaded by the media not only to answer the request, but encourage the next person that it’s worth it.

She gives an exhortation for the media to stop encouraging indirectly(or directly, depending how you look at it) current and potential killers. This exhortation is also directed at us.

Mona gets you to feel emotion with her so you keep reading, and connect with her logic on a deeper level so you feel as if her thoughts are your own. She clearly portrays shootings in a light that pulls us closer to her argument. Presenting us with stories that create questions, she then answers them for us. She then takes us to the point of the article and shows us that we are personally greatly responsible. We are transported out of ourselves by the very act of being transported quite into ourselves. This is sublime, and is good rhetoric.

Reading this Essay reminds me immediately of the book that started the year, Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, and after reading ten books this class, I am fully In agreement with the title of the book that wraps the year up in Great books, Ideas really do have consequences.