I Am So Religulous October 24, 2009

Since I have gotten into college, I have struggled with what I believe about religion.  My first semester I had a really difficult religion class that made me question some of my beliefs about the Bible and God.  I still pray at times and I want to believe, but I am more in doubt than I had ever been before.  So this is why that I can find some relation to Bill Maher’s documentary, Religulous.  Part of his journey is about questioning faith and belief.  I get that because I can relate to those feelings of doubt and wonder.  However, I do not really agree with some of his methods of questioning people about their beliefs.  I would never try to press my beliefs on someone else because I don’t think anyone needs to believe specifically what I do. 

The people who pressure and push their beliefs/religion on others make me squirm where I sit.  I do not like to associate with the people that are pushy about faith, and so my own faith is questioned sometimes.  Do I want people to put me in the category with those others that I do not share ideas with about trying to help pagans see the light?  If someone doesn’t want to convert, then don’t make them: it’s alienating.  Maher could not find what faith feels like in his documentary.  I do feel faith but I sometimes wonder if it is real.  I don’t go to church, and I haven’t read many of the sections of the Bible.  Some people would probably question my right to be a Christian because of these things, but I still feel faith as a guiding force and I still pray to God.  And I still have some standards about being a Christian that I have heard preached over and over again: do not judge others, because you have no right; only God does.  I don’t approve of the fact that in some religions, gays are denounced and excommunicated.  The God I learned about in Sunday school would be appalled.  Many homosexuals still want or need the faith and community that religion brings.  I feel like it is part of human nature.  So why push them away if they just want to worship and celebrate their faith?  Who has the right to condemn them, since religion is so much bigger than one person’s opinion?  I personally think it is a waste of energy.      

I do see some of Maher’s points as making sense.  I feel very strongly about the fact that religion is powerful enough to influence destruction; I agree with it even.  It scares me that radicals think that religion is an excuse to kill other people, which also makes me angry.  I don’t believe in martyrs because I think that makes it okay to believe that religious radicals are martyrs, that they are dying to make the world a better place, which is not true when other people are dying for their sacrifice. 

Not all people have the same views and I am not specifically bashing Christians or religion, just trying to make a point that I have some aligning views with Maher’s documentary.  I think that in many ways, religion is important to having a good, happy life, and that I need something to believe in to get through the day and get up in the morning.

Art as a Piece of Rhetoric October 19, 2009

At first I was not sure who I knew of that is a good rhetorician because I have no specific idol that I can think of off the top of my head.  I do not read speeches by famous people that often nor do I pay a significant amount of attention to political issues.  However, after some thought, I find that there are other ways for people to make arguments and have an opinion about something than giving a speech or writing an essay. 

As I was thinking, I just happened to glance at a book on my floor about my favorite artist, Alphonse Mucha.  He is no longer alive, but when he was, he was famous a Czech artist who created beautiful lithographs for French advertisements.  Lithography is a complicated form of printmaking: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithography.  As I flipped through some pages in the book, I realized that he is making a strong argument for consumers to buy the product that his prints are advertising.  I think that I would definitely buy the products that he advertises because his images are so visually appealing and intricate.  Now, I understand that he probably did not always consume the products that he was commissioned to create an advertisement for, but his argument is still to buy them, since he has put a lot of effort into each advertisement like it is its own work of art.  He probably had a choice in which commissions he would take, because when you are famous/rich you can do that: for example actors and actresses taking roles they wish to play or that they are interested in.  Certainly the evidence of more effort to create a beautiful advertisement versus a plainer, cheaper looking advertisement would draw me to that particular product.  I like complex designs anyway, and have always been more willing to pick up an item for its artistic value more than its particular function. 

I wouldn’t say that Mucha is trying to pull for a certain change with his work, like in the upcoming collaborative proposal we will be writing in class, but his message to me is important.  For people to be drawn to things or interested in them, I think there needs to be some kind of appeal that is immediately satisfied and makes the audience want to find out more about what is going on.  Like in his work, where one sees the beautiful artwork and then sees the advertisement, I want people to be hooked and then delve further to see what I have to say.   

                       

Paper 3-Definitions/Sources October 13, 2009

Three Definitions that I associate with:

 

1. I am blonde- source: talk to students on campus.  What do they think of when they see blondes?  Are they stupid/promiscuous?  What’s the stereotype?

 

2. I am white/middle class- source: statistics are a good example to show how I fit into the network of people in my area, in the country, in the world.

 

3. I am short (barely above the standard for being a little person)- source: research about little people: some have severe handicaps, but I have some too: I can’t reach things and I have problems with clothes fitting me, same as many of them.

Jamison Green October 7, 2009

Gender is something that I never really thought about as contestable.  It was being masculine or being feminine and fitting into those roles set out for us as either a woman or a man, which is how the World Health Organization defines gender.  I have never had to consider gender as anything else because I feel like I fit into my role as a woman; being a woman is part of being me. 

However, I have a lot to consider after reading an excerpt from Becoming a Visible Man, by Jamison Green.  For him, gender has not been such an easily defining road, since he is a transsexual.  He was born a woman, but never felt like he belonged in that gender role.  Now a man, he is heavily discriminated against and stigmatized for being a transsexual.  His definition of gender is different than that of the WHO because he says that gender “cannot be assigned by others… that gender is the interface between our psyche and our cognitive mind/body/sex.” (193)  So, in his interpretation he is gendered a man.  He says throughout the text that he never felt right being a woman and that he was trapped in “a female body,” but never truly a woman.  So of course he needs to redefine what people interpret as gender.  Other people, those that are not transsexual or homosexual, probably have a pretty good idea what gender role they play.  Green says it is because of a state of mind.  I am a woman because I feel like a woman and associate with being a woman.  He did not have that kind of relationship with himself when he was female.  He always felt more comfortable as a man.  If he redefines gender as part of our natural mindset as human beings then he fits in with the gender that he associates with.  Everyone wants to fit into themselves. 

Why should people who feel like they don’t fit in to the “natural way of things” feel afraid to change themselves?  It’s because of other people.  Some of the things that Green described in the beginning of the text like the doctors refusing any treatment to someone who is transsexual or making someone’s transsexuality public in the doctor’s office by writing on the chart in red pen, really disgusts me.  Is he still a human being even though he can’t seem to fit into the standard that others have made for him?  Apparently, since he is meta-cognitive enough to think about his gender being a state of his mind and a joining of all of the parts of himself.  It makes me sick how people can be treated this way, as if they are animals and don’t have feelings.  I consider my cat’s feelings more than those doctors considered his feelings or the feelings of people he knew in similar situations.  Throughout the passage I was thinking to myself, why? Why are humans so belligerent to those that are different from themselves? 

I think this is the type of response that Green wants from his audience.  He wants others to understand what he and other transsexuals go through in every day life.  Am I part of the audience?  Well, sure.  I mean, his passage affected me in a way that I sort of agree with him.  For people to accept others the way they are then we need to see gender as a state of mind and part of our identity, and that our whole identity is unique and defined by many different aspects of our character.  I think he accounts for a horrendous and shameful mistreatment of human beings that if anyone else were to be in a reversed role would just resign life to those who didn’t have to suffer.  I admire these people, and Green especially, for their courage in standing up to the cruelest aspects of human nature by still trying to live a normal life.