WW1 and Propaganda:
German Unrestricted Warfare Kills Innocent U.S. Citizens
Nathan Youssef
1. What effect do you want this poster to have on the viewer, and how have you tried to achieve that effect? Make sure you talk about symbols and techniques here!
This poster is supposed to deepen the hatred for the Germans by U.S. citizens. This poster is trying to make Germany look like vicious attackers of innocent American and Allied citizens. This poster would have been created by the United States government in order to hide the facts behind the Lusitania cargo. Propaganda techniques in this poster include National Symbols or Flag Waving, (the American Flag burning with the ship’s smoke,) Innocent Victims, (124 Americans die in a sunk ship with innocent cargo,) and a small indirect piece of Need of Countries, (the poster deepens the hatred for the Germans encouraging citizens to fight for beliefs.) Indirectly asking for help from U.S. citizens with the war and selling a false belief of the innocent American’s with an innocent cargo and an immoral Germany for torpedoing an innocent ship, this poster does a good job of changing ones perspective to the “American” side of the war.
2. How does this poster fit into the historical context of WWI?
“The war opened during a period of hard times… Business throughout the United States was depressed, farm prices deflated, unemployment was serious, the heavy industries were working far below capacity and bank clearings were off,” stated J.P. Morgan. A People’s History Of The United States; 1492-Present, by Howard Zinn 2003. The American economy could not grow domestically, and the U.S. needed an international option for investment and sales. At the time, the United State’s president was Woodrow Wilson who saw the war as an opportunity to capitalize on the needs of the Allied forces for resources. Though the U.S. was considered neutral, they were shipping huge amounts of ammo and weapons to the Allied forces throughout the beginning of the war. By 1917, war orders for the Allies had stimulated the economy. A total of $2 billion of goods had been sold to the Allied forces by according to A People’s History Of The United States, by Howard Zinn.
Leaders of the U.S. believed that it was the foreign markets that determined much of the country’s prosperity. Between 1897 and 1914, the private foreign investments of the United States had grown from $700 million to $3.5 billion! Wilson’s Secretary of State, William Bryan, said the President “opened the doors of all the weaker countries to an invasion of American capital and American enterprise,” A People’s History Of The United States, by Howard Zinn, though he believed in neutrality in the war. Germans, however, had announced that they would sink any and all ships that were bringing supplies to their enemies. In early 1915, a British liner named the Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine’s torpedo. Of the 1198 people that died, 124 of them were American citizens. “The torpedoing was a monstrous German atrocity” according to the United States who claimed the Lusitania was carrying innocent cargo. In truth the U.S. had been shipping a huge cargo of ammo and weapons and falsified the manifests in order to hide this fact. British and American governments lied about the true cargo on the ship. In fact the U.S. and Britain continued to lie about the true situations in the war and used different techniques to keep worries with the Allied citizens low and the draft for military high. By 1917 the U.S. government happily declared war in hopes of a good investment. They needed 1 million men to go to war. Despite the propaganda techniques to encourage men to go to war, accompanied with a draft of young men and harsh punishment for those who refused to get in line, (the Espionage Act passed by Congress and signed by Wilson in 1917,) only 73,000 men volunteered in the first six weeks after the declaration of war. This poster helps to indirectly ask citizens to go to war by developing a hatred in the viewers’ mind for the Central Powers, (Germans.) This poster would make people believe that they would be fighting for an innocent country and in a “war to end war” as Wilson explained.
3. What are your larger conclusions about the influence of propaganda on the way people perceive the world? (If you've done challenge reading, this would be the time to use it!)
Modern propaganda portrays the main point in a commercial or poster as something people want and need. Propaganda shapes peoples’ opinions and perspective to agree with the argument or statement that is being made. Propaganda is a way of communication with the goal of influencing the attitudes of the audience for a cause or position. Propaganda techniques present information with the goal of influencing a certain audience, which differs from some advertising techniques that impartially provide the information to their audience. Propaganda usually presents its facts very selectively or uses loaded types of messages to produce an emotional response to the information presented in the piece of propaganda. An example of propaganda is in the “Destroy This Mad Brute” piece of propaganda from World War One. The piece of propaganda uses symbols such as the Liberty Lady, (innocent victims,) in distress and a beast with a bloody bat and a militarism hat on. The beast is scary looking and the message in the poster asks you to enlist in the U.S. army in order to stop the central powers, “mad brute” destroying culture and whole cities. In today’s world propaganda is used in just about every ad, poster, election, and product commercial we come across.
Reflection
For the past five weeks we have been studying the history of World War One, analyzing propaganda techniques used during the war, and determining how propaganda was effective and played a big part in the war. For our final project we were asked to create our own piece of propaganda “from World War One.” In order to determine what piece of propaganda I was going to make, I tried to find a certain major event that occurred during WW1. After trying many different project ideas, I finally stumbled upon a book where I found my final project idea, (A People’s History Of The United States, by Howard Zinn.) I decided I would create a U.S. propaganda from after the German submarine sunk the Lusitania, a ship that carried hundreds of American citizens that drowned.
During World War One in 1915, the Germans sent a telegram to Mexico asking to form an alliance with them. They wanted to attack the U.S. so they could not join in the war in Europe. At the time U.S. was powerful and a big threat to Germany. Originally I decided to use this event to create my propaganda poster. Literally the night before the project was due, I found the Howard Zinn book and immediately changed my whole idea. This change in my project shows huge refinement in my project. I am constantly changing my project ideas and final products. I am not ever fully satisfied with my projects and I am known for changing ideas and redoing the project until the night before the due date.
I am fairly content with my end result. I enjoyed this project and felt happy that I used outside resources in the construction of my final product. I enjoyed building my propaganda poster the most during this project. I liked reading about World War One and I am very satisfied in the relation to World War One and my propaganda poster. I feel like I made a good effort on this project. I had deep meaning behind my project idea and this was reflected in my thorough analysis and simple with propaganda techniques fairly hidden in order to have a firm message presented to the viewer softly and not so “in your face.”
I have taken away many main ideas and lessons from this project. After studying World War One for five weeks I feel like I have a great understanding of how World War One played out in the end. I have a great understanding about the battles as well as the causes of World War One. During this project I also used my own outside resources to learn and gain knowledge and I learned about the underlying factors that influenced each country into war and how the alliances were formed. I was very interested when we learned about the major battles and causes of WW1, however, I was most excited to learn about how World War One was the first modern war. There are endless amounts of arguments that prove how World War One was the first modern war and it is interesting to imagine how so many countries could never fully recover which lead to more war. (World War 2)
If I could do one more revision, I would most likely revise my poster. I feel like I didn’t have enough time to work on it due to my project idea change at the last minute. I would figure out how to make the smoke coming from the ship look like a blazing yellow fire so it is more clear to the viewer that the American flag is burning and sinking with the ship, (U.S. Citizens dying.) I would change my analysis to be more detailed and I would have done even more research in order to help shape my final project.
Genocide Project
Genocide Project
Der Strumer, was a publication within Germany that produced anti-Semitic materials printed this poster. Der Strumer created the slogan “Jews are our misfortune” in 1923. This specific was designed to dehumanize the Jews who where posed in distorted, shameful, and repellent poses. This poster also attempts to give the impression that Jews were a threat to racial purity of the superior German people. This poster is a prime example of Nazi propaganda strategies used to separate that Jews from the Germans.
Heroes of the Holocaust
The Holocaust was a state-sponsored murder of over 6 million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators who believed that Germans were racially superior all other races. It was the period from January 30, 1933, to May 8, 1945, while Adolf Hitler was the chancellor of Germany. Under Hitler’s rule, Nazis victims were considered a threat to a pure German racial community. In 1933 there were over 9 million Jewish victims lived in Europe, many of whom lived in countries that the Nazi German party occupied during World War 2. Due to the Nazi “Final Solution,” the Nazis and their allies killed almost two thirds of the entire Jewish population living in Europe at the time of the Holocaust as well as hundreds of thousands of other Nazis victims including homosexuals and the disabled. As the Nazi totalitarianism spread throughout Europe, Hitler became of greater power and began to control a very strong and pure race. For the period of the Holocaust, people such as Oskar Schindler were able to resist the elements of social psychology, (explained in our project page 3.) Our project will analyze “heroes of the Holocausts’” efforts as well as their motivations to help Nazi victims throughout the duration of the Holocaust.
The main points I want my viewers to take away from my project are the underlying factors that allowed heroes of the Holocaust to avoid the social physiological factors behind genocide. In our project my partner and I analyzed the reasons two very different people were able to resist the elements of social psychology and save many Nazi victims from certain death. We have portrayed “heroes of the Holocaust” who are well known saviors during the Holocaust. We want our viewers to take away these main points because we feel like you cannot truly understand genocide as a whole without first understanding the physiology associated with us humans during a genocide and the elements of resistance by only a select few “heroes.” We laid out our newspaper so that the reader could understand genocide as a whole before diving into the details of certain brave people during the Holocaust.
I am very excited to have received my first choice of genocide to study during this project. After visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C I have developed an interest in the Holocaust. During this project my partner and I made it our goal to study a genocide topic that would be new to many audiences; we came to the conclusion of portraying heroes of the Holocaust and there relations to the social psychology behind genocide. Since I have a good background on the Holocaust, I was put in charge of developing the overall layout of the newspaper, helping with the cover and pictures, and writing the article about Oskar Schindler and the social phsycology behind genocides. I anticipate being most proud of the layout and individuality of our project once we have finished.
Conformity
The Holocaust, like many other genocides, was easily carried out due to social psychology. Resisting social psychology is such a rare and uncommon event even to this day. This fact has been proven in many experiments including the Asch Experiment, which demonstrates the power of conformity in groups, and the Milgram Experiment which studies the obedience to authority figures.
The Asch Conformity Experiments were a series of studies published in the 1950s demonstrating the capacity of conformity in company. These studies may also be known as the Asch Paradigm. Solomon Asch of Swarthmore College led the Asch experiments. He asked groups of students to participate in a vision test while in all reality, all but one of the contenders were affiliates of the experimenter, (Solomon Asch.) The study observed how the outstanding student would react to the affiliates’ behavior.
In the basic model of the Asch experiment, the participants, (the subjects and the affiliates,) were all seated in a classroom and asked a variety of questions about lines shown on the display board; such as how long is A, compare the length of A to an everyday object, which line was longer than the other, which lines were the same length, etc. Each person in the group was asked to publicize their answers to all of the questions aloud. The affiliates always provided their answers before the outstanding study participant, and they always gave the same answer as each other. The affiliates answered a few questions correctly during the study, but as the study continues they began to provide incorrect responses very often.
With no pressure to conform to an incorrect analysis, only one subject out of 35 ever gave a wrong answer. Solomon Asch hypothesized that while answering questions in the group of affiliates, the majority of people study subjects would not conform to something obviously wrong answer; however, when surrounded by these individuals, all choosing an incorrect answer, study subjects proved Asch wrong and answered to an incorrect response to 32% of the questions with 75% of the study subjects giving incorrect answers to at least one question.
Variations of the basic Asch model tested how many experimenter affiliates would necessary to encourage conformity, examining the influence of just one affiliate versus up to 15 affiliates. Results indicate that one affiliate has no influence and two produce only a diminutive influence. When placed in a group of three or more affiliates, the study subjects proved that the propensity to conform is mostly stable.
The agreement among the affiliates was also varied during the Asch model. When affiliates are not unanimous in their answers, even if only one-affiliate answers with a correct judgment opinion, study subjects are more likely to resist the obvious compulsion to conform than when the affiliates all agree. This finding illuminates the power that even a small dissenting minority can have. This finding also holds whether or not the rebellious affiliate gives the correct answer. As long as the affiliate gives an answer different from group majority, test subjects will usually give the correct answer.
The Milgram experiment studies the obedience to authority figures through a sequence of social psychology tests conducted by a Yale University psychologist named Stanley Milgram. His studies measured the willingness of study participants to listen a portrayed authority figure that instructed them to perform acts, which often differed from their sense of right and wrong.
The experiments began in July 1961. Milgram created his psychological study to answer the question: Did accomplices of the Holocaust have mutual intent as those in command such as Adolf Hitler and Nazi general officers in regards to the goal of the Holocaust? Milgram's experiment suggests that the millions of accomplices were following orders, even though accomplices were often violating some of their genuine moral beliefs. Milgram’s testing was repeated multiple times within many different societies, yet the results have been consistent.
Much like in the Asch experiment, there was a test subject, an affiliate, and the authority figure, (Milgram.) The test subject was given the title teacher in this experiment, while the affiliate was the learner. The teacher and the learner were separated into different rooms, (the teacher was in the room with Milgram the authority figure. The teacher, (test subject,) was then given a list of word pairs, which he was instructed to teach the learner. The teacher would begin by reading a list of word pairs to the learner. The teacher was then instructed to read the first word of each pair and read four possible answers. The learner would press a button to indicate his response. If the learner answered any of the questions incorrect, the teacher was instructed to administer a shock to the learner, with the voltage increasing by 15 volts per wrong answer, (the electric shock was feign, but the learner would act as if the “shock” was very painful and he would stress the fact that he had a serious heart problem.) If the learner answered the question correct, the teacher would be instructed to move on to the next word pair.
Many variables were changed throughout this experiment because Milgram felt as if he was not getting enough obedience. In one situation, Milgram put the teacher in the same room as the learner and push the learner’s hand down onto the shock pad when the learner pulled it off, (the learner or affiliate would pull his hand off the shock pad frequently as he missed more questions.) Milgram still remembers the first person to walk into the laboratory after he had changed this new variable. “’He was so small,’ says Milgram, ‘that when he sat on the chair in front of the shock generator, his feet didn’t reach the floor. When the authority figure, (Milgram,) told him to push the victims hand down and give the shock, he turned to the authority figure, and he turned to the learner, his elbow went up, he fell down on the hand of the victim, his feet kind of tugged to one side, and he sad, ‘Like this boss?’ ZZumph!’” With many different variables changed in different scenarios, Professor Milgram was able to elaborate on two main theories explaining his results:
The first elaboration by Milgram was the theory of conformism. Closely based on Solomon Asch’s conformity experiments, which described the basic relationship between the group, and the individual person, a test subject without ability or expertise to make decisions, will leave decisions up to the group and its chain of command, especially in a crisis. In the Milgram experiment, the group is the person's actions model.
At “The New Life Community Church,” Milgram was quoted explaining the second theory as, "the essence of obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and he therefore no longer sees himself as responsible for his actions. Once this critical shift of viewpoint has occurred in the person, all of the essential features of obedience follow.”
Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg were heroes who overcame the social psychology common occurrence to conform. These experiments prove that human behavior makes it hard to resist social psychology in crisis situations, possibly salient, yet not as much as authority pressure.
Oskar Schindler was an ethnic German industrialist born in Moravia, Germany. He is said to have saved 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by providing employment in his Vitreous enamelware and ammunition factories. These factories were located in what today are Poland and the Czech Republic. Schindler does not fit the usual definition of a hero because his motives to save Jews during the Holocaust are complex and not entirely clear.
Oskar Schindler overcame the negative social psychology being used by the Nazis, because he knew the Jewish people that were working for him. During the time of the Holocaust the Nazis tried to create a strong barrier between non-Arians and German people. Using propaganda and many other forms of marketing strategies, the Nazi party separated the Jews and the Germans into “us and them.” This made it easy for them to take the Jews away and made the relationship between Germans and Jews very limited.
Schindler was an opportunistic businessman who sought to profit from the German invasion of Poland in 1939. He secured ownership of an inoperative vitreous enamelware factory, from a bankruptcy court. Oskar’s Jewish accountant Izhak Stern spoke German and helped him acquire over 1,000 forced Jewish laborers to work in his factory.
Schindler soon adapted his lifestyle to his income. Schindler became a well-respected guest at Nazi SS elite parties, easily chatting with high-ranked SS officers, often benefiting him. As Schindler adapted his lifestyle to his income he initially was motivated by wealth, as Jewish labor was much less costly; however, he later began protecting his employees without regard for cost. An example of the help he offered to his Jewish laborers is when he would, claim that certain unskilled workers were vital to the benefit of his factory.
Schindler’s motives to save so many Jews are not entirely known. He did not conform to anti-Semitism because he knew the Jewish people working for him and found that they weren’t any different from who he was, despite the Nazi parties beliefs that Jews were a threat to a pure race. He was quoted saying, "I knew the people who worked for me. When you know people, you have to behave towards them like human beings." Oskar Schindler felt obligated to help his Jewish workers despite the Nazi struggle to separate Jewish people from the pure Arian race. He did so in a time of totalitarianism against all non-Arian people living among the countries controlled or influenced by the Nazi party.
Herbert Steinhouse, the writer who interviewed Schindler in 1948 at the request of some of the surviving Jews on Schindler’s list, expressed in his writing: "Oskar Schindler's exceptional deeds stemmed from just that elementary sense of decency and humanity that our sophisticated age seldom sincerely believes in. A repentant opportunist saw the light and rebelled against the sadism and vile criminality all around him. The inference may be disappointingly simple, especially for all amateur psychoanalysts who would prefer the deeper and more mysterious motive that may, it is true, still lie unprobed and unappreciated. But an hour with Oskar Schindler encourages belief in the simple answer." A cheap business lead Oskar to understand and rebel against the brutality toward Jewish people during the Holocaust without question of consequences due to the high status of his profiting business.
Project Reflection Nathan Youssef
I am most proud of the individuality of our project and our project focus. I feel like we succeeded in making a clean, professional looking magazine and we put a strong effort into each article and element of our final product.
One more week to finish our project would have been very beneficial to the final product of our exhibition project assuming we used the entire week efficiently. If I had one more week to do our project I would have added a more engaging piece to our final product such as a small clip about Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg, and I would have revised our project layout. This would help the flow of our articles and keep the readers attention.
Our project layout is organized, proofread, has strong sentences, and our articles are supported with cited evidence. Our ideas are developed and easy to follow. I feel like our project is strongest in the evidence and proofreading sections of the rubric. We often used outside quotes to back up our research and sited our sources. The evidence in our project offers clarity to readers and validates our facts and conclusions. Our project is also very proofread. As I was laying out our final project onto our display table before exhibition, I realized that we had some spelling errors because Adobe In design had no spell check capabilities. Upon realizing this I immediately went through the majority of our articles and double-checked for any spelling grammar and formatting errors. This proved to be very valuable and necessary as we had many formatting and sentence craft errors throughout the entire newspaper. I feel like we put a great effort into the evidence and proofreading of our project, which helped our project become clean and refined.
I feel like our overall project is not as developed as I would have liked. Our original project focus was relating social psychology to heroes of the Holocaust and analyzing how they resisted the elements of social psychology. Though we did cover this focus and clearly related the two subjects, I feel like there would have been better ways to combine the social psychology to the heroes that we portrayed in our project. I think we could have gone into greater detail of each hero’s resistance to the elements of social psychology and we could have related their resistance to the Milgram and Asch experiments, which we focused on in our social psychology article. We also could have improved our project if we had put more thought into the organization of the magazine. I felt like our articles were placed randomly into the magazine according to size, while it would have had a smoother flow if we started off with an article that outlined genocides, gave a brief history of the Holocaust, and followed with the social psychology article. It was not smart to simply place Oskar Schindler’s hero article in the front of the magazine without an introduction to our project and our genocide.
Our project shows a strong effort to develop a clean magazine portraying the Holocaust. Considering the time we were allotted, I felt like we worked efficiently developing a strong understanding of the Holocaust, as well as building our skills in Photoshop and in design to develop our poster and magazine. There were some faults in the overall project layout, however, I feel like these were heavily outweighed by the length and depth of our articles.
In the organization of our project I felt like we deserved an average grade. Though we spent a significant amount of time adjusting the magazine layout and our articles, I do not feel completely satisfied that we kept on topic throughout the entire magazine and made it clear to the reader that we were analyzing each hero according to their resistance to the elements of social psychology during the Holocaust.
Our ideas for our project are well developed, but poorly executed. I feel like we could have provided a lot more depth in our articles, (especially in Oskar Schindler’s article,) and we could have taken into account the reader’s needs by explaining with more precise detail and organization why we chose Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg and how they were true heroes of the Holocaust.
We provided sufficient evidence to support our claims and conclusions throughout our articles. I feel confident that we used other texts appropriately to develop our ideas and we used evidence that connected well with the article. Two great examples of how we used evidence well in our articles was in the last paragraph of Oskar Schindler when I ended with a quote from an interviewer who stated that Oskar Schindler lead you to believe in the “simple answer,” and in the social psychology article when I quoted articles supporting my claims of the Milgram experiment. We used evidence often in our magazine, which helped the flow and validity of our project.
Our sentences are well constructed throughout this magazine and they show evidence of strong, mature writers. The sentences are varied and appropriate for a research paper. They flow nicely and help to keep the interest of our readers.
The magazine is well proofread and has a small amount of errors if any. We worked hard to make the magazine look professional and real. I personally read through certain articles many times looking for errors in grammar and adjusting the overall flow of some paragraphs.
I worked very hard to bring this project together in the end. The last week of our project work time we finished our articles and set up our magazine so that it would flow nicely and look professional. I personally worked on putting together the layout of the magazine and I was put in charge of doing the Photoshop poster. This required a good amount of time and I was tasked with relearning Photoshop and completely learning in design. On top of that I wrote the Oskar Schindler article, the Social Psychology article, and the Holocaust Propaganda column special. I worked hard to make sure these were up to par and easily understood by our readers, as we were not going to be at the exhibition. I also set up our entire exhibit so that it was displayed nicely and so that there was no question as to our project focus by any audience members. during the actual exhibition. We worked hard throughout the entire three weeks of the allotted work time and I did not find myself procrastinating nearly as much as I would have on previous projects. I was also very proud of the way we were able to choose a project idea and commit to it unlike the majority of my previous projects. This project was a success and I very much enjoyed it. I found myself often using it as a prime example of the benefits of Animas High School and project based learning, (I am often asked these questions.) It was easy for me to connect to the genocide material we studied and I felt like this project was an amazing ending to such an intensive study of genocides and the social psychology behind them.
Poetry of Peace, War, and Violence
Silence Stands Still
Nathan Youssef
Papers, splattered with blood told a tale of destruction.
Pain and chaos: this violent invention of man
began in his perceptions.
Is adjusting our intentions
the beginning of a peaceful tomorrow?
Closed away, yet so accessible to those who lend light;
and so I bring hope:
Rapt sensations, blank gaze.
They stagger toward the delusion,
the misunderstanding
that there is possibility.
The desire still lingers.
Tongues replaced by the scream of despair,
daggers pierce the silent air with grief and woe.
And the dove stands
cowering in panic behind the bull.
But suffering I cannot fully understand;
only to shed light to hope,
much as the evil eye blazing over them.
But the fixed bulb is not shedding hope,
and my bulb clashes as…
the allusion, the bomb, illuminates chaos.
To imagine the destruction of violence,
the effect technology has on our society,
of initiating intentional civil war.
The woman grieving;
experienced, qualified,
as she has seen the truth of torment.
Though today’s ordeal
be man made, manufactured, and overused,
Openhandedly giving us the power to play on the same level as God.
She kneels, numb hope lays cold in her apprehensive and lost humanity.
And the man raises his arms in agony,
entrapped.
He may have understood the truth
just as well as her,
but for him it was not an angst.
He had given up hope,
as did the horse falling in agony,
whose gaping wound from a spear
made it clear
that destruction and violence
is supported, or rather, not opposed by all.
And let your attention turn
to the broken sword,
the destruction of our people
at the hands of
none other than
our people.
The poor dismembered soldier
still grasps the sword.
The desire still lingers.
I may have heard the screams,
but they stood silent and untraceable.
And the flower, which now grows from the dispirited sword,
however peaceful it may present itself,
grows from this destruction.
As this violent invention of man
began in his lasting intentions,
to adjust reason,
is the beginning of a peaceful tomorrow.
The poetry project on peace, war and violence was a great finish a year focused on war, violence, and peace. We were not only able to use all of our past knowledge and inspiration to develop our own original poem with a theme directly related to violence or war, but also allowed to go off in a new tangent such as bullying, future technologies that hurt our society, and peaceful strategies for a better future. I was originally very timid to start this project as I was not familiar with poetry, but I quickly came over my fears as we dove into a whole new world of writing. We were introduced to new ways of explaining themes, of comparing ideas, and most students in the class began to develop their own unique style of poetry.
Through this 5 week long unit of intensive study of poetry, its devices, and techniques used often, I feel like my writing greatly improved. This unit helped me to expand on ideas while keeping them simple and concise. I have developed somewhat of an ability to keep my writing focused, while introducing new topics by tying together phrases and ideas and allowing your metaphors and themes to flow naturally together with the use of comparison. After this unit I feel as if I am more creative with my writing and have developed a skill of providing deep insight without using pages to do so. This unit also helped me to search for themes and understand metaphors in texts. We were asked many times to analyze texts and I found myself becoming an expert at developing arguments from the reading and finding underlying themes to certain pieces. I have also begun to understand the importance of devices such as metaphors in your writing to allow readers to easily connect with your writing and find visual imagery flowing naturally out of your paper.
Nathan Youssef
The most difficult part about writing this piece was finding a theme to focus my poem. I was intent on using a theme from an inspirational piece of writing, but the articles that I originally chose were hindering my ability to symbolize themes and write a unique quality poem. After coming across the poem that I recited earlier for our class, “Musee de Beaux Arts,” I decided I would try to mimic the author’s content inspiration and write a poem about a painting. I felt like this is fully unique and I feel poetry and artwork can go together very well as they convey messages, themes and perspectives in similar ways. In hopes that its theme relates directly to violence and war, I chose the Guernica painting as my content inspiration. Picasso’s painting intended to be in response to the bombing of Guernica. This painting set the tone for the use of metaphorical symbolization relating directly and implicitly to the painting and allowed me to create clear imagery and convey an apparent theme.
My form inspiration also comes from the poem “Musee de Beaux Arts” for its use of poetic devices such as enjambment to help the poem flow in a unique fassion. This helped emphasize key phrases and greatly added to the meaning behind the poem. Though I didn’t follow the exact structure as in the poem “Musee de Beaux Arts,” I was hoping to achieve this added meaning in my poem using this main device.
My performance inspiration comes from the poems, “The Lost Generation” and “Musee de Beaux Arts.” Both of these poems were presented with clear, simple, yet interesting and captivating styles. I liked how both of the poems’ presentation styles helped the author convey the theme of their poem and did not hinder the poets ability to keep the audience’s attention toward their message. Since I am analyzing a painting in my poem, I decided to present my poem in the form of an illuminated text. This is where you incorporate certain pictures or pieces of art into your poem. I tried to take pieces of the Guernica painting that I am analyzing and combine them with the text of my poem creatively by shaping the two together mimicking the actual painting. I am using this presentation style for my poem in order to engage the audience and provide a unique and innovative way to present an otherwise straightforward piece of work. With my presentation style I tried to successfully match the mood and theme with the “awe” of the audience coming from the poem itself and not from a flamboyant presentation. Using these two poems, I tried to create my poetry project in an exceptional manner that is aesthetically appealing to the eye.
Seminars
The Roots of War:
“’Addiction’ provides only a pallid and imprecise analogy for the human relationship to war, parasitism—or even predation—is more to the point.” In reading the past two passages, “Germany and the Next War” and “The Roots of War,” I have questioned what it would actually take to abolish war completely in our society. This quote from “The Roots of War” allowed me to think deeper about the article and about war itself. While answering some questions I had about this article, this one sentence also aroused many other questions in my mind. This quote describes war as something we use to live. If this is the case it is obvious that it is impossible to abolish war in our society because we literally live off of war. I agree with this quote, so it makes me question why the author chooses to state the opinion that war actually can be abolished if it is thought of as something external. When the author described us humans as living off the presence of war in our society, I envisioned a world without war. It was a completely different type of society with tight control and the most advance technology. In this self made image of a peaceful society, I realized that a world without war wouldn’t exactly be beneficial to each person’s well being. Agreeing with the author of “Germany and the Next War,” war is a biological necessity. We feed off of it, and war will most likely be prevalent in a world with many different countries and governments until the end of time.
In the 2nd to last paragraph, the author says some of the traditional anti-war strategies are making little contribution to the abolition of war because she believes war has to be thought of as something external before war can be eliminated. She says that in order to stop war, it has to be uprooted everywhere, “…down to the last weapon and bellicose pageant.” As stated in the first question, the author of “The Roots of War” thought of war as something we lived off of and indirectly related it to the human race living off of an organism, as parasites. Throughout the article the author is telling us that is nearly impossible to eliminate the prevalence of war in our society due to the relationship it has to the human race, as well as the continuous preparation for war we are constantly achieving, (keeping a well trained army, the manufacture of weapons, etc.) Anti-war strategies do not effectively reduce the prevalence of war in our society. It is not possible to get rid of war unless we discontinue the extensive efforts made by the U.S. government to keep a strong military with many weapons, and learn to make strong technological and social progress without the primacy of war.
No, it is not possible to end war by fighting a war. War is good to solve one conflict at a time, yet it creates many more problems that usually create more war. If we are trying to end war with a war we be stuck in an endless cycle of violence. You can never expect to create peace through violence. War is also sometimes too simple of a solution to truly solve the conflict between opposing sides. In the past, conflicts carry past the official war for decades due to alliances, certain new technologies, demolished cities and countries, land ownership, and even opposing government systems. Though conflict between countries are often too complicated to solve through anything but war, they will never be fully solved. You can never make everyone happy. War is a big part of our history and even prevalent today. To end war altogether would be simply impossible.
This article and the Germany and the Next War article are directly related. Both articles agree with the opinion that war is external in some sense and that all of the peace efforts are not good enough to end war. They both agree that war is a very prevalent part of our history and our present day. Both authors agree with the opinion that war is nearly impossible to abolish from our present day society without the divestment of all weapons, the military, alliances, etc. Both the “Germany and the Next War” article and ”The Roots of War” article have similar conclusions about our relationship to war. Both articles relate war to humans as something biological. Either a biological necessity or an organism in which we live, we are so reliant on war today that it would take conditioning of all the current human minds and the elimination of all things related to war in order for the human race to abandon the use of war and violence to solve conflicts. We would need to think of war as an outside part of our lives. Unfortunately, since it is such a big part of our lives today, we need to literally recreate the way the world is governed in order to truly abolish war.
Deogratias:
The most interesting idea from the Deogratias Seminar was when Tucker pointed out how the poison Deogratias used to kill the white people related to cows pests. When Deogratias would poison someone he used poison that was originally used to kill pests on cows, which relates directly to how the Rwandan’s, (especially Deogratias,) thought of the white people who were living in Rwanda, (as pests.)
This is interesting because I didn’t understand why Deogratias kept on poisoning white people and killing Tutsis. I couldn’t make the connection until it was actually pointed out to me in the Deogratias seminar. It truly helped me to understand the relationship between Deogratias and whites as well as the relationship with other Hutus and Tutsis and whites throughout the whole book.
Personally I feel like our groups’ seminar went fairly well. I thought we had a wide variety of different thoughts and ideas coming from everyone around of the table. I felt like everyone was excited to get ideas onto the table and I felt like it truly helped everybody in the conversation. I rarely found myself distracted from the actual seminar. I also felt like students in my seminar group were not talking just to get a grade, but to raise new points from the book and pose arguments for the group. I felt like these questions, pointers, and group arguments truly helped me to understand the book in a completely new perspective.
Slaughter House 5:
Slaughter House 5:
This book is a fiction novel that is an anti-war novel and a science fiction story. The main character, (Billy Pilgrim,) travels through time during the whole book traveling from the Tralfamadorian planet, to the war, and back to his original life of an older man after the war. He is not really in control of his time travel and really doesn’t fully care. Through the entire book, themes of the destruction of war and the prevalence of free will.
I really don’t know why Kurt Vonnegut uses science fiction in his novel. I feel like it is important for one of the themes of the novel, (the illusion of free will.) I know he used examples of Tralfamadorians in his novel to make the ideas of time travel seem real and to deepen the readers’ belief in a set universe without any free will. He uses the aliens as the higher being who is smart and fully understands the universe to the full extent because of their ability to see in 4D. Other than that, the only reason I could think of Kurt Vonnegut using the science fiction in this novel is because of post-traumatic stress disorder from the war.
Billy had a framed prayer on his office wall, which expressed his method for keeping going, even though he was unenthusiastic about living. A lot of patients who saw the prayer on Billy’s wall told him that it helped them to keep going, too. It went like this: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference.” Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future.
This passage deepens the readers understanding of free will and Billy’s control of his destiny. This passage allows me to make a deep connection to the theme of free will throughout the book. This quote is the same quote that Billy saw on his mate partner in the Tralfamadorian planet. Billy begins to believe that in the Tralfamadorian 4D even though he lives in a 3D planet. He begins to realize that everything is structured and you don’t know what could have been because there is always only one path that a person follows in a 4D universe without free will.
Billy answered. There was a drunk on the other end. Billy could almost smell his breath—mustard gas and roses. It was a wrong number. Billy hung up.
The way he smells mustard gas, and roses, (romance,) in drunken breath shows how deeply the war has affected Vonnegut’s life. This
“If I hadn’t spent so much time studying Earthlings,” said the Tralfamadorian, “I wouldn’t have any idea what was meant by ‘free will.’ I’ve visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.”
In this quotation, Vonnegut performs a sort of reversal of the human tendency to think of aliens as abnormal. The Tralfamadorians believe that they are not in control of any moments in time, and since humans are the only ones who believe in free will.
It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like “Poo-tee-weet?”
Kurt Vonnegut seems to apologize to his publisher early on in this book for writing such a short document about World War Two. His publisher is Sam. The funny thing about this is that writing a book about war is a huge accomplishment in and of itself, especially considering Vonnegut’s thoughts that there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Like a birdsong, this book in Vonnegut’s eye may serve as a communication that life still exists in a devastating world.
There isn’t any particular relationship between the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, and no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time.
In this passage, one of Billy’s captors explains the Tralfamadorian novel to him. Vonnegut seems to use this as a model for Slaughter-House Five. Though most readers would argue that Vonnegut succeeded in writing something with beauty of such tragic events, he himself believed otherwise. He believes that he captured the Tralfamadorian structure without the ability to pick and choose his moments and go deep into the massacre, except for “poo-tee-weet.”
Jihad vs. McWorld:
During this seminar, a topic that interested and drove the most thought with me was whether McWorld or Jihad had the upper hand in today’s society. Seth mentioned that the author of Jihad vs. McWorld was not considering past wars and conflicts where McWorld had almost, “taken over,” and yet Jihad was still able to find its way easily back into society of nations. Brock complimented the idea by saying that there are many nations that do not have the necessary means, intentions, or capabilities to convert to McWorld state of being. He stated that many communities in Africa were living with a Jihad state of mind and order and there is currently no possibility that these communities could be consumed along with the larger nations of McWorld. I personally see the value of Seth’s comment, and disagree with Brocks statement. I feel like McWorld at its fullest potential is very much like a force that cannot easily be stopped. In order to keep your nation’s economy running strong you are forced into a McWorld state of mind. Whether that be in the next few decades or centuries I feel like all nations will eventually be consumed especially as resources thin, nation’s become interdependent with each other, and the pressures of McWorld increase. A further question I have about this topic is whether it is possible for a Jihad based nation or nations to still flourish in a McWorld state. The author states that both McWorld and Jihad can be visible among a nation at the same time; however, he does not say it is possible to have a Jihad based nation among a global McWorld society.
Being Peace:
Seminar Pre-Write
I personally disagree with this statement. I feel like the author’s perception of being in touch with ones self is very limited and almost impossible to achieve without withdrawing yourself from your normal everyday life. In order to live and be successful according to societal norms, you must have goals, plan for the future, and view life from your perception. The author of “Being Peace” only describes full enlightenment of being in touch with ones self by seeing reality as it is, refraining from wanting or attaching to anything except peace, and living in the present without any dwells of the past or worries of the future. I feel like he is almost saying that people raised in current “normal Western society” type of living don’t feel like they want to fully remove themselves from their lifestyle in order to be in touch with ones self. I personally feel like there are many other ways to be in touch with ones self. My view of being in touch with ones self includes having goals, achieving goals, having opinions and perceptions, and spending some energy focusing on the future. Though my perception of enlightenment may differ from the authors, you can still live in the present, live simply and without acting on materialistic wants and desires, and attempt to promote peace with yourself and your surroundings.
This question is a very hard question to answer simply. In some cases I feel like human life is never more precious than an ideology or doctrine. These cases include the current Egypt violence and protest. Many people have been recently killed because they are unhappy with an Islamic government. I personally feel like this is very wrong and that a form of government is not worth anybody’s life. There are some instances; however, where human life is more precious than an ideology or doctrine in my own opinion. A great example of this is with abortion. In this case it is completely just to take human life because of an ideology. Also, the American Revolution was a prime example of a doctrine that was more precious than human life. Without the American Revolution, our country would not be at its current state in which it is today. Human life can be more precious than an ideology or doctrine circumstancially.
Of the 14 Mindfulness trainings, I am currently practicing the 6th, which talks about anger and channeling anger in healthy peaceful actions. I feel like I am not at all an angry person and I do not ever show anger outwardly and maliciously toward others. I am usually fairly good at recognizing that I am angry. Time usually dispels my anger well. I am not practicing the 9th Mindfulness training. I do not dwell happily in the present moment as I am constantly focused on the future and setting goals for myself. For me, this Mindfulness training would be the hardest for me to achieve as I have been raised to be forward thinking and I am never fully satisfied with the present moment and therefore always looking for future corrections, (whether they be bad or good.) I feel like this would be the hardest training for most people in modern society to achieve without possibly affecting their future for the worse. Modern society is very much focused on the future and it would take serious dedication to remove yourself from the norm of living in the now for the future.
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas:
The author does not think that the readers believe in the city of Omelas because it seems very relaxed, beautiful and surreal. The author describes the city in more of a sarcastic tone, and explains early on in the story about happiness in our society, which hints to the reader that this city is more of a metaphor for a perfect society. Once the reader has a firm understanding of the city through line 90, the city is hard to believe in because it is impossible to have such a perfect society; therefore, if this is a metaphor for happiness in our society, the utopian society is very inaccurate. It is not until the author introduces the miserable child before the metaphor becomes clear and believable for the reader.
Tone: The tone throughout this story dramatically affects my thoughts while reading this article. The vague, often doubtful, or sarcastic tone couples with the metaphor of this article well and forced me to process my thoughts as I uncovered the city of Omelas. A great example of the tones that affected my thoughts as a reader were during the questions that asked whether we, (being the readers,) accepted the city. This made me think deeper as to why the author would ask the question and where she was going with the remainder of the story. I found myself realizing that the city of Omelas was not appearing credible until after line 90 when she said, “Do you believe? Do you accept…? No? Then let me describe one more thing.” This was a great transition into a greater explanation that helped me view the city as a more realistic metaphor for a perfect society or happiness. If the author would have chosen a different tone, the transition into the new explanation wouldn’t have been as relevant or intriguing.
Sensory Details and Imagery: Imagery is important to keep your reader in tune with the feelings of the characters, the setting, and the overall plot line. Sensory details help the reader to stay engaged and interested in your piece of writing. I personally feel like this author was great at creating pictures in the readers mind. While reading this article, I would not feel like I was just reading words, but rather watching a movie created in my head as the story moved on. I was truly wrapped in the story and especially visualizing the scene next to page 85. “A child of nine or ten sits at the edge of the crowd, alone, playing on a wooden flute. People pause to listen, and they smile, but they do not speak to him, for he never ceases playing and never sees them, his dark eyes wholly rapt in the sweet, thin magic of the tune.
This is by far the absolute hardest question you could have possibly asked for the seminar pre-write. I still do not feel like I have a full understanding of the purpose of this ending. I do realize that this story is somewhat a metaphor for a perfect society or happiness as we see it today; however, I do not understand how the people who leave Omelas relate to this. If I were to make an assumption I would assume that the people who leave Omelas have not found happiness among themselves and are either going to live in solitude or they are going to find happiness where they are the ones who experience pain and suffering, much like today’s society, except they would be living different from the norm rather than along with it. In the last paragraph there was a statement that the people who leave Omelas go off into the darkness of the fields and do not return. I feel like this is an example of someone who cannot accept the social norms of society, but I am not sure. I am going to ask that as a question in seminar tomorrow! Yes! I already have a moving comment and we haven’t even started!
Geopoliticus Child:
This piece displays a man struggling to hatch from an egg world. He is coming out where the U.S. is supposed to be in relation to the other surrounding countries and his hand lies crushing and squeezing the European countries. There are people watching the egg and a small child hiding behind its mother in fear of the egg and man. In order to do analyze this piece of art I had to learn the background of Dali, when the picture was made, and some possible interpretations of the art from other peoples’ perspectives. After some research, I have based my conclusion of the message of Dali’s piece around the time that it was painted. I believe that Dali painted this picture in attempt of expressing how the U.S. was rising and becoming the new world power, and how third world countries were growing as England and Europe were being smashed by the man’s hand symbolizing the lesser importance of the European nations in terms of international power. Though I really don’t have a real idea of what the people watching the egg hatch symbolize, I do believe it has something to do with fear in the eyes of the universe or the innocent world population. This is an interesting piece of art and stirs up many questions and interests in my mind once I analyze it. One of these questions remains unanswered in all of the discussion forums that I read through so I will write it down and ask it during seminar.
What were people such as Dali feeling during World War 2 that sparked the feelings and realization that the U.S. was becoming a world power?
Where they scared? Why?
If they are not scared, what does the child symbolize?
What does the blood symbolize?
Dulce Et Decorum Est:
Difficulty/Curiosity Journal
“Dulce Et Decorum Est”
Nathan Youssef
“His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;”
The meaning in this phrase is somewhat unclear. It is clear to me that the author describes the terrible sight from behind the wagon in which the dead bodies were hastily thrown. He makes it obvious that it is an unfathomable sight as the author says, “If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in.” The overall meaning of the poem is fairly simple and easily comprehended; however, lines such as the quote I chose, question your ability to understand and visualize the authors images and meaning behind them. This phrase makes me curious as to what a devil’s sick of sin is, so that I can visualize the face of the war victim and the relevance to the author’s poem. Without knowledge as to what the author meant in the quote, it is much harder to visualize the man’s face, which obviously adds significantly to the mood of the poem judging from other explanations that I could comprehend like, “He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.”
After using many resources such as the thesaurus, dictionary, and my peers, I still found myself with an unclear understanding of this specific phrase. Using the only other sources I could think of with the short amount of time for this research, I directed my attention toward Wikipedia and online forums. Though I am still somewhat unclear as to the direct meaning of the words, “devils sick of sin,” I did realize that this quote, along with many others throughout the poem, conveys the author’s hatred for war by describing a detail that is awfully terrible. The author also keeps a strong tone of disgust toward war by inviting the reader to watch and hear some of these details, which the reader does not have the natural inclination to do. He says, “If in some smothering dreams you too could pace,” and “If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood…” The author calls the reader to the scene of war in order to effectively set a mood and theme of hatred toward this kind of unimaginable violence in which he feels disgust.
