Hey all,
So, last week I said that I would try not to bore you with stories about my freshman composition class, but I think I have a fairly interesting story for you today. A few days ago, there was a man on campus with a sign that said in red bold letters "GOD HATES..." followed by a laundry list of religions and lifestyles that were not Christian. His shouts carried roughly equivalent claims. It wasn't long before a group formed around him in order to watch the spectacle. Soon the group around him turned into a mob, and they started shouting "leave our campus." Because he was there after class let out, many of my students were exposed to this.
I was immediately reminded of a scene in 1984, the two minutes of hate, in which every day a mob is formed and it yells passionately against an enemy of the state. First thing in class, I asked the students what they thought about the situation and how they would have reacted. Reactions were mixed, but many people said that the mob was a good choice because it ended up getting the man removed from campus. What they did not realize was that that man left the campus with a videotape of himself getting verbally assaulted by a mob-- a reaction that he was actively trying to elicit.
At this point, the literature became solidified. It was no longer a hyperbole written in 1949; it wasn't about exaggerated characters that could never exist. 60 odd years later people are still getting caught up in mob mentality because they aren't thinking things through completely because they are acting on emotion and impulse. Literature gives us the insight to realize these things as they are happening, and, I hope, it prompts us to act cautiously.
The man was exercising a form of public rhetoric and so was the mob, but there is another form of public rhetoric that nobody talks about because it is significantly more boring, and it is called paperwork. So often times people get so caught up on their soap box that they forget what happens behind the scenes. By going through certain channels, the mob could have moved to the administration and had the man removed for hate speech, but, in the end, I suppose that both parties got what they wanted.
No witty comments for you this time,
'Till next time,
-Rainamoinen
No comments:
Post a Comment