August Blog!!!

The genetic logical fallacy may seem extraordinarily simple, however, this stereotypical way of expressing ignorant ideologies has shaped hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people’s minds whether they admit it or not. In my own words, a genetic logical fallacy is exaggerating instances that occur less than half of the time and bringing them to life by creating labels and/or generalizations that individuals buy into by word of mouth, and nowadays, social media as well.

For anybody who grew up playing basketball, there is one major stereotype that many people, including myself at one point during adolescence, buy in to. “Black people can jump higher than anyone else.” Are there extremely athletic black people? Yes, there are! Are there extremely athletic Asian, Hispanic, Indian, and white people as well? Of course. Without the intention of tooting my own horn, I realized during high school that if there was anything I was good at it was jumping and I’m just about as white as they come. During my athletic prime in high school my running vertical leap was 39 inches. My running vertical actually got even higher a couple years later and is currently 40 inches. Another identically wrong stereotype is that, “Asians aren’t athletic at all.” I have a buddy who is of Asian ethnic descent and can jump very high as well. Why exactly did we create stereotypes, and how did they originate?

Genetic logical fallacies are an important topic to me and should be important to everyone else because stereotypes have created mass ignorance over the years. Stereotypes originated from labels and labels originated from language. Race was never even a thing until we, the human race, decided to generalize colors in order to rank one another with the goal to separate one another for selfish reasons. This has led to bigotry for hundreds and hundreds of years and continues to do so every day. Take a moment and simply think about this. One ignorant ideology has made an everlasting impression on society and will continue to do so. The reason this problem is nearly impossible to fix is because a growing population mixed with the addition of parents passing down ignorant ideas to the young and absorbing generations at a time in their lives when they are the most vulnerable and believe just about anything their parents, siblings, relatives, teachers, etc… tell them.

Stereotypes have played an astronomical role throughout history and especially current history as our knowledge as members of the human race has expanded. About half of Americans despise Donald Trump because of his ignorant comments which recently led to an even greater separation among ignorant people. Hate crimes have taken place constantly, although only a minute percentage of them make the news. Humans have been murdered over ignorance; even worse when you break it down, for centuries humans have been killed because of a biological pigmentation in skin. Why were kids never taught this in 6^th grade biology? Why was factoring a trinomial more important than confronting bigotry. Is it because it’s a sensitive topic, or is it because from the beginning of lower education we have focused on more pointless matters than important ones?

August

My topic of interest was definitely dialogic communication this week. I was surprised when
the book gave a limited description for such a broad subject. Before reading about this topic
I didn’t think of it as something that needed to be defined because we had already talked
about active listening critical listening, and so on. But the difference between dialogic listening
and all of the others is the fact that it’s a shared activity where both parties are contributing
with dialogue. How this differs specifically from active listening is the fact that with active
listening you have a scapegoat for reflection. You may agree or disagree with the ideas being
received, but there’s not necessarily a why involved in it, and their doesn’t have to be if active
listening is the goal.

But dialogic listening is (or at least should be) happening all around us. Things like, engaging
with a person for selfish reasons; for example, talking to someone over the counter to get a
discount because you “know” them, but in all reality you don’t even know their last name. Or
if the differences between the two involved are ignored that can create issues for one party.
Say if “everyone” was invited to a party on Friday so you talk about it with a group, not taking
into consideration that some people actually weren’t invited. Their feelings don’t get accounted
for in that situation. And when differences are the main focus, that can push people to completely
refuse to engage in conversation, making political conversations impossible. And not only that,
but it also forces us to only comply with people who have the same views as our own, giving
us a more narrow-minded views on topics.

This concept is important because it helps create relationships with people. If active listening
was the only concept happening, it wouldn’t create for a lot of conversation, because it’s
mainly one-sided. But when two people are able to express ideas freely without the barriers
of differences getting in the way in some form that creates a platform for a healthy relationship.

August Blog

For this blog, the topic I found interesting was on logical fallacies. Logical fallacies are an error in reasoning, where something seems to be true but is actually not true. These are problems with how a speaker has developed their argument or discussion. It is pretty common for most people to not even know what these fallacies are, or know enough about them to be able to identify when someone is using one when communicating. There are several different types of logical fallacies. There are Slippery Slope, Ad hominem Attacks, Straw Person Arguments, Red Herring Fallacy, False Cause, Personal Incredulity, Anecdotal, Genetic, Loaded Questions, and No True Scotsman. Here are some examples are Slippery slope reasoning, Ad hominem attacks, False Cause, and Red herring fallacy.

 Slippery slope reasoning is saying if one event occurs then another event will occur because of that first event that happened. An example of this is seen in the movie, Mean Girls. It is seen in the clip where the health teacher is explaining to his class that if you have sex you will get pregnant and die. This is saying if you do this one thing, then this will happen to you no matter what. 

Ad hominem attacks are attacking the person’s character instead of their ideas or concepts. For example, Ad homenim attack is seen in a Spongebob Squarepantsepisode. Patrick thought Spongebob stole his candy bar, and instead of stating his argument of why he thought Spongebob stole it, Patrick just calls him a liar. This doesn’t really address the issue of whether Spongebob stole the candy bar or not. He is just attacking Spongebob’s character.

False Cause is thinking that there is a relationship between two things that happened, when actually those two things are not related to each other at all. An example of a False Cause fallacy is seen in Friends. Joey thinks the reason his fridge broke is because of his new roommates, when actually it is because the fridge is really old and he needs to get a new one. This is showing that Joey thinks whoever came and used the fridge is to blame for it being broken, and it has nothing to do with the actual fridge itself. 

Red herring fallacy is where the speaker is trying to change the subject by bringing in an irrelevant topic. This fallacy is seen in the Disney movie, Brave, during the scene at the dinner table when the Queen tells her daughter that a princess does not set her weapons on the table. The Queen then says, “A princess should not have weapons in my opinion.” The King then says, “Princess or not, learning to fight is essential!” This is Red Herring because the Queen wants her daughters weapon off the table during dinner, and the King changes the topic immediately by stating everyone should know how to fight, when that has nothing to do with the weapon being on the table and ends the discussion between the Queen and her daughter.  

It’s important to be able to recognize these fallacies and avoid them because if a listener recognizes one of these fallacies in your message, they are probably not going to believe anything you have to say and may potentially call you out on your false reasoning. Also, being able to know and recognize when someone is using a logical fallacy, shows your knowledge and helps you evaluate arguments in many aspects of life, like in political campaigns. If you can recognize these fallacies and know how to avoid them, it makes your own arguments more credible for those who are listening.

Here is the link for the Slippery Slope fallacy in Mean Girls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5xkxTfVLSA

Here is the link for the Ad hominem Attack in SpongeBob Squarepants: https://youtu.be/n-rhuo1vnKE

Here is the link for the False Cause fallacy in Friends: https://youtu.be/Mq_FvfqPji4

Here is the link for the Red Herring fallacy in Brave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p1_4unwrao

dialogic listening

so for this blog i wanted t talk a little bit about the dialogic listening or one of the parts from them. the example i am going to use is the skeptics cop-out. the reason why i use this one is because i know so many things i can relate it to. For example in the movie Harry potter Hermonile Granger was a mug blood meaning she didn't come from parents of magic. voldemort didn't like that and most of the wizards didn't like mug-bloods because they were different and wizards didn't want to engage with someone that was different from them and they always bullied her even tried to kill her because she was different. i think this example is important because it is a great example of the definition  skeptical  cop-out in the sense of refusing to engage with someone because they are different.

August Blog-Lauren Brill

For my blog entry, I decided to focus my understandings on Dialogic Listening and some of the Conquergood’s Performing as a Moral Act. From class I can define dialogue as the quality of contact that exists for humans in tension with instrumental and objective contact.  Within out textbook, by John Warren and Deanna Fassett, performance scholar Dwight Conquergood argues that dialogic performance is “one path to genuine understanding to others” (70). This means to me that our listening is how we can build a relationship with other people depending on if we would like to or not. Dialogue emphasizes conversation as a shared activity. Having an open-ended attitude toward the conversation can help an individual focus on what is happening between them. 

            Within Conquergood’s Performing as a Moral Act, there are four different acts. I decided to focus on Enthusiast’s Infatuation and Curator’s Exhibitionism, due to the fact that they are complete opposites. Enthusiast’s Infatuation is that differences are oversimplified or ignored. The textbook describes this as “a listening stance in which we hear only the similarities we share with each other” (71). Curator’s Exhibitionism is almost exclusively focusing on the differences of others. So, between both of these, an individual will either focus on the similarities or the differences they share with another person. The first thing that comes to my mind when I hear both of these is sorority recruitment.  

            Starting with Enthusiast’s Infatuation, this easily connects to sorority recruitment because during the process of talking to new girls, we can decide if we like them or not just due to the similarities we have with them. Just due to the fact of having the same major or coming from the same state as a girl, this can make up our minds on if we think they should be in the sorority due to these similarities. An example of this is the movie Neighbors 2. In this movie a group of girls decides to make their own sorority so they can throw parties. They looked at their similarities, which were wanting to party, an decided to join together and create their own sorority. 

            Curator’s Exhibitionism also connects to sorority recruitment because of looking at the girl’s differences. Depending on how different the characteristics are between the two girls can determine whether they think that the individual is a good fit for the sorority. Some of the differences could be personality differences like being outgoing or shy. Also, within the movie neighbors 2, later on in it, the girls realize how different they are from each other and it starts to pull them apart. Having these differences can change people’s opinions about each other, just do to the fact that they aren’t looking at the similarities that they share.  

            Just based on a simple conversation, can determine whether someone feels connected to another individual or feels too different. It seems to just be chance because they could both be so similar but they can just focus on the differences because they don’t realize how many similarities they have. It also is the other way around too, due to just focusing on one similarity doesn’t mean that they are completely the same person, and that they might have many differences. Dialogic listening just depends on the moment and what that individual decides to focus on.

            

Here is a link to Neighbors 2 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2i9Zz_AqTg

Blog 1-Conquergood's Performance as a Moral act

For this blog, I will be discussing two of Conquergood’s Performing as a Moral Act. The two I have chosen are custodian’s rip-off, which is essentially doing something with or for other people for reasons that will benefit you without that person knowing. The second one I have chosen is curator’s exhibition, which is basically focusing on the flaws of people that you may consider different or not normal. It can be based on looks, activities, personality, etc.

The example I have come up with that connects to this performance of a moral act is from the movie Mean Girls. The plot of the movie is about a new girl who tries to fit in with the popular girls in school, The Plastics. In the YouTube video I included, it shows all the different stereotypical high school groups and somehow Cady ends up with The Plastics. She starts out by doing everything they do to fit in and then by the end turns her back on them to get back at them for what they’ve done to her and other people at school. Essentially, this relates to the custodian rip-off because the main character Cady is trying to become popular by squeezing her way into this group of girls that will help out her social status. The Plastics don’t realize it in the beginning of what she is trying to do, but eventually they start to turn on her, so Cady gets back at them for all the horrible stuff they did to her.

The example I have come up with that connects to curator’s exhibition is my personal experience of living with roommates. Freshman year of college was the first time I’d ever lived with people that weren’t my family. I was aware that my roommates and I all grew up differently and were taught different ways of doing things. Unfortunately, the curator’s exhibition in me would only focus on things that they did that was displeasing or bother me. For example, not picking up after themselves or doing the dishes. It was always some sort of household “chore” that they didn’t do that would irritate me and I would make a big fuss about it to other people. I wouldn’t directly tell them because I didn’t want conflict, but it caused tension living together. Thankfully, I no longer live with them, but that example relates to Conquergood’s act of curator’s exhibition. It’s a bad habit to have, but for most of us it is a natural instinct sometimes.

Here is the link to the Mean Girls Clip: https://youtu.be/jMTPp-QGWfo