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All Work No Play

In America, we live in a predominantly capitalistic society. But in other parts of the world some of the most dedicated workers don't receive the same benefits as us.

In American culture we are expected to be generous but by choice. In communistic cultures everyone is forced to be generous. For my artifact, I have found a Chinese propaganda poster.


Photo credits are to shiq8.blog.163.com
I have come up with two main points to discuss in my speech about this poster.

  1. This poster first appeals through pathos. It depicts what looks like a family coming home from working on a farm.
  2. The inscription at the bottom translates to "our good captain". Considering the time period this title is referring to Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong was the leader of Communist China at the time.
In our culture the saying "you reap what you sow" is very common. This means that if we work hard we will benefit, but it is up to us to do this. In the Chinese government everyone works and no one benefits individually. This poster is emphasizing the idea that everyone needs to work.

It calls the Chinese people to be civic and appeals to all ages. In a country that believes in family it can appeal to pathos in that sense. Everyone wants to take care of their family in some way. This advertisement uses the smiling faces of old and young people to show that it is beneficial to all.

The saying "our good captain" makes it sound like one is sailing on the sea. All of the crew listen to the "captain". Therefore all people in the nation should work under the leadership of the "captain". A ship is ran by many people and everyone is treated equally on the ship for his, or her, work.

These are some points I would elaborate on the sense of family and the fact that the inscription at the bottom of the poster support the idea of one's civic  duty.

Comments

  1. Liam KennySeptember 14, 2017 at 7:00 AM

    I'm very interested in your topic, beacause all I've been learning about lately in my classes is the rise of China and how prosperous they have become as a nation. Yet individually the citizens seem to benefit less, because their values are more collective rather than individualistic. Your hook was very effective with the juxtaposition of Chinese and American markets.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Leah JoslynSeptember 14, 2017 at 7:13 AM

    I love your choice of topic. My favorite part about this is that you are taking from something that arose awhile ago. I feel like so many people are going to be focusing on artifacts that appeared within the last few years, and personally, I find artifacts that are not so recent, but still prevalent in today's society to be much more intriguing.

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  3. UnknownSeptember 14, 2017 at 7:17 AM

    I tend to forget how individualistic the American society is compared to plenty of other countries, so this was a great reminder. The purpose of this propaganda was to make people work, but not for themselves more for their leader. Whereas in American society I feel like it would be flipped. I'm looking forward to your speech because I'd like to be more educated on the dynamics of other countries.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Robin KramerSeptember 14, 2017 at 1:04 PM

    Morgan, this is an interesting piece to analyze for your civic speech.

    I have a few questions/cautions, though, and I hope they help as you're working on your ideas:

    1) This speech should focus on how/why the piece can be viewed as "civic" and what civic commonplaces the artifact assumes or states. Given this, your discussion of pathos as a rhetorical appeal doesn't line up with the speech assignment's goals. In the essay you'll be doing more rhetorical analysis of how the pieces are functioning in terms of their appeals, tones, styles, etc., but that's not the goal of the speech. (And, just so you know, we'll have instruction on the essay in the upcoming class sessions.)

    2) I notice that your paragraphs jump between ideas. Since they're reflecting some of your speech organization, you'll want to make sure your audience can more easily latch onto distinct main points.

    I hope this helps!

    ReplyDelete

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