Only the best of the best get into the best of the best. Every person that gets into an ivy league school is required to be better than your average Joe looking for an education. We’d like to believe that it has nothing to do with race, gender, or economical background but the sad truth is that, in some cases, that’s all that matters. Revisionist History Podcast, narrated by Malcolm Gladwell, takes a look into how social economical class determines whether a boy like “Carlos” gets into a school like Harvard.

“Carlos” is the name of the subject of this particular episode, “Carlos doesn’t Remember.” “Carlos” is an exceptional student and kid in unexceptional circumstances. He’s from South Central L.A. and has the typical story of most kids in that area. His dad bailed early and his mom might as well have never been there to begin with, it was always just Carlos and his sister. The only difference from Carlos and all the other “under privileged” kids, is that Carlos has Eric Eisner.

Eisner goes out of his way to find exceptional kids like Carlos and help give them opportunities that they would never have had otherwise. He’s only one man however, he can’t help everyone. Carlos got lucky, not in life but in catching the eye of Eisner. After a rough go around with foster care and missed opportunity to go to the “ivy league” of boarding schools, Carlos finally catches a break. He’s on the road to getting out and Eisner is moving on to help other tragically gifted young students. But Carlos isn’t the only subject of this podcast. Another very important feature is Harvard, and Yale, and Stanford, and all the other top ivy’s in the world. What is their likelihood to accept a smart, but impoverished, student?

The answer? A mere drop in the bucket. As discussed by Gladwell, Harvard accepts a minute number of lower class students into their school no matter how off-the-charts smart they are. You have to be lucky. You have to have an Eisner in your corner. This topic strikes a similar cord in my mind of something, not relating to economical background specifically but rather, racial background. I’m talking of course about Affirmative Action.

Affirmative Action, as we all know, are policies put in place in places of employment and education so as to diversify and open doors for people of different ethnic backgrounds. These policies were put in place to stem the institutionalized discrimination that still existed post-Civil Rights movement. But now I have to wonder, is economics a loop hole?

I’m not trying to say that these prestigious schools are racist, but if not racist are they in fact discriminating on the basis of class? You have to be more than exceptional and have an “in” to be poor and get into an ivy. If you’re rich however, the process is infinitely easier. There can be an argument made that lower income households tend to be “minority” families and higher income are traditionally white families. So it’s not much of a jump to equate classism to racism.

Carlos got lucky but, as Gladwell points out, this isn’t a heartwarming story. This is a depressing story about how the system is against kids who don’t live in neighborhoods with white picket fences or go to schools that cost more than a families yearly income. Yes, Carlos’ story ends up being a victory, but what about all the other “Carlos'” out there who never met their Eisner and don’t have the grit that Carlos does? They disappear and get stuck into a system they never asked to be in.

Statues symbolize importance to a particular society. Germany has World War 2 memorials scouring their landscape while America is known for our Presidential and military statues, by looking at both of these societies statue subject matter we can deduce what the story is that they are telling. In A Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell addresses the miscommunication of what this statue, and subsequently the photo, really was/is. What if the story is wrong? What if it doesn’t matter?

This is the case for The Foot Soldier, a statue in Birmingham Alabama based off the infamous photo that stirred a movement. Lets clear a few things up first, as we find out in the podcast, this statue is almost purely fictitious. The artist behind it took the photo and made a realistic situation, that applied to only one person, and modified it to apply to an entire culture. As Gladwell states “White people do it all the time” but at what cost does “they did it first!” become just another excuse?

This is the real photo. Very different from the statue, a hell of a lot less ritualistic and scary. As Gladwell discovered in his podcast, this photo tells a very different story from the famous statue. This photo was birthed from mistake and coincidence. The “foot soldier” was the term coined for the “peaceful” protesters that were apart of the Civil Rights Movement and was given to the subject in this photo. However, Walter Gadsden wasn’t a foot soldier, he was just trying to get to class. When a peaceful protest in Birmingham broke out into violence, barricades were put up and the dogs were brought out. Gadsden in all the confusion ducked under the barricades to avoid the protesters and was met face to face with a K9s mussel.

This is where it gets tricky. Leo, the K9 belonging to Officer Richard Middleton, lunged suddenly towards a body that wasn’t supposed to be there. No one’s blaming the dog though. Any analysis or familiarity with a police officer letting their K9 loose on a criminal clearly shows a different story from the original. This story is easy; white male police officer in Alabama lets loose his attack dog on innocent black boy because of bigotry and racism. The real story is a bit more sticky. Gadsden recalls the shock of the moment, he raised his knee in a defensive position to protect himself from the lunging K9. While he did that Officer Middleton tightened the line on Leo and, as caught in the photo, started to push Gadsden away from Leo’s powerful bite.

This moment of shock and reaction was caught without showing the context and resolution. This photo was a major part in spurring the Civil Rights Movement lead by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The movement was going to happen, it was just a matter of when. But the photo and statue are wrong. They vilify an innocent man and they heroicize someone who didn’t even want to be there.

As I mentioned earlier, the statue is art. It’s loosely based off this image and works not to perfectly mirror the photo but to mirror the culture that it was born from. It symbolizes all of the pain and suffering that African American people were suffering from and the injustice that they face. But at what cost do these images charge our society?

Gladwell veers at the end of his podcast to something of a childish argument. After spending over 30 minutes explaining that the photo isn’t what everyone thinks it is, and that the statue is even more fictitious, he justifies it. “Because white people did it it was about time black people did too,” an eye for an eye motto if you will. As we’ve seen with the removal of hundreds of statues across the country recently, specifically concentrated in the previously Confederate south, arts story has an impact. The stories we tell each other and future generations tells us how and who to be. It tells us how and who others are as well. By perpetuating the “fantasy,” as Gladwell calls it, of American history we do as much damage as perpetuating the cruelty that wasn’t actually there.

Yes, there were so many cases of Police brutality and of racism and bigotry. We all know those stories and we could probably know more. So why do we have to lie about when that cruelty was changed into something hopeful? Not everyone needs to be a villain and hero in our story, sometimes we just need a little honesty to tell the real story.

Fresh fruit versus bruised bananas, eggplant parmesan pancake versus soggy pizza, which one would you choose? In the podcast “Food Fight” by Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell delves into the slippery slope of colleges relationship between their “poor” students and their revenues. He takes on this intense and complex topic through the conversation about what food really means in these private schools.

The answer seems obvious right? No person in their right mind would ever choose to have soggy pizza or bruised bananas over fresh fruit or eggplant parmesan pancake. Not unless they knew the price; and not just your personal monetary cost but those of your fellow classmates as well. Comparing two of the same vastly different New York private schools, Bowdoin College and Vassar College, Gladwell confronts the idea that how much you pay for your education, and how much your classmates pay for their education, directly impacts the quality of food.

Vassar college has become notable due to their inclusivity initiative which placed them 8th overall for the acceptance of lower income students, while Bowdoin was 105th. This all seems great for Vassar until you hear the stories from the students about the food. That soggy pizza and bruised banana I mentioned earlier? That’s Vassar. The fresh fruit and eggplant masterpiece, is Bowdoin. So while Vassar is the 8th most excepting private college in the country and have more than half their student body on some type of financial aid, they’re saving by serving grits in the kitchen. Meanwhile at Bowdoin their students get a homemade seven course meal but only if they are the “rich” kids who pay their full $60,000 tuition out of pocket.

Gladwell finishes his investigation by using whit to seriously warn against attending colleges that have the “best” Bowdoin-level meals. He argues that to even give one penny to these schools makes it harder for places like Vassar to do good by accepting notoriously left out “smart poor kids.” Though I agree that Vassar is doing a lot of good for lower income students, I don’t agree that they’ve allowed their quality of food to be so neglected that is has become a health hazard. When someone finds an industrial sized staple in their soup that’s when things have gone too far. As mentioned in the podcast, a serious question was “how much longer can they last?”

Serious and unpleasant changes have to happen in order to make Vassar more sustainable and be able to keep their doors open. As discussed in the podcast, in a perfect world they would cut their student body size first before ever thinking about taking financial support away from their students. But as mentioned, this is not a perfect world. Bowdoin has a notably smaller student body with an acceptance rate if 15%. Vassar has an acceptance rate of 27%. This method wont work however, colleges are trying to grow, not shrink. The only solution seems to be that they are going to have to compromise their morals in order to maintain helping at least some low income students. It’s rough, being of a low income household myself, thinking about leaving kids out in the cold because their home doesn’t make “x” amount. But if Vassar doesn’t they won’t be able to help anyone at all, they’ll be closed.

Like always, everything comes done to money. The power belongs to those who have it and those who are making it, i.e. the high income students at Bowdoin and the school itself. Even systems of education are plagued with the greed that surrounds America’s capitalistic economy and the only way to fix it is to change it. I commend Vassar for at least, in some small way, trying to turn the wheel in a better direction. There’s not much else we can do, except try. Maybe focus a little more attention on where you put your staples from now on though?

Smokefree is an initiative created by The National Cancer Institute (NCI) as a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ to reduce smoking rates in America. It aims to help current smokers quit their addiction and to prevent future smokers from ever picking up a cigarette. Smokefree propels their initiative by having an inclusive website that includes Smokefree Women, Smokefree Teen, Smokefree Español, and Smokefree 60+. They also take advantage of the uncomfortable visual rhetoric that many anti-smoking organizations employ, with images of guts falling out of a cigarette with the phrase “smoking rots you from the inside out,” or of a hand holding a lit cigarette positioned to look like a pistol in the background shadow. By analyzing these two specific images from the Smokefree anti-smoking campaign, we can see that great thought has gone into the use of specific visual strategies that reflects an uncomfortable and jarring message. That which is uncommon in American nuclear media.

The Smokefree campaign images utilized use multiple visual and verbal strategies in order to get their analogical and literal comparison between smoking and death across to the viewer. They use lighting effects to their best advantage in all of their campaign advertisements by keeping the edges of their images in darkness and only illuminating the subjects enough to identify. It’s a technique most commonly used in horror movies and ghost stories, because what goes creak in the night quite like cigarette based lung cancer? These campaigns also take great advantage of witty one-liners in order to clarify their intentions to the viewer. In their visual with the “cigarette gun,” they emphasize that “Smoking Kills,” followed by the statistic that “about 106,000 people in the U.K. die each year due to smoking.” They employ strong argumentative text within their visual by stating their claim clearly, with bold and larger point font, followed by statistics supporting that claim. As previously mentioned, in their “gutsy cigarette” visual, they again employ dialect writing “smoking rots you from the inside out” and attach an ad for their organization: “search ‘Smokefree’ for quitting support.”

Along with lighting techniques and word play, these campaigns also employ a lack of humanity. The cigarette is the focal point and it leaves “the smoker” up to imagination. Though the images are graphic and uncomfortable, they are also compassionate to the intended audience, “the smoker.” Smokefrees intention is to help smokers in their voyage to quitting, not to blame them for their addiction. They maintain the strong imagery while also preserving the integrity of their mission. The campaign images are also specific to their location which garners greater understanding and appreciation from their intended viewer. The “cigarette gun” was an American campaign in 2013. America, the gun capital of the world, can understand the danger and threat of a cigarette as a loaded gun far more than say, Switzerland. The second image of the bloody cigarette was a European campaign by Public Health England. The U.K. in particular is notorious for not shying away from the uncomfortable in their public service campaigns. The extreme realism of burnt organs and blood, though jarring, is expected in British media and has been proven to work for other not for profit campaigns. These strong visuals allow Smokefree to leave any specific type of person out of their ad while still getting the point across.

These campaigns are effective in spreading Smokefrees message and services to the general public, however they tend to stick to the status quo. These ads, as previously stated, are common among anti-smoking campaigns and have become the expected imagery for these campaigns. As a way to step farther away from the expected, Smokefreeshould take on a broader perspective. We all know that smoking kills and that it is extremely damaging to the body, it’s common knowledge in the 21st century, but what is it doing to the environment? Who are smokers funding everytime they buy a cigarette? How does large tobacco actually influence even non-smokers lives with their billion dollar reach? And now with cigarettes becoming irrelevant to e-cigarettes and vapers, how are those damaging as well? Smokefreehas the capabilities to address topics that so many other large campaigns have yet to delve into.

The Smokefree organization is an amazing resource that encourages smokers to quit their addictions and helps to educate and stop future generations from ever even picking up a cigarette. The use of drastic lighting and a image devoid of humanity conveys a very clear message to the viewer and change lives for the better.

Works Cited

“Smoking Kills.” Smoke Free, The National Cancer Institute , 29 June 2013, smokefree.gov/.

“Every Cigarette Rots You from the Inside Out.” Whittington Health, Public Health England, United Kingdom, http://www.whittington.nhs.uk/default.asp?c=20344.

In the final chapter of “They say, I say” Cathy Birkenstein and Gerald Graff attempt to “tie it all together.” Throughout the book they communicated the right ways to listen to an opponent and understand what they are saying and then how to respond to their claims in argumentative writing and speeches. Now they attempt to hammer out the details and make all their concepts and theories flow smoothly into practical application.

First they remind the reader to connect everything. When writing/speaking reflect back to what you just said and connect the ideas so as to create a flow of consciousness that the reader/audience can follow. They suggest the use of Transition terms, adding pointing words, setting up key terms or phrases, and repeating yourself. Birkenstein and Graff first discuss the use of transitions located usually at the beginning of a sentence to signify the connection between the previous statement and this one. Transitions include additions, elaborations, example, cause and effect, comparison, contrast, concession, and conclusion. These transitions will help guide the reader without them even realizing they are there.

The authors also suggest using pointed worlds that directly refer and “point” back to something you said earlier. Words like “this,” “that,” “these,” “those,” “there,” and “such.” Pointed words should be used sparingly and carefully because they assume that the reader knows something that is clear to you but may not be clear to them. They also suggest the use of repeating key terms and phrases. This method allows the reader to see a clear sense of your topic to refer back to. Finally they suggest that the writer should repeat themselves with variation, so as to avoid becoming a broken record. Key terms and pointing terms help in this process as well. The authors say that “Repetition, in short, is the central means by which you can move from point A to point B in a text.”

Birkenstein and Graff follow by discussing that academic writing does not mean that the writer should lose his/her voice. They suggest mixing academic and colloquial styles, by mixing formal language and popular sayings and expression the writer can maintain their voice while also keeping a professional tone. The authors then discuss the proper application of this mixing style; who is the audience and what is the purpose of the writing? It all comes down to these two factors when deciding which language to use in writing.

The authors then go on to discuss the use of meta-commentary in writing. Meta-commentary is the process of restating your point so the viewer may better understand your view. Rather than commentary where you make a new statement and elaborate, meta-commentary is the act of restating your claim and elaborating further. In writing they suggest that writers use this method to distinguish themselves from other concepts or opinions that their reader may confuse them with. Meta-commentary works as a clarifier. The authors then go on to elaborate that titles can work as the most important form of meta-commentary. The title tells the reader what to expect before even reading a word of the writing.

Finally Birkenstein and Graff discuss the importance of revision. Asking oneself the “big” questions like,”Do you present your argument as a response to what others say? Do you make reference to other views besides your own? Do you use voice markers to distinguish clearly for readers between your views and those of others?” Asking these questions along with taking edits from peers and teachers can help make an essay meet its fullest potential.

Ethos: Smokefree created this image along with hundreds more anti-smoking campaigns. Smokefree is an initiative from the Global Cancer Institute to help people quit smoking. They are an online help “group” who provide support to those looking to quit while also persuading others to make that decision as well by using campaigns like this one.

Logos: This image is one of a persons hand holding a lit cigaret with a shadow silhouette depicting the same person holding a gun. This connects the concept that a cigaret is comparable to a gun in the damage that it can do to the body. The image then has text asserting that “Smoking kills” and then reenforces that with a fact that “about 106,000 people in the UK die each year due to smoking.”

Pathos: Particularly in todays society we know the damage a gun can make. By equating the half smoked cigaret and the hand gun it creates a shocking and clear point that they are trying to get across. They also take advantage of the lighting and position the subject in a dark ominous atmosphere.

Smokefree uses very graphic and shocking images in their campaigns. They do this because their intended audience, smokers, have an addiction and it takes more than facts to make someone want to go through the hard process of fighting their addiction. They often use ominous lighting and take advantage of what the human body becomes due to the smoking of cigarets. They are very smart in how they attempt to make the viewer uncomfortable, its the same feeling you get when stuck in a confined space with someone who is smoking a cigaret.

It’s crazy how something like this 2006 Burger King advertisement got so far as production and mass distribution. Crazy that there was no woman, whether she was actually at the table or just able to over hear the “boys club,” and say “umm how about, no!” In the chapter “Having it His Way- The Construction of Masculinity in Fast-Food TV Advertising,” Carrie Packwood Freeman and Debra Merskin claim that the reason the fast-food industry still advertises their product “for the man” is due to anthropology and ecofeminism.

They claim that because humans originated as hunters and gatherers, with the woman caring for the band and gathering fruits and other materials and men hunting for meat to bring back to their family, that advertisers are still clinging to this traditional thinking. “Man like meat, we sell man meat.” They go on to say that ecofeminism plays a part because society genders everything. Healthier and more “green” foods are associated with femininity while large slabs of still bleeding meat and fat are associated to masculinity. They also use Carol Adams perspective in “The Sexual Politics of Meat,” wherein she notes that “women and animals are similarly positioned in a patriarchal world, as objects rather than subjects” (Freeman and Merskin 279). She’s relating the use of women in masculine fast food ads to the meat itself. Ads like this often represent the idea that “if you eat this burger, you get this girl too!”, and the two are connected.

Before analyzing specific fast-food restaurants and their connection to macho advertising the authors look back at Masculinity “construction” in advertising. They note that the masculinity of a man is connected to three things: “entitlement to callous sex, propensity towards violence, and danger as exciting” (281). They add that along with meat, beer uses strong “masculine” advertising throwing in a woman every once in awhile as a “decorative object or as the symbolic ‘other woman'” (281).

The authors then go on to analyze the masculine techniques that specific fast food companies employ. Concluding their analysis with an over all “what does this mean.” Equating the food to American societies desire for the now over the repercussions of the future and how fast food companies simplify man into two things: meat and objectifying women.

It’s not new news that fast food ads directly target a male audience. I still remember the first time I saw a tall blonde model in a golden bikini, on top of a car, “eating” the largest bacon burger in the world. I had always wondered how on earth she could eat it without making a mess. This ad didn’t make men go charging to their local Burger Kings however. To assume that men are so primal and frankly stupid is underestimating the men who actually go to these fast food restaurants. They go because its cheap and quick not because they think they get the girl from eating their lukewarm chicken nuggets. These companies do their research and they know that the majority of people who come to their stores are male. Men are their target audience and they know historically that men, cars, and women go great together.

Trying to make this argument deeper than it really is is a waste of effort. The crude use of women and the implication that meat is all men care about is obviously wrong and in recent years has slowly dwindled away as women’s movements have grown. But I don’t believe these companies have any malicious intent hiding behind their 60 second burger ad. Besides, who watches them anyways?

In the book “They say, I say” Cathy Birkenstein and Gerald Graff attempt to guide their reader though a strong argumentative rebuttal. They cover the three main ways to respond, how to differentiate from what you say and what they say, using objectors opinions in their argument, and overall answering the coveted “so what?” question.

First the authors give a three way response technique to defend the authors argument. They summarize it done to basically agreeing, disagreeing, and meeting in the middle between those two. Birkenstein and Graff first explain how to disagree, focusing on taking a strong stance but then backing it up with something “interesting and new.” There is the “duh” statement wherein the author uses obvious facts to support their rebuttal and they know it. It strengthens their argument because of the universal knowledge that what they’re saying is fact. They also add that an author can twist someone else’s evidence in favor of their argument. The authors also point to a common fear among writers wherein they fear conflict but they assure that “it is better to state our disagreements in frank yet considerate ways than to deny them.”

They go on further to explain the second method to a rebuttal which is to agree; but change it up. Rather than just “parroting” what the other is saying the author needs to add something new to the conversation to make them a valuable participant in it. Finally they explain the final way to respond which is by agreeing and disagreeing simultaneously. This is where, in laymen’s terms, the author agrees with a part of the argument but not all. This is the “yes, but…” argument that the authors claim helps avoid the “no you” arguments that can arise when there is no compromise. They also explain that the author can claim or have “mixed feelings” about the topic they are arguing.

Following how to rebuttal now the authors go on to clarify how an author should differentiate their argument from another’s. The authors first urge the reader to find verbal cues in others texts to better understand the subtle tools an author can employ. By representing the opposing view of the author as a belief or something that “seems” to be true but then integrating their own perspective as fact clearly represents the authors argument without the need of them explicitly stating it. They go on to explain that for the readers writing they should clearly state their opponents views and that they do not agree. To make sure that at any point the reader can tell who is “speaking.” Another tool the authors employ is by embedding what their opponent said prior and going further to explain why they disagree or to use a phrase or statement the author previously used to clarify their position.

Finally they discuss the forbidden use of “I” in academic writing. They argue that the use of an particular pronoun doesn’t affect the strength of an argument but rather only affective evidence and reasoning do. They encourage the use of “I” in argumentative writing.

Birkenstein and Graff then lead into the strength of putting a “naysayer” into the authors argument. They argue that this builds the authors credibility and can prove to disarm their opponent. By being aware and upfront about the contradictions to their argument the reader can feel more confident in believing what the author is telling them. Also if the author is willing and ready to answer the opposing sides rebuttals, the wind and power of their argument is taken away slightly. The authors go on further to say “When you entertain a counterargument, you make a kind of preemptive strike, identifying problems with your argument before others can point them out for you.” They also encourage the method of naming the people, topic, institution, etc. that the author is opposing.

They authors then go on to say that all objections should be represented fairly. To zoom past the argument or to mock it is usually counterintuitive to the authors argument. This again applies to the credibility that the author is trying to maintain throughout their argument. They recommend that the author gives the opposing view as much time at is warrants and to “take them as seriously as possible.” They go on further to point out that after the author points out these objections they must remember to answer them. Otherwise the author just convinced the reader of their oppositions perspective. The authors claim that a “sure fire way” to lose an argument is to simply dismiss the claim of the opposition. They instead refer back to their previous claim that to “agree but” is the best way to fully and accurately refute a claim.

Finally Birkenstein and Graff conclude this section by answering the “so what?” question. In the authors writing they must clearly identify who their audience is. Who is going to care about the topic they are discussing and who it is going to impact or entertain the most. The author can also point out who “should” care about their topic, which is often the case in journalistic writing. They then argue that the addition of “who cares” is often not enough, specifically when the writing is just going to the general public. The author needs to also point out the “so what,” why does this matter? Birkenstein and Graff argue that the author should connect their point to some larger, generally accepted, important topic that is already accepted as important. It connects the reader and author on some central belief and then the reader will be more willing to follow the author onto a separate but similar topic.

The only point that contradicts what I already thought to be true was the “agree but” argument. I feel like this could severely backfire and also has the potential to weaken your own argument in the long run. I don’t know how to avoid this?

Evidence is that which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof. Evidence and facts: interchangeable in nature because to have one without the other, invalidates the first. But who’s to say what qualifies as fact and/or evidence? As our author Kathryn Schulz discusses; inductive reasoning, confirmation bias, and stubborn fear seem to be the main factors contributing to, like she analogized, the Salem witch trials and other varying sizes of inconsistencies.

Schulz first goes into detail about the effects of inductive reasoning that make humans be able to evolve and progress at an extreme rate. The ability to recognize a flower immediately or assume that “the guy with the knife” is dangerous or see our fathers make an arrow and be able to copy and mimic his creation; is what has allowed humans to thrive and evolve more than any other species on the planet. This phenomenon is what the entire field, specifically anthropology, of science is dedicated to and it is how those fields can even exist. If every person in the world had to come up, on their own, how to engineer and create a phone; we would all still be sending letters by carrier pigeon.

While inductive reasoning may be one of our greatest strengths it is also, arguably, one of our greatest weaknesses. Schulz sums up what Descartes has been saying for centuries, that “our beliefs are not necessarily true. Instead, they are probabilistically true.” The author gives many examples of when inductive reasoning goes awry, some that I can safely assume if you’re a PTA mom you’re more than familiar with one of these instances. Inductive reasoning makes fools of us all however, even the most genuinely educated and holistic person can get tripped up by averages. We use averages to help us make “educated guesses” everyday. But as science knows; nothing is ever 100% and sometimes that .01% is standing right in front of you, arms crossed, making you look like a fool.

Inductive reasoning comes down to absolutes. We take an average or majority as complete and discard the outliers. We assume that the outlier is so rare and inconsequential that to assume is a safe bet. Here in Las Vegas this theory is what makes casinos win big and tourist lose even bigger. Sitting at a slot machine with flashing rainbow lights and no clock to be seen, bonuses flying up every three seconds, theres no way you can lose! So you keep playing, watching as the number gets bigger and bigger, going for that jackpot that; by all accounts you should be getting any second. But then right as you “about to stop;” you lose it all. Inductive reasoning told you that because you kept getting bonuses you’d keep on getting them. When in reality the casino was pushing out an algorithm to gain as much money with as little pay out as possible. Assuming you’ll win is the exact moment you lose, concurrently if you always assume you’re right, one day you will be humiliatingly wrong if your only evidence is an average.

Sometimes we just assume but other times when we do look for the facts we only see what proves us right. Confirmation bias is the catalyst for miss information. Confirmation bias is a term created by psychologists due to its persistent nature in human behavior. Sometimes this bias happens subconsciously when reading information or even having a conversation. My psychology professor called it our “little attorneys” because it defends our beliefs at all costs. It’s not that we choose to ignore invaluable information, it’s that our brain skips it. This isn’t always the case however, sometimes we just hope that the other person doesn’t already know the information you omitted.

There are purposeful ways to use confirmation bias as Schulz points out. Refusal to believe, the dismissal of the informations relevance, or co-opting it for your benefit. All of these methods are intentional in nature and can often be found in argumentative writing where the author is fully informed on the topic and maneuvers around the obstacles. The author finally touches on the final reason why facts and evidence can be misconstrued. Fear is what drives us and holds us back. We fear the unknown and fear the known even more. Some may argue fear is what causes the Amish to live like early colonists in the 21st century. People fear what they don’t know and often times refute the facts until there is no conceivable way to anymore. Fear holds us back and forces change that most people are not comfortable with.

There are many reasons why we as people refute or ignore facts and evidence. Inductive reasoning, confirmation bias, and fear are just three main concepts that propel us forward in some cases but in others hold us back eons. Imagine what the world would look like if we didn’t fight to be right but fought to be accurate. What a world that would be.

Do you ever rant to your friends? Go on and on about how you were wronged? Part of you might think you just do this to get it all out of your system but another, deeper reason, is you do it to pick their mind. To get a new opinion, to validate or contradict you, to see it from a new perspective.

In chapter four of Perceptions and Language Issues in the Mass Media the authors aim to shed light on the psychology on how we perceive different situations and media. The central point of their argument all comes back to the fact that it’s all relative. Our cultures, personalities, moods; these all make up how you might perceive something versus how someone else might.

Walking into a friends home for the first time, you can truly get what it’s like to be submerged into a whole new culture. Shoes are fine in my house but not in hers, I don’t have explicitly stated chores but at his house he has five, and so on. Where my wearing shoes in her house would be perceived as rude or inconsiderate at my house no one would bat an eye. The way we were raised, the society and people that surrounded us make up our set perceptions. These are our default modes, our schemas, the thoughts we have before we correct them or act on them. Education is what has the power to influence these predisposed responses.

Our personalities greatly affect how we view the world as well. If you’re a cynic you will never look at something with overwhelming joy. You see a man propose in the middle of time square and wonder how long they’ll make it before they “inevitably” get divorced. If you’re an optimist you see this same proposal and just know “with all your heart that they are going to be the 50% that does make it.”

Speaking from personal experience if I’m in a bad mood everything anyone does is sexist. It’s funny in hindsight but in the moment, what I would normal think of as kind and considerate, I perceive as misogynistic and a way to “bring the woman down!” This is of course usually wrong but not unfounded. In chapter four the authors reference the study done by Leuba and Lucas using hypnosis wherein the participants were exposed to different moods and emotions and were told to respond to the same images. The reaction to the exact same image but different moods were like polar opposites.

This study in part proved that a persons mood greatly affects how they see things. Road rage while driving and being a passenger while the driver is raging is a perfect example of this phenomenon. When you’re the driver your actions and words are perfectly validated but when you’re the passenger the “offense” of the other drivers seems more muted and less quarrelsome.

In the chapter they go on to further delve into how perception and media play a role together. They sight propaganda techniques like military commercials with target demographics and the use of satire in America. Because of all the aforementioned perceptual influences people take in propaganda and satire in entirely diverse ways. This; however, causes misinformation to be consumed as massive rates. It, like in the chapter, condones bigotry for some or dissuades from what they were trying to persuade.

Finally they highlight the fact that our brains are picky. We only hear what we want to hear. My psychology professor liked to call our minds our personal attorneys. We want to be right so sometimes our minds just exclude the stuff that contradicts us. When your mom swore, hand on Bible, that she told you to do the dishes after school and you know you didn’t hear her, well maybe that was your brain protecting you from having to do your most loathed chore.

How we perceive the world is different for everyone, the art of mastering this very self absorbed mindset is to be aware of it and to be able to look outside of your mood, personality, or culture and see what “they” are seeing. Look at the world anthropologically and ask the question “why?” That’s how we coexist, but thats just the way I see it.