April 26 Blog

In reading both "A More Perfect Union" by Barack Obama and "Means of Persuasion" they both share emotion in common. In Obama's speech he talks about many different moments in his life that connect the reader to what was going on in that time. In his speech he talks about the questions we should ask if we got past the silly arguments these questions use emotion because he uses questions that would incite a response from the people he was speaking to. The questions like we should worry about the education of our children and how their are things being taken away from them would make people react because it happens to everyone. Emotions are strong and when used in our arguments to make our point they can have strong effects. Obama later mentions the story of a girl named Ashley and how when she was little she had to struggle to help her mother who was sick. When Ashley was older and organizing a meeting she met with people and they all said why they were there. When they got to the last person he said that he was there because of Ashley. Upon reading this I'm sure many readers felt some sort of emotion like happiness or awe. This is a strong response to a story that had its own emotion put into it but it makes the point that there are things that could be better focused on than the things that make us different. Both readings talk about emotion and how emotions are used to incite a response from who they are speaking to. My view on this issue is that we shouldn't worry about petty things that are used to hurt other people. We should focus on things that will help better us and the earth in the future what we do now effects what happens to us in the future.