Rational and Logical Public Sphere

1. To what extent can you see the "complicated intersections" of genre and the "irrational/logical" explanations play out in the public sphere, especially as that sphere "works" online (in blogs, websites, news sites, etc.?
The movie illustrated the idea of “irrational/logical” explanations perfectly. Although the content was extremely serious it was interesting, and sometimes humorous to watch the reactions of everyone watching it. There were times where the explanations of who the murderer was had my classmates and me looking around in confusion, or laughing out loud because of the ridiculousness of it all. For instance, when the media blamed an Egyptian national who didn’t speak any Spanish, but supposedly was running, not only the Mexican gangs, but the Maquiladora bus drivers. Giving them directions on who to kill, and what to do from inside his jail cell (since the murders kept occurring after he was arrested). There were times where explanations simply got silly.
This happens all the time online, especially in blogs. Blogs are a place where you can communicate anything you think, feel, believe, or know in a hot minute. Any information you get can be put up for others to see, whether it’s true or not. This often leads to irrational or logical understandings of an incident, just depending on what type of information is publicized, and what kind of ideas are spread. For instance, whenever someone dies mysteriously, blogs and other online venues blow up with hypothesis of what could have happened, but often it’s simply a bunch of people guessing, and not many people really hold truthful and realistic insight. This creates A LOT of false and silly stories, some which people believe to be true.

The Class Video

Watching the video in class made me S-I-C-K. When the woman in the video was talking about the pictures of women having their nipples bit off and men setting them on fire I almost threw up. What compels people to be so unbelievably hateful? It disgusts me. I'm an optimist, but seriously I feel like this world is so corrupt that even the people who are good can be polluted in the most disgusting ways (not that I'm saying the people who did this were good, or are good). Just generally, what turns people into such animals??? How did the people who did this find each other? And how and the hell are all of them keeping it so quiet? There's been what, over 250 women killed, maybe more? This is not one man. This is obviously happening at a higher form of the Mexican social strata. Powerful people are covering this up and that’s scary.

What a sick world we live in.

The video that we watched in class really got to me and made me lose a little more of my already dwindling hope in humanity. To think that so many women are being murdered at such an exponential rate is bad enough, but the thought that there is little to nothing being done about it, makes the situation just sickening. I was extrememly upset about the girl who could have been saved if only something had been done about her disappearence in the first 14 days that she went missing. The story that was told about the woman in the cell who was shown the pictures bothered me, but the skeptic inside asked the question, "why didn't they kill her, too?". I just don't think it would make much sense to show a person pictures of a horrendous crime that you committed, only to let them go and tell their story to the world. All in all, the video reminded me that we live in such a nasty world where people have no value for life, and others won't help because they believe their live to be more valuable than the life that belongs to the missing people. It is truly sad.

Kemmis' Good Citizen

The good citizen in this articale seems to be someone that has common sense. I think that it goes much further than that. A good citizen is someone who is willing to pull their own weight, and help their fellow citizens for the greater good. The answer to my topic is solely based on the idea of good citizens. If we are going to get the homeless off the streets and create better living conditions for them, then we have to come together for support. The idea of paying more money, or donating money to this cause is based off of the idea that people will rise above their everyday problems and help their fellow citizens who are unable to help themselves.

Kemis and Habermas

Regarding Kemis's "Good Citizen" and Habermas's ideal of the public spere, I think they have alot in common. The examples of the public sphere that Kemis gave looked alot like Habermas's ideal, a space where anyone could come, have their opinions heard (and those opinions would matter), and could evoke change. However, our group in class was debating (politely of course!)whether or not the two were "synonymous". We felt like the public sphere is now more of a place where you do often "self-abstract", but in Kemis's "Good Citizen" the faces and personal stories of those citizens who are changing their cities and communities are important. They have to be physically a part of the community to evoke change in their public spaces. However, citizens do in a way, have to "self-abstract" from their own biases, in order to come together and make strides towards solving the issues their cities face. Both sides have to come together and meet in the middle. This requires a more mild form of self-abstracting. A self-abstraction from the personal need to argue, to be "right, and ultimately "win".

I'm not rational, I like people to know who I am.

The Warner reading this week is driving me up a wall. What I got from it is that in order to be heard as a member of the "public", then I have to drop who I am and let everyone assume that I am someone I am not. He does always say that it is nearly impossible to do so. I am sure that many people can achieve this goal, but I do not see why they would want to. I AM a woman, and I AM many other things. My ideas about certain topics stem from who and what I am. I do not think that it is right that in order for my ideas to count to the public, I have to basically speak under the assumption that I am a white male with money. I am just saying, I am proud of everything about me that forms my opinions. I do think that I can assert who I am and be able to speak in the public sphere at the same time.

Choosing Sides

Now I'm not the most political person in the world, but living in a nation such as this, in times such as these I think it's really, really difficult to not be political in some facet or form and expect to make change. When I personally think about my own political life I can't help but go straight to thinking about my "position" and what party I fit into and that is the problem. The main parties in our political system are Democrat and Republican, but I can honestly say I don't really fit perfectly into either and I think it would be fair to say that most people don't as well. Human beings, in general, are not black and white...most of the time decisions are fuzzy and lines are blurred...that's life and there's beauty in that, even though it often makes things harder. With this in mind I can't help but recognize how flawed our democratic system can be...I personally feel forced to "pick a side", but it's not that easy. Sometimes I agree with Republican candidates on certain issues and Democratic candidates on others, but I have to choose "someone" instead of the "something’s" I agree or disagree with. It's hard. I think with such strict lines drawn it creates massive divides in a time where we need unity the most. These parties often perpetrate corruption and backstabbing in our political system and it makes me think they're just a bunch of bullshit really. What if we lived in a nation where instead of voting for our "party", we voted on the issues at hand and put people in charge who made our demands as a society happen? I know there are flaws in this as well and it to could fail, but I think the strict lines placed between the Democratic and Republic parties are making this nations political problems worse, not better. What do you guys think?