Premium Essay

Drinking The Kool-Aid Rhetorical Analysis

Submitted By
Words 1554
Pages 7
Drinking the Kool-Aid?
On November 18, 1978, at a commune often called “Jonestown” in the jungle of Guyana, 900 people died in a mass murder/suicide; all were members of the Peoples Temple, an American religious cult. At the request of their leader, men and women administered lethal doses of cyanide-laced punch to over 300 infants and children before gulping down their own. How could so many people be convinced to kill their babies and themselves? His name was James Warren Jones. Like his idol, Hitler, he was a dominant propagandist, a charismatic leader, and an evil human being.
Summaries
In the piece “Propaganda under a Dictatorship” (1958/2016), Aldous Huxley, renowned English novelist, and Oxford graduate expands on ideas he first presented in his 1932 novel, Brave New World, which examines a futuristic culture in which no individual thought takes form. Huxley’s essay explores the practical use of propaganda by Adolph Hitler in controlling the minds of eighty million German people in the years leading to the Second World War. He examines, with chilling account, Hitler’s …show more content…
Search engines can give us access to thousands of pieces of information on millions of subjects. Not all information is of the same value. Not all information is accurate. Not all people realize that fact. The individual’s capacity to dig deep for knowledge has been minimized by the ease with which it is obtained, resulting in wide dissemination of only select information. We soon find ourselves going to Hollywood for political analysis and to the television for religion, being incapable of intelligent thinking or realistic action. It becomes easy to let someone else tell us what we should think until “[we are] chronically ignorant, chronically dependent, and chronically submissive” (Plummer1990/2016, p 438). With that mindset comes the tendency toward a collective consciousness and unfortunately as Huxley

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Critical Thinking

...fourth EDItION fourth EDItION This clear, learner-friendly text helps today’s students bridge the gap between Its comprehensiveness allows instructors to tailor the material to their individual teaching styles, resulting in an exceptionally versatile text. Highlights of the Fourth Edition: Additional readings and essays in a new Appendix as well as in Chapters 7 and 8 nearly double the number of readings available for critical analysis and classroom discussion. An online chapter, available on the instructor portion of the book’s Web site, addresses critical reading, a vital skill for success in college and beyond. Visit www.mhhe.com/bassham4e for a wealth of additional student and instructor resources. Bassham I Irwin Nardone I Wallace New and updated exercises and examples throughout the text allow students to practice and apply what they learn. MD DALIM #1062017 12/13/09 CYAN MAG YELO BLK Chapter 12 features an expanded and reorganized discussion of evaluating Internet sources. Critical Thinking thinking, using real-world examples and a proven step-by-step approach. A student ' s Introduction A student's Introduction everyday culture and critical thinking. It covers all the basics of critical Critical Thinking Ba ssha m I Irwin I Nardone I Wall ace CRITICAL THINKING A STUDENT’S INTRODUCTION FOURTH EDITION Gregory Bassham William Irwin Henry Nardone James M. Wallace King’s College TM bas07437_fm_i-xvi.indd i 11/24/09 9:53:56 AM TM Published by McGraw-Hill...

Words: 246535 - Pages: 987

Premium Essay

Marketing

...fourth EDItION Critical Thinking A student ' s Introduction Ba ssha m I I rwi n I N ardon e I Wal l ac e CRITICAL THINKING A STUDENT’S INTRODUCTION FOURTH EDITION Gregory Bassham William Irwin Henry Nardone James M. Wallace King’s College TM TM Published by McGraw-Hill, an imprint of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. Copyright © 2011, 2008, 2005, 2002. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning. This book is printed on acid-free paper. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 DOC/DOC 0 ISBN: 978-0-07-340743-2 MHID: 0-07-340743-7 Vice President, Editorial: Michael Ryan Director, Editorial: Beth Mejia Sponsoring Editor: Mark Georgiev Marketing Manager: Pam Cooper Managing Editor: Nicole Bridge Developmental Editor: Phil Butcher Project Manager: Lindsay Burt Manuscript Editor: Maura P. Brown Design Manager: Margarite Reynolds Cover Designer: Laurie Entringer Production Supervisor: Louis Swaim Composition: 11/12.5 Bembo by MPS Limited, A Macmillan Company Printing: 45# New Era Matte, R. R. Donnelley & Sons Cover Image: © Brand X/JupiterImages Credits: The credits section for this book begins on page C-1 and is considered...

Words: 240232 - Pages: 961

Premium Essay

Business

...C h a p t e r 1 Prewriting GETTING STARTED (OR SOUP-CAN LABELS CAN BE FASCINATING) For many writers, getting started is the hardest part. You may have noticed that when it is time to begin a writing assignment, you suddenly develop an enormous desire to straighten your books, water your plants, or sharpen your pencils for the fifth time. If this situation sounds familiar, you may find it reassuring to know that many professionals undergo these same strange compulsions before they begin writing. Jean Kerr, author of Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, admits that she often finds herself in the kitchen reading soup-can labels—or anything—in order to prolong the moments before taking pen in hand. John C. Calhoun, vice president under Andrew Jackson, insisted he had to plow his fields before he could write, and Joseph Conrad, author of Lord Jim and other novels, is said to have cried on occasion from the sheer dread of sitting down to compose his stories. To spare you as much hand-wringing as possible, this chapter presents some practical suggestions on how to begin writing your short essay. Although all writers must find the methods that work best for them, you may find some of the following ideas helpful. But no matter how you actually begin putting words on paper, it is absolutely essential to maintain two basic ideas concerning your writing task. Before you write a single sentence, you should always remind yourself that 1. You have some valuable ideas to tell your reader,...

Words: 234754 - Pages: 940

Premium Essay

Game Change

...GAME CHANGE OBAMA AND THE CLINTONS, MCCAIN AND PALIN, AND THE RACE OF A LIFETIME JOHN HEILEMANN AND MARK HALPERIN FOR DIANA AND KAREN Contents Cover Title Page Prologue Part I Chapter One – Her Time Chapter Two – The Alternative Chapter Three – The Ground Beneath Her Feet Chapter Four – Getting to Yes Chapter Five – The Inevitables Chapter Six – Barack in a Box Chapter Seven – “They Looooove Me!” Chapter Eight – The Turning Point Chapter Nine – The Fun Part Chapter Ten – Two For the Price of One Chapter Eleven – Fear and Loathing in the Lizard’s Thicket Chapter Twelve – Pulling Away and Falling Apart Chapter Thirteen – Obama Agonistes Chapter Fourteen – The Bitter End Game Part II Chapter Fifteen – The Maverick and His Meltdown Chapter Sixteen – Running Unopposed Chapter Seventeen – Slipping Nooses, Slaying Demons Part III Chapter Eighteen – Paris and Berlin Chapter Nineteen – The Mile-High Club Chapter Twenty – Sarahcuda Chapter Twenty-One – September Surprise Chapter Twenty-Two – Seconds in Command Chapter Twenty-Three – The Finish Line Epilogue – Together at Last Index Author’s Notes About the Authors Copyright About the Publisher Prologue BARACK OBAMA JERKED BOLT upright in bed at three o’clock in the morning. Darkness enveloped his low-rent room at the Des Moines Hampton Inn; the airport across the street was quiet in the hours before dawn. It was very late December 2007, a few days ahead of the Iowa caucuses. Obama had been sprinting flat out...

Words: 160589 - Pages: 643

Premium Essay

Geiziji

...FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING BIOGRAPHIES OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND ALBERT EINSTEIN, THIS IS THE EXCLUSIVE BIOGRAPHY OF STEVE JOBS. Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering. Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing offlimits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and...

Words: 233886 - Pages: 936