In reading Chapter 3 in Pullman’s text, I spent a good deal of time reflecting on signs and how we succumb to cognitive biases so frequently when being exposed to heavily persuasive texts such as advertisements. Advertisements tell us far too often who we should be and who we are, which is all defined in large part to what product we buy and choose to spend our money on. Axe body spray advertisements got me long ago in my prepubescent years. But amidst the reveries of spraying on half a can of Axe body spray after leaving gym class, I always find myself laughing at the absurdity the commercials have to me now. I was once persuaded that by spraying Axe body spray, I could walk out of a locker room after romping around in a gym vigorously for 50 minutes and women would still find me attractive. Moreover, they’d swoon helplessly at my manly stench. This selling of a sign is so similar to the example Pullman uses in the text. This is equivalent to the example of where there’s smoke there’s fire being a fallible sign. Where there’s Axe body spray sprayed, there will be a woman pulled to him. These advertisements appeal to our inner desires and manipulates it until you spend all of your money on Axe body spray and still end up single.
A probable sign I thought about was a probable sign. in the book it lists:
Big house —–> Big Family
Corporate jet —> Rich Person
Smiling face —–> Pleasant person
*Military Veteran ———–> Patriot
The final probable sign mark by the asterisk is my own creation. Pullman defines a probable sign as “a fallible sign where the connection between two events or things is nevertheless strong enough that we will fell somewhat secure in inferring one from the other.” I thought about what signs am I projecting to other people when I meet them or disclose information about myself? How do they perceive them? Do my thoughts and opinions articulated verbally surprise or confuse them? Although I am proud of my service, I do not consider myself a patriot. Simply because there are things that I am not willing to sacrifice for an institution or ideal that would not do the same for me. Yet, expects me to yield to the same respect to which I was never shown. Patriotism, to me is closely associated with pride. You take pride in your nation and will gladly boast about how magnificent it is. But people are being gunned down in the street violently due to domestic terrorism, poor people are getting poor and their at the expense of the rich getting richer. It’s getting more and more challenging by the year to complete a higher education track. People are suffering, while a few are living well. I cannot be proud of that. There are signs all about for us to read and break down our understanding of our perception of them.
What is less painful is preferable to what is more painful.
If drafting and passing effective firearm legislation is painful, because a common values and preferences cannot be found, then not immediately passing effective firearm legislation is preferable because it causes less stress and dissension to legislators.
1. Wesley’s Theory ft. George Clinton and Thundercat
2. For Free? (Interlude)
3. King Kunta
4. Institutionalized ft. Bilal, Anna Wise and Snoop Dogg
5. These Walls ft. Bilal, Anna Wise and Thundercat
6. u
7. Alright
8. For Sale? (Interlude)
9. Momma
10. Hood Politics
11. How Much A Dollar Cost ft. James Fauntleroy and Ronald Isley
12. Complexion ft. Rapsody
13. The Blacker the Berry
14. You Ain’t Gotta Lie (Momma Said)
15. i
16. Mortal Man
As to avoid bogging you, the reader, down with an intense analysis of sixteen songs, I am dividing the sonic explication of Lamar’s album into eight parts
Opening the album is the introduction of a sample by Boris Gardiner “Every Nigger is a Star.”
Every nigger is a star, ay, every nigger is a star
Every nigger is a star, ay, every nigger is a star
Every nigger is a star, ay
Who will deny that you and I and every nigger is a star?
To jump straight into answering the question you may have asked yourself, Who is the Butterfly? or Who is Kendrick Lamar referring to? Well, the Butterfly is the Black American. The song progresses to the introduction to say,
When the four corners of this cocoon collide
You’ll slip through the cracks hopin’ that you’ll survive
Gather your wit, take a deep look inside
Are you really who they idolize?
What is the cocoon? For the Black American, it could indeed be their (neighbor)hood, their immediate environment that, for the caterpillar seeking to develop and spread its wings in the world, provides the first refuge or haven from the coldness of the world. But I venture to believe that the cocoon represents a bigger entity. “Four corners of this cocoon” resonates with 4 corners of the globe folding in on itself. So this idea, this metaphor of the cocoon is extended to encompass a greater power or force of influence than one’s own neighborhood, the world itself. Systemically, Lamar speaks to a bigger power, hard to overcome, and reverses the idea of a cocoon, which functions similar to a womb. It provides a safe environment abetting in the being’s evolution and gestation. But this idea of the cocoon as the world and collapsing on itself forcing you to hope “that you’ll survive” turns the idea of nurturing on its head. Instead, the cocoon, the refuge becomes a place of impending doom for the slow-moving caterpillar or butterfly. “Are you really who they idolize?” This line alludes to a thought that the adoration and praise Lamar is lauded with is based in a false reality. He’s questioning this admiration and wondering if it is genuine (love for himself and his Blackness) or fake and rooted in an adoration for the things his new life of fame and fortune has blessed him with. This is all before Kendrick actually starts rapping and unfolding this complex metaphor of his perspective he’s established.
When I get signed, homie, I’ma act a fool
Hit the dance floor, strobe lights in the room
Snatch your little secretary bitch for the homies
Blue-eyed devil with a fat-ass monkey
I’ma buy a brand new Caddy on fours
Trunk the hood up, two times, deuce-four
Platinum on everythin’, platinum on weddin’ ring
Married to the game and a bad bitch chose
When I get signed, homie, I’ma buy a strap
Straight from the CIA, set it on my lap
Take a few M-16s to the hood
Pass ’em all out on the block, what’s good?
I’ma put the Compton swap meet by the White House
Republican run up, get socked out
Hit the prez with a Cuban link on my neck
Uneducated, but I got a million-dollar check like that
It is in verse one, with a watchful eye, you can see the Butterfly clearly. Kendrick Lamar, as a fellow Butterfly, unfurls his “pimping” by not only the world but by the music industry as well, which both have a reputation within the black community for the commercialization and fetishization of Blackness purely for consumption’s sake. It’s clear now, I believe with this opening of the album, Lamar is still addressing every ear that hears his words, Black and an evolving caterpillar or not, it is a message of the exploitation of Blackness and the different forms that it manifests itself as in the world. Upon Lamar’s signing of his contract in exchange for an industry standard of an advance in the form of a large sum of money (that the artist will later have to recoup), he’s going to revel in carnal desires of the world and of the flesh, thereby abandoning any high morals and lofty goals for promises of material goods. Lamar, I believe posits himself as a representation of Black artists within the music industry, namely the genre of hip-hop. Parties that never end, sexual promiscuity with alluring women based on the fact he’s a celebrity, and new cars with all the bells and whistles that will surely depreciate in value almost immediately after securing it. The glamorization of material goods is only reified by your capitalist structure. We go to work, drone away years of our lives and work ourselves tirelessly for the promise of the great American Dream, things piled on top of more. The power of hip-hop/rap as an influence on the world and the community from which it derived is extremely powerful. We’ll later visit the power of sounds in a later post.
When I get signed, homie, I’ma buy a strap
Straight from the CIA, set it on my lap
Take a few M-16s to the hood
Pass ’em all out on the block, what’s good?
This, politically speaking, is a powerful statement. With it, Lamar aims to elucidate the listener to the fact that the government, during the 1970s and 80s sanctioned the CIA and FBI to distribute guns and drugs (crack cocaine) throughout the Black community, providing the ammunition and evidence needed to legitimize a “War on Drugs.” In plainer terms, he’s going straight to the source to get the assault rifles and disseminate them to his neighbors and friends. Kendrick also plays on a prevailing stereotype of African-Americans living in impoverished neighborhoods. That they’re full of guns and drugs. But he’s doing so in order to shift the focus to the source of the problem(s) within the community.
I’ma put the Compton swap meet by the White House
Republican run up, get socked out
Hit the prez with a Cuban link on my neck
Uneducated, but I got a million-dollar check like that
Serving as an allusion to the album cover, the reason the gavel-holding Republican got “socked out” (knocked out) when Lamar according to his desires, moved his neighborhood swap meet to the White House. (See RAP: Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly) Why would he want to do that? Maybe it’s to exchange a slice of life with outliers that have systemically had great influence over his own community. He and his compatriots are going to meet the President with a neck full of gold, an unusual and very cavalier way to greet and meet the revered leader of our free world. Uneducated, thanks to the great school system provided by the nation, is a state that does not bother Kendrick Lamar to exist in. What’s the use for education when you have the freedom to buy what you want with a “million dollar check.” As a rhetor, Lamar’s lines are riddled with a strange satirical truth. He plays with these images in an attempt to overturn prevailing tropes of Black Americans, yet, in doing so he’s still telling the truth. It may not be all Black Americans, but the mentality is one of a good bit of the population.
The bridge reveals, quite possibly, the voice of White America, or America itself.
We should’ve never gave
We should’ve never gave niggas money
Go back home, money, go back home
We should’ve never gave
We should’ve never gave niggas money
Go back home, money, go back home
(Everybody get out)
At this moment, it does not seem likely that the rhetor is addressing anyone but African-Americans within the nation. Echoing a well-known Garveyism of returning to millions of African-Americans from America back to Africa in an effort to “link up the fifty million Negroes in the United States of America, with the twenty million Negroes of the West Indies, the forty million Negroes of South and Central America, with the two hundred and eighty million Negroes of Africa, for the purpose of bettering our industrial, commercial, educational, social, and political conditions (Groff 176). This movement was the closest Black people may have ever come to being free from the systemic oppression of a blanched hegemony. This movement was what Marcus Garvey was a solution to The Negro Problem of the early nineteenth-century. If you don’t know what that problem, that can be remedied. The Negro Problem was millions of ebony veterans returning to a war-ravaged nation that just 50 years earlier was locked in a Civil War. After World War 1, many returned back to their homes to find that jobs and opportunities for upward economic mobility only to find racial tensions and a system that wanted to prevent Black bodies from contributing to the society in exchange for money. Yet, it (America) had no problem kidnapping and subjugating millions of human beings and subsequently erasing ties to their native identity and culture.This was the Negro Problem. The releasing of D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film, The Birth of a Nation, was widely credited with inspiring the birth of the Ku Klux Klan. Garvey’s speech was delivered less than two years after the Red Summer of 1919. Richard Wormser provides succinct accounts of the Red Summer and the inception of the KKK (See: Red Summer (1919) and The KKK). Hypocrisy lives, as the very beings that plucked Africans from their ancestral lands to come work and be enslaved, benevolently bestowing a wretched existence of suffering unto them, only to treat the same beings with contempt and disregard when we cannot continue to work for free and demand to be economically enfranchized.
Continuing to the second verse, Lamar expounds more on the materialistic mentality that has Black Americans, or artists in the music industry in a vice-grip-like clutch.
What you want? You a house or a car?
Forty acres and a mule, a piano, a guitar?
Anythin’, see, my name is Uncle Sam, I’m your dog
Motherfucker, you can live at the mall
The rampant consumerism, the spirit of capitalism is personified in this final verse as Lamar raps as if he’s Uncle Sam talking to himself. At this point, Kendrick could serve as a representation of Black America. So what is he trying to say? What is Uncle Sam, a personified spirit of America, who comes to us in the form of an elderly white man with his index finger extended to the view as if a selection of some sort is happening.
Photo appears as a courtesy of https://comicvine.gamespot.com/uncle-sam/4005-9624/
I know your kind (That’s why I’m kind)
Don’t have receipts (Oh, man, that’s fine)
Pay me later, wear those gators
Cliché, then say, “Fuck your haters”
I can see the borrow in you, I can see the dollar in you
Little white lies, but it’s no white-collar in you
But it’s whatever though because I’m still followin’ you
Because you make me live forever, baby
Count it all together, baby
Then hit the register and make me feel better, baby
Good Uncle Sam knows what we crave. The desire to acquire more things drives our motives. Moreover, socio-economically, the Black population is not known for being monetarily wealthy. So, in turn, the heavy reliance on credit, “uneducated”, and the desire for material trifles creates a cocktail for poverty. Uncle Sam (America) is able to see the “borrow” and “the dollar” in our “kind” with “no white-collar” in us. Woah, I know. What this means is that the Black body is chattel dollars to be farmed. The Black body is meant to lean on borrowing, never entrepreneurship. The Black body exists outside of the realm of the white-collar society (the word itself denotes a class that exists outside of the manual labor class). The clutch of consumerism is the sustenance that feeds the economic subjugation of a people, of a nation; it feeds Uncle Sam and what he represents. At this point, it is not just the Black community involved in Sam’s immortality. We are all guilty. I believe this plays to the spirit of unity that ultimately binds us all, the 99%, and the best part is that it does not discriminate skin tones. Everyone is susceptible to being possessed by an endless pursuing of material commodities.
Your horoscope is a gemini, two sides
So you better cop everything two times
Two coupes, two chains, two C-notes
Too much ain’t enough, both we know
Christmas, tell ’em what’s on your wish list
Get it all, you deserve it, Kendrick
Lamar’s astrological sign is that of the Gemini, which demarcated from the other signs uniquely by its duality. This idea of duality is interesting, which brings to mind W.E.B. Du Bois’ discourse on the double consciousness that is unique to the Negro’s experience in America. There’s a binary created when our (the Black) identity is hyphenated. African-American, never just American. Whether it’s to celebrate what makes people unique or not, it creates a sense of Otherness. Black bodies cannot simply exist in this space as Americans. No. There had to be a sub-category to define a group of people who were through and through, American. The prefix sub- suggests a binary of lesser/greater, superior/inferior, etc.. So Kendrick Lamar, who serves many roles within his personal community and to the community at large. There are many binaries that exist within Lamar’s life, from the outside looking in, such as making music for the artistry/money, caterpillar/butterfly, African/American, etc.. Uncle Sam’s baiting of Lamar to indulge in his success is a trap that will only lead him to feed the white business(men) that own the martial commodities that he will buy. Now he commands Lamar to “hit the register” and make him “feel better” because they both know that “too much ain’t enough”. Uncle Sam is a spirit Kendrick has been raised around that he cannot seem to part with, even in his many accolades the call of consumerism still haunts him to buy more things.
And when you hit the White House, do you
But remember, you ain’t pass economics in school
And everything you buy, taxes will deny
I’ll Wesley Snipe your ass before thirty-five
Tax man comin’, tax man comin’ (4x)
As a final reminder for when Kendrick moves the “Compton swap meet to the White House” that he is in fact, uneducated on the workings of the nation economically. Essentially Uncle Sam is telling Kendrick that he has no real understanding of the money he is accumulating. Earlier we saw Kendrick (rapping as himself) bragging about making it to the White House, being uneducated yet having amassed a large sum of money. Finally, we see Uncle Sam telling Kendrick that he is not an exception to being caught up in a scandal. Many Black artists and actors have fell victim to tax evasion, Wesley Snipes, and Lauryn Hill to name a couple because they were “uneducated.” The song trails off with a reminder that the tax-man is coming (for him).
Works Cited
BOIS, W. E. B. DU. “Strivings of the Negro People.” Atlantic, 2012 Civil War Special, pp. 138-141. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.gsu.edu/login?] url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&db=lfh&AN=112479456&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Groff, Bethany. “Marcus Garvey on “Back to Africa.” [“Defining Documents: The 1920s”]. Defining Documents: The 1920S, 7/1/2014, pp. 175-178. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.gsu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&db=khh&AN=120893908&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Before you lies an explication of a(n) [black] artist’s work, which came to the world in the form of music. More notably, hip-hop. The artist, popularly known as Kendrick Lamar, created this album for a specific purpose, for a particular audience, and within a specific time and context (kairos). What this series of blog posts will do will attempt to delve into the art itself to uncover silent or boisterous narratives. In doing so, the hope is that this explication will be the potential catalyst for a shift in paradigm for members who are consciously, socio-economically, physically, and emotionally, in many ways, separated from the Black community.
Lamar, as a rhetor offers commentary on the world, more specifically the American society and its effect on the expression and survival of Blackness. The album of the photo posted above is titled To Pimp a Butterfly (subsequently will be referred to as TPAB), is wrought with many meanings, depending on who you are and how you perceive the world. For the purpose of this explication, the meaning of the title will be unfurled once the sum of its parts (the sixteen tracks that comprise the project) and their respective meanings have been expounded upon. I am designing my Rhetorical Analysis this way because I feel that until one understands the components of a work, they cannot hope to have a full understanding of the work itself. Situating the work in its original context will also aid in a comprehensive understanding of the work.
The Artifact
In essence, this rhetorical analysis will feature the explication of a text (the album) sonically as music, literally as a text, and visually as the album cover. Starting with the what is the first presentation of a sonic body of work, the album cover of any album says something. Now, let’s begin with that Kendrick Lamar is attempting to say. I chose to present a colorized version of the album cover in order to see smaller details more clearly than presented in the original cover, which is black and white.
Where does one start in the analysis of such a powerful image? The actors involved in the art itself, the people and their positioning. From an initial glance, From my count, there are twenty-one African-Americans, primarily, and two White people. One of the latter, phenotypically speaking, is a baby and the other a presumably middle-aged man. the adult male is depicted loosely clutching a gavel, signifying his potential involvement in the Judicial system somehow. It appears that the connection is most likely that the middle-aged man is a judge. But, we do not know high up this man serves. The judge is seen with an “X’ over his eyes, which suggests that he has been rendered incapacitated somehow, maybe even killed. Is that child kin to the slain judge? How was the judge overcome? The twenty-one Black bodies stand over this slain symbol of the justice system overcome with smiles and other gestures (the middle finger, holding bottles of alcohol, and bundles of cash) denote a celebration of some sort. All the while, everyone is posed on against the backdrop of the White House, which could be seen as a symbol of oppression. Everyone is poised, more-or-less, for what looks like it could be a family or group photo. Situated amidst the triumphant celebration, is Kendrick Lamar, both artist, and rhetor, holding the White baby in his arms as the child imitates the celebration that the African-Americans are engaged in. Fifteen of the twenty-one bodies situated in the photo are Black males, notably shirtless. What do these shirtless Black males represent? Societal customs deem that clothes are a necessary requirement for the civilized citizen. I think we as Americans will find scarce depicitions, outside of the realm of advertisement, of the Ideal of civilized and successful Americans shirtless. The clothing resting on the many bodies in this photo give visual clues to the socioeconomic status. Poor people cannot afford clothes, the affluent can. A poor person’s wardrobe would most likely not consist of formal attire such as collared shirts, suits, ties, and formal career-specific apparel (e.g., a judge’s robe and gavel). This begs the question, who supplied the bundles of cash for the group? My educated guess, the celebrity situated at the epicenter not holding money. Kendrick Lamar is the supplier of financial freedom and resources for those closest to him; this can possibly be extrapolated to the black community surrounding Kendrick, not just a few.
It is my belief that the message being portrayed in this album cover is one of a reversal of fortune. The Justice system has been seen within the Black community, primarily, as an abuser of the innocent within communities, more specifically the Black community. Many members of the African-American community have been systemically oppressed by the system itself. Historically speaking, disenfranchised from voting at one point in time, terrorized by hateful organizations (I.e. KKK), and have had their lives limited by laws and regulation sanctioned by the government itself and agent of the organization (politicians). Slave codes, gerrymandering districts and creating color lines to separate the poor and the rich. Situating this album cover within the context of the time, the year 2015 was the site of social upheaval at the killing of unarmed Black citizens at the hands of policemen. Many of the accused officers of the law were later acquitted for their crimes against their fellow citizen. Is it just one sect of the Black community that’s victimized? Has the bloodshed been primarily of the denizens of poor communities or the wealthy within the Black community? Who’s safe and who isn’t? This powerful artifact created by Kendrick Lamar depicts the death of a system that oppresses Black bodies, the death of a system that has perpetually ‘pimped’ these ebony-hued beings to its economic benefit. As he holds a symbol of the youth in his hands, his words, thoughts, and influence are closest to the ear of the youth, more importantly, the white youth. Who, over time due to the rapid commercialization of hip-hop have profited more from the stories of trials and triumph than the Black artists that created them. I believe Kendrick’s perceived audience is much wider than just that of the Black community. K. Lamar wants to reach everyone living underneath the reach and influence of this system.
In this image, we see a [presumably] young woman. the “rate schedule” sign next to her lists the following rates: Answers… $1, Answers which require thought… $2, Correct Answers… $4, and at the bottom it reads “Dumb looks are still free.” This is could accurately depict the young woman’s face as it appears she is looking at a customer giving them a “dumb look”. The restaurant is pretty clean as they received an 89/100 on their health inspection. Above her head, in an old coffee pot, reads, “Ashes of Problem Customers” and too her left (our right) reads another sticker that says “Thou shalt be badass.” Behind her lies a poster that reads, “This is not Burger King. You don’t get it your way. If you don’t like it my way, [then you] don’t get [a] damn thing.” It would appear that the young woman works in an establishment with a sense of humor towards its patrons, but this sense of humor is not simply jovial humor, I believe it stands as a reminder to the customer that they are not absolute in their complaints or jeers regarding the establishment. It seems that this establishment is a fun diner/place to get a cup of coffee and possibly a good laugh.
Every American’s right to bear arms is protected by the Second Amendment. It is well within the rights of every American to execute their constitutional rights. As Americans, there is not a uniform consensus on gun safety across the nation. On one side, some citizens may feel that guns are violent tools created at the hands of men that should be outlawed so that guns do not fall into the hands of innocent children or citizens with malicious intentions to rob and do harm to other citizens. While others feel that firearms are harmless until in the hands of citizens with malicious intent and that it is the work of a few people that ruin the freedoms for the populace at large. Both sides express indomitable truths. Unequivocally, there is not a uniform consensus regarding firearms and fire safety awareness. It could be safe to say that some of the population does not want anything to do with guns, while to others thoroughly enjoy all things related to firearms and educate themselves fully on their specifications and capabilities.
Who serves a greater danger? Is it the population that remains [willfully] ignorant to their knowledge of firearms or the side of the population actively engaging in their constitutional right as well as educating themselves and one another on guns and gun safety? How much of the mishandling and fear of guns derives from the lack of understanding of the very tools create by men themselves? Or can carelessness accompany overconfidence? Where do most the casualties lie? Is it with the ill-informed or the well-equipped?
So, the question stands at the center of controversy, should the public have access to firearms? I believe both sides offer strong points of support. I agree that without guns existing nationwide, would citizens have a true need for a firearm? The Second Amendment was made during a time when the average person more of a need for a firearm, (hunting and protection from dangerous animals, reckless militia). But has that need been translated as a need of modernity? What does your average citizen need a firearm for, aside from fending off the hypothetical robber? On the contrary, the existence of the Second Amendment directly supports the rights to pursue the “preservation of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” For some Americans, defense from the threats that exist, both foreign and domestic, as well as foraging and hunting for their seasonal meats are direct needs in accordance with the “preservation of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Who is another human being to quantify and define another being’s happiness? That one word has a different meaning for most every being on the face of the planet. The removal of this amendment would directly contradict with our constitutional liberty. I suggest that all of America educates its citizens on gun safety, stop the glorification of gun violence in popular culture and implement stricter regulations on how can receive a gun and how many a person is allowed to carry. Does the average, peaceful citizen need a small weapons cache for? Maybe the impending zombie apocalypse.
Cognitive biases are heavily pervasive in the many mental processes executed out throughout our days. Most times, they happen/ develop so effortlessly that it can be difficult to discern when your logic if wrapped in a bias. What is a cognitive bias? Pullman describes it as “tendencies towards distortion that all people are prone to.” Unfortunately and fortunately Pullman leaves us (the reader) with a vague definition of what a cognitive bias is. I enjoy Pullman’s text for this reason; he forces the reader(s) to create their own definition(s) of phrases based on implicit descriptions. In my mind, a cognitive bias is a simple error in reasoning that in unavoidable. Whether consciously or unconsciously, our minds are (at some point in our day) forming logical explanations for phenomena from common errors in reasoning such as arguments from availability, anchoring, assimilation bias, bandwagon effect, coherence, confirmation bias, exposure effect, recency effect, simultaneity and causation, and hindsight bias, to name a few.
I’ve realized after reading the last part of this chapter that I still actively engage cognitive biases throughout my day easily. The recency effect and taste/value confusion biases are most prevalent in my line of reasoning throughout my day(s). I find that my proximity to the quality of an event (e.g. the event being a “good” or “bad” experience) determines my perspective for imminent events. My perspective of an impending event, in my opinion, should be affected by the quality of that event alone in that moment in time, not any other experience in the past. Far too often, for example, our predilections towards or predictions for the quality of an event wrongfully aligned with commonly established opinions of prior events. Taking an example of romance, I tend to look for the antithesis of relationship A, that just ended, in relationship B. Or on the contrary, I look for “good qualities found in relationship A in relationship B. What is “good” and what is “bad?” The two terms seem simple, within the context of your own logic, but when searching for common ground amongst varying perspectives, you find yourself on shifting grounds. If perspective is reality and we all (presumably experience reality differently) then can we uniformly have a coherent definition of what’s “good” and “bad”? Is a talkative personality a “good” or “bad” quality to you? How are these terms quantified across varying perspectives? I tend to measure what’s “Good” to me as events or things that generally bring me satisfaction or pleasure. While “bad” things generally bring me discomfort. Is a level of tolerance a factor in determining what goodness and badness of something? I found that in digesting cognitive biases, taste/value confusion is one of the most difficult to escape because so much of our reality is based on our perspective and we all respond to events and stimuli differently. What cognitive biases do you find yourself caught in often? Do you feel there is a way to truly esacpe cognitive biases?
When looking at this screen shot of the National Right to Life’s site, it is painfully (no pun intended) obvious where they stand on the issue of Abortion. In addition, I see their stance on a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body is not in alliance with the individual’s right to choose. In choosing this side of the fence, they are clearly aligning Planned Parenthood with only one option: abortion. When in fact, Planned Parenthood is more than a clinic whose sole purpose is to abort gestating lives. What of the women whose bodies were violated and seeds planted against their will? It seems they are saying that women who suffer from these abhorrent crimes are forced to live with all the consequences. I see this site as problematic for the aforementioned reasons. Only allying with the right to life seems to omit the right to choose. How can one live if they are not allowed to dictate what happens to their own being? Many people of impoverished communities, namely people of color use Planned Parenthood for more than a convenient abortion clinic, as they serve in the capacity of preventative care. Care for all in need.
Image from NRLC website 8/26/17.
Politically speaking, who is their target audience? Aside from informing, what is their ultimate goal? The eradication of Planned Parenthood entirely? Or merely the ending of a specific practice?
walrustalk 
