Life in the fast lane

Some reading notes on “Rhetorics Fast and Slow”

p.3 (of text): Usage of garbage playing time as a metaphor for the 2000 Presidential Election

- Really liked this; I hadn’t considered the way elections are run, but this made sense

p.4: Definitions of fast and slow rhetoric

p. 4: The take over of fast rhetoric and its dominance in every day life

p. 5: The Internet as the answer to all of our world’s problems

- This seems to be a little too optimistic. I couldn’t believe that people saw the Internet as the solution to racism, poverty, and every other man made problem out there.

p.6 Too much information is too easily accessible, making things more confusing to people

- I definitely am guilty of almost all 8 signs that I’m living a life of fast rhetoric; I also agree that the fashion of fast rhetoric has taken over slow.

p. 7: “Speed brings risks”

- The use of Internet and fast rhetoric has already introduced new risks into culture that once weren’t imaginable. I realize this is a ridiculous example, but look at “Girls Gone Wild”. Women in the 1970s and 80s on spring break weren’t exactly paranoid that their image would be broadcast for all the world to see

p.8 Slow rhetoric as a part of curriculum: outdated or overlooked?

- It is true that fast rhetoric is being widely used in classes, but I still write a lot of papers that are based on book research and work.

The class discussion about the article by Faigley and Yancey seemed to be at a standstill. Many people agreed with Faigley, and many agreed with Yancey. It was somewhat comforting to know that I was not the only person who grew up in schools that did not have readily accessible computers and Internet access. I think it is important to keep in mind, when considering both articles, that not everyone has the ability to access the media needed to keep up with changing rhetoric. If children do not have access to Internet and computer applications, then how can we expect them to be able to manipulate these programs in a class setting? While I agree with Yancey that Internet needs to be incorporated into everyday classroom work, I’m not sure it’s as easy as she makes it seem. Faigley, on the other hand, is much more skeptical and emphasizes the need to slow down. However, slowing down would yield detrimental results as well; children who aren’t exposed to the new mediums of communication will undoubtedly be further behind when they reach a high school or college level class.

I’m not going to lie and pretend that I’m the greatest reader in the world. In all honesty, I usually don’t comprehend much of what I read until other people start talking about it, and then the neurons in my brain slowly start to make the connections necessary to grasp the material my eyeballs took in days, hours, or even moments ago. In going over the article presented in class about Wikipedia, I realized that there are a lot of things out there that I’m not at all familiar with. I’ve never used Wikipedia. I always thought that it was a joke website, similar to getting your information off Facebook. Obviously, it’s more scholarly than I originally thought; more than one person discussed how articles are reviewed by professionals and corrected as soon as possible. But, is it really a common practice to use a site like Wikipedia to write papers? Only since I changed my major has paper writing become a large part of my academics. So I was curious if this was a widely used research source that a lot of people use for their papers? Like I said, I likened Wikipedia to Facebook, and therefore, the thought of using it to write a college paper didn’t even cross my mind. The article given to us in class seemed like absolute lunacy (as my group mates heard from me) because it wasn’t an option I was even aware of.