Did He or Didn't He

In Jim Holt’s essay “Code-Breaker” he speaks of the life, achievements and death of Alan Turing.  Holt uses the ethos rhetorical appeal by establishing that he is knowledgeable enough to prove that it is the “technical side that Leavitt falls short. His exposition, full of the sort of excess detail that mathematicians call “hair,” is marred by confusions and errors” (Holt, 344) and further by stating that he has read other works based on Turpin.

            Holt wrote this essay to pass on the knowledge of Turing’s remarkable life to the world.  I consider myself someone who knows the bits and bytes of the history of computers and their inventors, and yet I have never heard of this man, and I have to ask, why?  For all intents and purposes this man should be a national hero in Britain for breaking a code that had a “hundred and 50 quintillion” (Holt 342) possibilities, and he should certainly receive more recognition for pioneering some of the earliest known computing machines, and yet he’s not.  That credit for Turing’s computer schematic pioneering goes to John von Neumann (Holt 341) and again I find myself asking why?  Is it because Britain was embarrassed of Turing’s homosexuality despite saving countless lives? Did they see it as a threat to decency?

            Turing’s death only creates more questions.  On the one hand there is a theory that he knew too many secrets from his code breaking days as he was privy to many military classified documents when he himself was not a military man.  Another is Leavitt’s theory of Turing being a gay martyr (Holt 337) that he possibly committed suicide via a poisoned apple in hopes of his prince charming waking him up with a kiss.  Holt finds this theory hard to believe but I’m not so sure.  After all a man as eccentric as Turing who solved the decision problem and pioneered some of the earliest known computers as a philosophical quest is not a man who makes decisions that are easily understood. 

            Following the essay there are questions for discussion, one of which asks: was Turing a hero or a victim? Personally, I think he’s both.

The Forgotten

In Jennifer Turpin’s essay entitled “Women Confronting War” she uncovers the truth in the background of war which nobody talks about, women suffer through heartache, pain and suffering during and after wartime.  During and after wars casualty numbers are thrown out in the media on a daily basis but Turpin describes the various torturous events that women undergo including: death, fleeing home country as refugees, sexual assault and violence.

            Turpin uses the rhetorical appeal ethos in validating her claims in this essay.  She references several credible resources to establish her purpose.  Furthermore, she uses concrete examples such as brothels set up near military bases, Yugoslavian women impregnated through rape by enemy soldiers, and Vietnamese women raped in front of passengers and crew on a fleeing vessel.  These examples prove how demeaning and emotionally damaging war can be for women.

            I do feel however that Turpin could have gone more into depth on some of the issues in her essay.  The essay has several short paragraphs on the different issues being discussed.  Turpin could have gone deeper on some of the issues, and merely glances on the surface on others.  The main detriment to this article is much the same as “Aggression” by Sissela Bok in that it relies too much on percentages and large figures to do the talking.  True story recollections from survivors are much more likely to generate empathy and response than slamming the reader with numbers they will not remember.  I hate to keep citing “Pandemic: My Country Is on Its Knees” by Stephen Lewis, but his essay his time spent in Africa is one I will not soon forget.  The personal anecdotes he uses to get his message across are eye opening and sobering to the plight of Africans. 

            Pain and suffering inflicted on women during wartime is a serious issue that is not often discussed in the media.  It is much sexier for the news networks to talk about flat casualty numbers and how current war strategies are failing than to delve deeper into the human element, and I feel that is what Turpin has done here.  I felt she could have delved much deeper into the subject but went with the numbers game instead.

Violence in America Part 2: Someone Agrees With Me

In Gary Kleck’s essay “There Are No Lessons to Be Learned from Littleton” Kleck draws to a conclusion that I did not expect to read just a week after blogging about Sissela Bok’s essay last week.  In it he determines that the media in its quest to make us feel better about terrible tragedies by placing blame.  Why take responsibility as a society when we can just as easily point a finger at some media determined entity such as gun controls or even gun shows.  Kleck states that those who perpetrate mass murder crimes tend to do so far in advance, and thus stricter gun controls and stiffer laws regarding firearm shows would be largely ineffectual.  Due to the premeditated nature of the crime, a perpetrator could plan for months, even years, and in so doing acquiring all of the necessary supplies needed to carry such an act. 

Kleck also speaks of “emotional momentum” which is a great way to describe the media hype machine.  As soon as the media gets a hold of a catastrophic event or heinous crime, it merely rides the wave, pointing fingers and demanding changes so it doesn’t happen again.  They talk to all the foremost authorities and lawmakers to ensure they’re doing their jobs until the next wave comes along, newer and fresher than the one before. 

We are urged to focus on the regular everyday violence that occurs which are more often spur of the moment and quite often could be prevented.  Kleck concedes that it would be nearly impossible to prevent a mass killing as there are no alarm bells surrounding the perpetrator, often from the middle class, with no criminal record and easy access to powerful weapons.  By focusing on preventative measures on smaller, ordinary crimes we may just inadvertently bypass a “freakish event” as he puts it.

Violence in America: Placing the Blame

In Sissela Bok’s article “Aggression: The Impact of Media Violence” the focus is set on the correlation between violence in the media with respects to how it affects violence in America.  The article uses several examples of studies that have proven the negative effect of media violence in everyday life.  Bok uses a logos rhetorical appeal with deductive reasoning in that violence in the media causes the American population to become more violent.  I can’t help but compare this article to “Pandemic: My Country Is on Its Knees” by Stephen Lewis.  In that article Lewis used several examples from his personal experience with life and death in Africa, and in these very personal anecdotes, he makes you care about what his appeal is.  I find in the article being discussed, the author mentions several studies and speaks of many investigators, but goes no deeper than that.  The reader is inundated with generalizations and research figures that don’t really tell the tale of the violence being committed.  Say what you will about Michael Moore’s journalism and interviewing style however “Bowling for Columbine” was much more effective in arguing media violence causing people to be violent.  In the film Moore speaks with family members of victims and criminals, media figures and American soldiers whose recollections paint a much clearer picture for the audience as a whole.  I find Bok and Moore both to be biased towards the conclusion they are drawing for the audience, however to this end I find Moore’s method to be much more effective.

It is extremely easy to place blame in this world, however society must be held more accountable for the way in which children are raised.  Violence has been carried out since the dawn of man, however if children are taught the context of violence and how and when it is needed society will much better off.  I find it comical that a country that was founded on the battlefield, a country which survived a civil war, the Wild West, 2 world wars, and many missions abroad can be confused as to how its children can be so violent.  Americans have a swagger about them that is proud to bear arms and to not take crap from anybody.  A country based on this mentality is bound to be violent in its very heart and nature.