THE American Dream - RWS 200

In high school I read many academic readings for my AP composition class. I'm not going to lie, I didn't enjoy reading or writing about these articles but it had/has to be done to further my education. I didn't like reading these articles because they were lengthy and many of them had language that I couldn't understand so, it just made them more difficult to read. I don't have anything against the writers or what they were writing, it's just that I don't like to read academic writing. I'm also not a great writer, I'm more of a math/science brain, so writing is hard for me and the paper I wrote on academic writing was one of the worst I had done.  Although I said all these things I don't like about academic writing, there are some things that I do like. I like that it teaches you about the topic and helps you further your education. Sometimes I enjoy reading academic writing when the topic engages me. It is also very helpful if the aut...

Throughout the fifth principle Chomsky talks about how to attack solidarity. Chomsky claims that solidarity is "quite dangerous" because according to the "masters" you are only suppose to care about yourself. So, when people come together and agree that something is running badly, the "masters" are afraid that the people will speak up or rebel. When rich people think and act only about/for themselves it's okay because they're powerful but when the poor do it, it becomes destructive for the rest of society. Chomsky uses public education, social security, privatization and the government as a great examples of how the rich, wealthy and powerful do not like solidarity. "We see it [solidarity] in the attack on public schools. Public schools are based on the principle of solidarity." (Pg. 66) Chomsky claims that the rich, wealthy and powerful are attacking public education because of solidarity. Public education can only function becau...

Society has been built so that only the rich can be wealthy and it is almost beyond possible to be poor and become rich. Throughout the reading Chomsky talks about the 10 principles of concentration of wealth and power. The super wealthy only contains about 1% of our population or less, but this 1% still controls the structuring of society according to Chomsky. I 110% agree with Chomsky on the fact the wage gap is ridiculous and without it, more people would be able to have better opportunities. I think the quote, "It's not what you know, it's who you know," is very prevalent in this situation. Many people who are born in low class or lower middle class don't have the opportunity to become wealthy or land a great job that makes you able to climb in the class levels not because they're not educated but because they don't have connections within big business or corporations. Chomsky talks about how in America it used to be a lot easier to climb the cl...

A main issue in our society today is how many people hear and believe fake news or nonfactual information. Jones talks about how many public arguments don't have facts or logic to enforce the points they are trying to get across. "What is often missing from these discussions is research, consideration of multiple vantage points, and, quite often, basic logic." (pg. 158) Jones presents the idea that some versions of arguments on T.V., radio shows, or even news programs can sometimes be like a circus. Jones later shows how in order to have a good argument all your claims must be valid so, if you're claims aren't true then your argument is invalid.  The idea that people can report news without source checking themselves or the ideas they're presenting is ridiculous to me. Personally, I don't believe that news reporters should be giving out their arguments without having done all the research. When reporters give out false information in their argu...