Week 12 Journal Response 4/9 – 4/13
This week we are continuing with fallacies, monsters, and monster theory. If you come across any of the topics we have discussed this week, analyze and write a short response to it.
You can also continue with your monster analysis and connect our theory to something from popular culture.
Make sure to include a link, summary, and analysis. Minimum 250 words. Comment below.
Professor Ramos' Blog 
Medusa is an interesting monster. She began by being a gorgeous priestess of Athena. Athena was a virgin and didn’t want any of her priestess to be involved in any such matters. Many desired Medusa for her long golden locks, perfect skin, just a ravishing women overall. Well Poseidon the god of the sea was rejected my Medusa many times. One day Poseidon was over getting rejected and raped Medusa in Athena’s’ tower. Athena found out and without warning turned Medusa to a hideous monster with snakes as hair. She couldn’t even look at other, because whoever looked at her eyes were turned to stone. Medusa was isolated. The interactions she now had were those who tried to kill her. Later on she was killed.
Medusa is a monsters created by Athena herself. This is why I feel Medusa is misunderstood. While discussing in class we discussed how monsters are classified by their looks, but as well as morals. There is many different thesis on what a monster id defined as. This is why Medusa isn’t the only monster in this myth. Poseidon is a monster himself for having bad morals. Raping Medusa for his own pleasure is not something that can be justified, it is just cruel. Poseidon was a monster and with a slippery slope actions, Medusa was turned to one. She never wanted to be turned ugly and stone others. It was an unfortunate event that happened to her just because she was a desired woman.
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http://allnewspipeline.com/Mark_Zuckerberg_Is_Evil.php
In Susan Duclos’s article, “Mark Zuckerberg is Dr. Frankenstein And Facebook Is the Monster He Created and The Monster Must be Destroyed,” she blatantly claims that Facebook is a monster. I support her claim because Facebook demonstrates characteristics of monster theory in Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s, “Monster Culture: Seven Theses.”
Regarding the recent Facebook scandals, Facebook is our modern-day monster and represents that “the Monster’s Body is a Cultural Body,” (Thesis 1, Cohen) because technological advances, such as Facebook, has created monstrous problems and consequences (i.e. lack of privacy for users). Ultimately, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, has created a new monster for our current and future culture.
Facebook also represents that “the Monster Always Escapes,” (Thesis 2, Cohen) because once anyone posts something on social media or the internet, it can never be fully removed. Facebook always returns to haunt those with past regrets for posting, liking, or commenting on a certain text.
The most common forms of communication were through telephones, face-to-face conversations, and writing letters; however, this was replaced by internet and cell phones because people could instantaneously communicate through text messages or e-mails. Similarly, Facebook created a huge platform for easy communication and sharing information globally. This idea represents that “the Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference,” (thesis 4, Cohen) because Facebook replaced the normal forms of human interactions, specifically face-to-face conversations.
Even though, Facebook is considered different, most of us are drawn to new gadgets or social media apps because of human desires and curiosity. This idea demonstrates that the “Fear of the Monster Is Really a Kind of Desire,” (Thesis 6, Cohen) because Facebook allows us to control how we are perceived and has become an addiction in today’s society. Furthermore, Facebook and other forms of social media can be a distraction from reality. Lastly, Facebook easily allows users to participate in social, financial, and ethical taboos. These taboos can range from participating in cyberbullying to catfishing.
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114369/ The movie titled Seven, stars two detectives, David Mills (played by Brad Pitt) and William Somerset (played by Morgan Freeman), in search of a serial killer, John Doe (played by Kevin Spacey). Mills is a rookie detective partnered with veteran detective Somerset. John Doe is a mostly calm mannered killer who bases his murders on the seven deadly sins, gluttony, greed, sloth, lust, pride, envy, and wrath. He chooses his victims according to which of the seven sins they are committing, then murders them in a way that corresponds to that sin. I chose this because John Doe fits into Cohen’s monster theory IV, The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference. The theory states, “Representing an anterior culture as monstrous justifies its displacement or extermination by rendering the act heroic.” He saw his victims, not as innocent people but as sinners who needed to be punished. He justifies his killings because of this. He believed he was doing the world a favor by eliminating them. This is an old movie, but a good one with a twist at the end.
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https://goo.gl/images/swWkjv
This image is an illustration of what the reaper was describes to look like during the Old Testament in the Bible’s Book of Revelation. The Book of Revelation describes the outline of God’s second coming. The Book Of Revelation contains many depictions of monsters including the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse that are shown as the ones who carry out to destruction of humanity at God’s command. The Four Horsemen are War, Famine, Pestilence, And Death. Death is describes as a viscous remorseless monster that reaps the souls of the people that dwell earth at the time preceding the Second coming of God. Death is quoted speaking to his victims with a very malicious raspy voice saying things like “take a look at the power I behold” referring to his mysterious book that contained the names of his victims and those who opposed God’s command. He is seen gripping a dark scythe taller than the average man capable of beheading someone as if they were crops to be collected. Although Death was sent into existence by God along with the other three horsemen, He instills fear into anyone who gazed upon him because when His powerful aura pulled up you knew it was time for your soul to be attained. Death had a different fate than the other horsemen as he was cast into the Lake of Fire along with all that were not recording in the Book of Life. Death was accompanied by Hades who flew behind Death with his mouth open ready to consume the souls Death reaps. Death rode upon a Pale Horse with a mission to unleash the onslaught of the apocalypse alongside the destruction that the other Horsemen carried out. The Pale horse Death rode on was encased in a realm of ash and misery responsible for destroying all remaining empires on Earth. I think the Bible does a very good job describing Death although, his introduction is more or less glossed over. Many modern depictions of Death are basically spin-offs of the original reaper of souls and contain many if not all of his basic images.
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http://www.the13thfloor.tv/2016/01/04/when-pennywise-was-real-the-phantom-clown-scare-of-1981/
Penny wise the dancing clown is a omnipotent creature in the Stephen King novel “IT” that hunts down the children of the town of Dairy, Maine. He is initially taken down by our protagonists. However there are cases from 1981 that show some weird connections to the novel. In the 1980’s the world appeared a lot safer to those who lived then, and was more carefree time period. This all changed on May 5th of 1981, when reports of children being lured into vans by men in clown suits, with pretense of giving them candy, started popping up in the Boston area in Jamaica Plain and Franklin Park. One was without pants and undergarments. This started a fear that lead to parents and teachers closely watching their children and went on until the 9th of May. As only children had seen the clowns, police had started to dismiss these claims as they could be works of mischief by local kids. However in Kansas City, Kansas , a report came in about a man dressed as a clown chasing local kids with a sword and the same went for Kansas City, Kansas. This time the man was caught as he was seen at 6 schools and wore all of the attire of a clown with a large knife in the back of his van. This could have been a semi-inspiration for Kings novel as it is about kids being lured or chased by a predator dressed as a clown and with adults either not seeing or not believing it until the danger is right in front of them.
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Zombies have been a monster in the world since 1819 and they have carried the same connotation ever since. They are the undead, reanimated corpses that live of off the flesh of the living. Zombies in today’s culture have been on a rise the last ten years or so with all of the new shows, movies, & video games. This species of monster is very unique in the way that they can be brought to “life” in many different ways such as; infection, disease, or even scientific malpractice or accident. The interesting thing about monsters is how they barely fit into the realm of the possible. No living creature can stay alive while their own flesh is rotting or even when they have half a body missing. Zombies are always hungry but yet they never seem to die of starvation. The only active part in a zombie’s anatomy is pretty much the brain due to that being the only way to “kill” them. Nothing living can survive with missing body parts, little to no blood, rotting flesh, and consuming little to no food for very large quantities of time. Zombies are impossible in the sense of staying alive and living off of nothing. The only way this monster could become real is if the human race makes it happen and in turn not only makes the zombies the monster but also makes the human race the monster. If you put it into perspective, the creation by man can not only ruin the human race but also make the maintenance of the entire planet swoop to an all-time low. Which arises the question of who is the real monster here, the creation or the creator?
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/untruthful-slimeball-trump-blasts-comey-as-details-emerge-from-scathing-book/2018/04/13/489ae64a-3eff-11e8-8d53-eba0ed2371cc_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.24e32965210b
In the News article by the Washington Post, they comment on how not only President Trump but also the Republican party are trying to undermine Former FBI Director James Comey credibility by giving him a nickname called “Lyin’ Comey”. They decide to batter down Comey and his credibility like that because he is going to release a book that describes the Trump presidency and so they want people to doubt him and his credibility just in case he reveals something that may be detrimental to the Republican party and or the trump presidency. They don’t just start there, President Trump creates a couple of tweets that accuse Comey of being a “LEAKER & LIAR”, it is evident that this is a prime example of Trump using a fallacy known as Ad Hominem to try and as stated before undermine Comey’s credibility. Trump Laos states that Comey “lied to Congress under OATH” which is yet another attack on Comey’s credibility since absolutely no one is allowed to lie under oath. He also uses the fallacy Guilt by association when Trump compares Comey to “Crooked Hillary Clinton case” which causes people who have lost trust in Hillary to doubt and possibly lose their trust in Comey’s credibility too. Trump also uses false authority by him being president stating and claiming that everything he claims true is factually true when he says “Virtually everyone in Washington thought he should be fired for the terrible job he did” he uses his position in power to make it seem that absolutely everyone agreed with his actions to fir Comey because of his apparent failures and the Director of the FBI.
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In this picture above the author is trying to say that if gun owners accept the banning of AR-15’s or any type of gun reform, then the government and anti-gun activists will come for all of their guns. That is an extreme point of view and is not backed with any concrete argument.
Lately I have come across many posts on social media where pro-gun people get so angry when they read or hear that students are calling for gun reform due to the reoccurring mass shootings that continue to happen. The definition of reform according to dictionary.com is: “make changes in (something, typically a social, political, or economic institution or practice) in order to improve it”. Nowhere in the definition did I find ban, or a synonym for it. Activists are calling for change, which includes more detailed background checks, and raising the age limit on who can get a gun. Most people can agree that the safety of children should be a top priority and should be willing to negotiate and find a middle ground that would allow for more through background checks while not having to ban certain guns. I am not opposed to people having guns. I have given some serious thought about investing in one, but I also think about the consequences that might come from owning a gun. Some of the responsibilities that come with owning a gun is having it in a secure place so that no accidents happen or, so the gun isn’t stolen and used for crime. In my opinion if you are willing to take on the responsibility of being a gun owner then you should also be willing to face the consequences when being negligent.
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https://www.britannica.com/topic/incubus
https://mythology.net/demons/succubus/
These are two articles that I found which cover basic information about the monstrous sexual demons known as Incubus and Succubus. Variations upon their stories have been passed around cultures for centuries. The first tale that I heard about Incubus and succubus told that these monsters target their victims in the middle of the night and appear as the victim’s desired sexual fantasy. If one is to experience seductive encounters with Incubus or Succubus, these monsters will begin to wear down your health, your mental stability, and they can even kill you.
The spirits offspring were thought to be supernatural. In certain cultures, it was required to rid of the Incubus child (the unwanted child) and sometimes even the mother. Other cultures identified Incubus or Succubus as being evil demons that would weigh heavy on peoples’ chests while they were trying to sleep. This could have been a conclusion which spawned from sleep paralysis. As for the average culture which tells stories of Incubus and Succubus, the monster tends to follow the article Monster Culture (Seven Thesis) by Jeffery Cohen in that “The monster itself turns immaterial and vanishes to reappear someplace else” (pg. 5) potentially attacking other victims in the night. Certain cultures identify the monstrous sexual demon as being attractive while others view it as being very unattractive. This follows the article Monster Culture (Seven Thesis) by Jeffery Cohen when the article mentions that “any kind of alterity can be inscribed across (constructed through) the monstrous body, but for the most part monstrous difference tends to be cultural; political, racial, economic, sexual.” (pg. 7) This implies that the Incubus and Succubus are a cultural-based monster and their characteristics vary depending upon where and when you are told the story.
-Jack Adams
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_sMyklCRhk
I wanted to better understand logical fallacies, so after doing some digging on YouTube, I found a great compilation of logical fallacies shown on one of my favorite shows, Friends. One of my favorite ones was the first one that came up; it was an example of a circular argument fallacy. A circular argument fallacy is when one uses the argument to prove the same argument. The scene shown from this is when Monica tries to convince Chandler to go running with her. He starts off by saying that he does not want to go running because it is Sunday morning. She asks him why he doesn’t want to go, and he again mentions that it’s Sunday. It made me chuckle because I know I have used a circular argument fallacy before without realizing it. Number five on the list depicts an example of a slippery slope fallacy. A slippery slope fallacy is when one argues that taking an action will lead to big consequences; the consequences tend to be quite exaggerated. In this scene, Chandler is freaking out because he and Janis broke up. Because Janis was his ‘safety net’, he now believes that the break up will cause him to be alone for the rest of his life, and therefore be miserable. Later on in the series, he proves himself to be wrong because he ends up falling in love with, marrying, and adopting twins with Monica.
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http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/trump-us-allied-strikes-aimed-syrias-chemical-weapons-54464209
Yesterday in the news, we saw that our President, Donald Trump declared war in the Middle East in Syria by dropping missiles on Syria’s chemical weapons buildings. The dictator of Syria had been using chemical weapons to gas women, children, and his own people. The president and the United States military decided to take action in Syria by attacking their weapons bases and trying to avoid civilian casualties. America thought it would be a good idea to blow up more innocent people in Syria to teach Syria to not blow up their people. The United States is committing acts of terrorism overseas, these are innocent people and children. “Casualties” just mean murdered by imperialists. Anything to keep the oil though.
This can be connected back to monster theory and how the monster is seen as a cultural body. Some may find what Syria is doing to their own people deplorable, although, the United States seems to be taking apart in the same crimes as Syria, although, we’re fighting for the “greater good” and protection of our control over oil essentially.
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0713618/ (Can’t link the episode because it’s on Netflix so here’s an imbd link about the episode.)
In the first episode of the television show “Supernatural”, the first antagonist is a woman in white. We first see her get picked up by a driver who was on the phone with his girlfriend, but hangs up on her when he sees her and is extremely attracted to her and clearly wants to get in her pants. She then kills him on this bridge. Her backstory was that her name was “Constance” and that the local story according to these two girls whose boyfriends went missing in the same area was that she was murdered and now her spirit hitchhikes and whoever picks her up never is seen again. The two protagonists of the TV show then investigate it themselves and find the newspaper story from 1981 that says that she actually committed suicide. The reason for the suicide, as said in the newspaper, was that she found her two children in the bathtub dead after leaving them alone for a quick moment. They also recognize the bridge where she committed suicide as the bridge the driver in the beginning was killed at. They then hunt her and find out that kills men who she finds are unfaithful because her husband was to her, and that she drowned her kids because of that. She hitchhikes and tells the men that she can never go home and the protagonist gets attacked by her but he figures out her weak spot by driving his car into her house. Where she then has to face the spirits of her children which finally gets rid of her.
This interpretation of La Llorona is similar the the story I’ve heard. The similarities being that she drowned her children and is caught between the afterlife and the real world. The difference being that she haunts unfaithful men in the show, but the story I know of, she haunts children who go off alone in the night.
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In this post we can see that there are many different logical fallacies’ we will be focusing on the logical fallacy of slippery slope. Which is deemed to take an issue or argument that suggests taking a minor action will lead to major and sometimes ludicrous consequences. In the first few seconds we see a car commercial that has a technology in it designed by google a search engine company that would be totally driven by itself. The commercial relates to this as seen in a slippery slope fallacy because they are saying that a car can drive itself by a map company in which a car can park itself. “It wouldn’t be logical to assume that self-parking cars would lead to robots harvesting our bodies for energy”. This type of fallacy seen here is slippery slope because we know that a car created with this type of technology would never harvest the human body’s energy or as an energy source. Robots get their energy from power and must be controlled by a human or computer system that is controlled by a human. Humans are deemed as the responsible party in both of these scenarios the creation of the car that can drive itself, and the robots that will never use a person’s body for energy. This commercial just lost its credibility by the slippery slope fallacy with the statement that a car as a robot will never harvest the human body for energy or use the human body as an energy source.
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