PCU

In class to coincide with our readings on logical fallacies we watched the movie PCU. One logical fallacy that I think can easily be found in the movie is “Ad Hominem”; the idea that there is an attack on the character of a person rather than their opinions or arguments. It’s when people focus only on one aspect of a certain person or group looking at them from only one view point and basically just highlighting back to the world all the negative things. Being a college freshman in today’s world I don’t feel as though this movie in any way truly depicted how college life really is. I honestly feel this movie and movies like it take 30 percent of what goes on in college and applies it as the face of the term college life in attempts to somehow persuade people to go to college. You don’t walk into dorms and see people high off of drugs, there aren’t happy hippie people singing on the lawns. In fact at Georgia State we obviously have no lawns. Yes there are people who do some of the things shown in this movie like drink, and go out to parties, and are firm activists. But it is not at all to the extreme as shown in the movie PCU. They left out the other 70 percent of college life which includes going to class, doing homework, studying, sitting around with friends and having in depth discussions about life, or just students simply hanging out and interacting without the drugs or alcohol. Even when they showed the feministic women in the movie they portrayed them as women who just hate men when in fact they may simply be a group of women who are out to support women. Seeking to uplift women and give them as much credit and opportunity as men receive in this world. Therefore using an example of Ad hominem, attacking a persons character rather than their opinions or arguments.

Death of An innocent

“For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many grief’s” (1Timothy 6:10). It is the idea that today’s world is so consumed by money that I feel that a character like McCandless very well could exist. It is for the same reasons that McCandless lived his life that I feel this way. Things like poverty, world hunger, and peoples absorption in the idea of money and material things, is what drives people to live lives like McCandless secluded from the world in constant states of isolation in search of answers to life’s most difficult question. Can money truly buy happiness?

Especially attending Georgia State University right in the heart of Atlanta one of our country’s most popular and biggest cities, we are surrounded by poverty everyday. The homeless people seem to flood our city streets in the same way students and the men and women of corporate America commuting to work and school do. They are wandering around trying to find places to get warm, change to spare, and food to eat. You have to wonder why it is that we cannot provide shelter and jobs for these people when five escalades on 22 inch rims just passed right by then music blaring windows tinted, completely obliged to their surroundings and the suffering that exists just a few feet away. To have to live this way with no help from those around you, why wouldn’t you be pressured to live a life like Alex McCandless? Why wouldn’t you want to run away from the cold hearted realities of the world?

And right behind the walls of that two story 6 bedroom red brick house lives a family that from the outside can easily be perceived as living the American Dream. Daddy makes six figures, mom stays at home with the kids, their oldest child is the captain of three athletic teams and on the Honor roll. But daddy’s never home because he has to support a family and stay at home mom, mom is all alone struggling to raise 5 kids on her own, and the fathers gambling problem is slowly dragging the family into debt, but they wear they’re smiles of deception well. See we’re often led to believe go to school, work hard, and be rewarded with a high paying job and live the good life. But we often are misguided, not taught about the true struggles and pressures of adulthood. They skip over money management, how to deal with adultery, raising teenage kids, paying bills on time. Life is hard no one teaches you how to deal with emotional aspects of it, how to react when thrown face to face into the battle ring with reality.

Nowadays to even get a minimum wage job without a high school diploma is difficult. Gas is sky high so you can barely get to work, the price of buying homes is constantly increasing, and foreclosures happen on a daily basis. We are often forced into going to college into working that 9 to 5, because as far as we know unless you can act or sing there is just no place for you in this world. But where do we place the people who although equipped with the mental tools to achieve the degree and job, just don’t want to live that life. Who like McCandless can’t bear to sit around and watch people around him suffer and want to get away? I don’t think at any point in time will we not be able to live lives like McCandless because of economic reasons. It is economic reasons that in my perspective are the exact reason people are driven to live that life. Hitch hiking from place to place roaming the backwoods of Wyoming, and mountains of Alaska. If for any reason that lifestyle couldn’t exist in today’s world it would not because of economical reasons but because of the people we are forced to live with, the amount of killers, pedophiles, and rapists seem to be steadily increasing with the years. McCandless lived a life of peace he did what made him happy and didn’t feel pressured to please his parents and take his Emory degree and pursue a career as a doctor. He roamed the world documented his travels and did what he loved everyday. His story is proof money cant buy happiness.

Benetton advertisement

After looking at the photo used in an ad campaign by the clothing company Benetton I feel it was a target at attracting more consumers. While it may have aided in drawing more attention to the disease, I feel marketers looked at this tactic as a money making scheme. By appealing to consumers emotions they were able to sell clothes. After seeing this ad I think it would prompt not only previous consumers but even new ones to stop and look at their clothes. They will want to see who it is that produced this ad and what they have to offer. The picture is something that will stick in their head and also the name printed on the photograph so when people see the name while out shopping they will be tempted to stop and look at the clothes. While some may argue that the company Benetton donated a portion of their profit to an AIDS foundation I feel that what they donated in comparison to what they make is a small amount as it often is in many cases. Even looking at the time period early 90’s where people were more close minded and uninformed about the disease, some may argue it was a big risk to use the ad knowing that people were so against those who had AIDS and afraid of contracting it, makes it an even bigger money making scheme because that right there to me creates controversy and controversy gets you publicity, its nothing more than public attention seeking. I’m sure sales went up after they used this ad, and if sales hadn’t gone up I’m sure the ad would have been immediately removed.