"It's like, against society!"

This will be a long post - please bear with me.

First: I've finally finished uploading the responses to your drafts of Part I of the Rhetorical Analysis. This means that, if we were to keep the deadline of the 21st, you would have less than a week to process my feedback for your revisions. Instead, let's have the final version of the complete Rhetorical Analysis due by the 28th - we won't meet that week, but you can upload them to Blackboard and I'll look at them over spring break.

Second: Now that we've finished watching A Clockwork Orange, you can choose to write Part II of your Rhetorical Analysis about it if you want. OR you can choose to write about another persuasive text of your choice - an article, a video, a film, a song, a visual advertisement or meme - anything that has to do with the area(s) of violence that you are particularly interested in addressing. Be sure to choose a text that has a persuasive thesis and makes a specific claim - follow the instructions on your assignment sheet to write Part II of your analysis.

Next: Today would have been Jordan Davis's 19th birthday.

Unfortunately, Davis was murdered at a gas station on Nov. 23, 2012, by a guy who felt threatened by the loud music Davis and his friends were playing in their car. (I know his name; I'm not going to write it here.) The verdict came in yesterday that the killer was convicted on 4 of the 5 counts against him, which involved 2nd degree attempted murder....but was NOT convicted of actually killing Davis. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on that count, and so the judge declared a mistrial.

There are several different ways to look at this case, and I'm going to do so by comparing it to A Clockwork Orange:

1) Alex is solely responsible for his own actions; he behaves violently because of his own sadistic delight in hurting people.

AND

1) The man who fired 10 shots at Davis and his friends in the car did so because of his own violent tendencies (both of his ex-wives have accused him of domestic abuse in the past). His actions are the isolated act of a disturbed individual.

Another interpretation:

2) Alex cannot help but be violent; the society he lives in is vicious, brutal, and corrupt. The police and government do nothing to protect the people - in fact they actively prey on and exploit them. Alex is simply the end product of a society that has actively worked to maintain violence for its own purposes.

AND

2) The man who fired 10 shots at Davis and his friends in the car is the end product of 50 years of lobbying and legislation by gun manufacturers and the NRA, who wrote the Stand Your Ground laws that allow people to shoot first whenever they feel their lives might be threatened.

OR

3) There is no valid comparison between this science-fiction/dystopia story and the actions of a man who claims he was defending himself against a legitimate threat.

Remember Emily's blog post about the man who was convicted of sexually abusing girls. Remember Brett's blog post about terrorism. We could choose to look at these things as simply the actions of individuals, or as the inevitable outcome of a society that does not care about preventing such forms of violence before they occur, or working to change  the circumstances that lead to such extreme behavior, Instead the focus is simply on punishment. (Or worse - simply shrugging your shoulder and saying "Oh well, what can you do?" Or the classic line, "Boys will be boys.")

Can criminal acts like those committed by Alex - or by sexual abusers, or by terrorists, or like Jordan Davis's killer, or anyone else you can think of - ever be prevented? Can any of these people be rehabilitated? Do they deserve our sympathy, our help, our contempt and punishment? 

There are no easy answers.

This week I'd really rather focus on what we CAN do, through writing and lobbying and legislation and film and literature and art and music and dance, to make our society less violent. But first I need to go bang my head against a wall, because it's been a hell of a week for violent news.