Wag the Dog Reaction

Wag the Dog: great political movie that shows the true power of persuasion and how it can be used in a negative light or an un-clever name for a bestiality porno? You be the judge! If you selected choice number one you’re correct, good for you, your mom would be proud. If you selected choice number two you need serious psychiatric help and may God have mercy on your soul, but then again I’m not here to judge... (Sinner). Too preachy? Anyway, on with the reaction.

This is one of the rare cases in which a movie is made and the content serves as a major foreshadower for the real life future, kind of like a whole life imitating art sort of thing. If you haven’t seen the movie, which if you’re reading this you should have because you’re either a fellow classmate who also has this assignment, or are the professor who has given the assignment and is getting tired of me stalling with this intro so we’ll continue, the movie is about this master of “spin,” played by Robert Deniro, which devises a plan to stage a fake war in order to divert the public’s minds away from a recent sex scandal involving the president. The plan is to stage a war in the country of Albania because few people know enough about the country to question the clever ruse. Although this movie is cleverly disguised as a comedy, it really does have a much deeper, powerful, and rather dark message of how politics and the media can be used and how easily we as a nation can be misled, or in this case, downright lied to. This movie became extremely controversial because it was made shortly before the Clinton/ Monica Lewinsky fiasco happened, where at the same time “coincidently enough” the president had just gave orders on a three day bombing of Iraq.

This was a little creepy to see I must admit, but at the same time it’s not as if we can just look back on that as a scary time in politics where perhaps a real life “wag the dog” was taking place because things in the movie still to this day directly correlate with some of the current administration actions taken under G.W. Bush. For instance, the scare tactics of a war used in the movie to scare the public into a blind faith of their current president sounds a little familiar doesn’t it… by the way, it’s code blue tomorrow so make sure to pack your rations in you backpacks. How about when Bush miraculously found Saddam Hussein in that spider hole in the middle of no where right around the same time as his reelection? The creepiest part of the movie was Deniro’s character and his complete lack of respect for common ethics. If this isn’t proof that some type of ethical foundation needs to be used in teaching ethics then I don’t know what is. Canrad (Deniro) has a complete Sophist-esque outlook on life in that perception is reality. Throughout the movie, he keeps making reference to if you see it on TV it must be true. Clearly he doesn’t actually believe that but he does know that that’s what most people believe. If the newsman says something it must be true. It’s like the Nazis and the theory of the great lie. If you say a lie enough, people will not only believe it but possibly embrace it. Conrad is a true believer in the end justifies the means or as Plato once said “It doesn't matter how the fuck you get there as long as you get there.”(Insert smile face here) A great example of this is when at the end of the movie Conrad has Stanley killed out of fear he will go public with their fake war. Now I’m not sure if I’m reading too much into this but, in the final shot where Conrad looks at Stanley for the last time through the window, the American flag is reflected on the window around Conrad’s face and it seems transparent. Perhaps this was the director’s way of saying that perhaps this flag that we hold so dear as a symbol of freedom and honor has now been made transparent or without substance with actions like that of Conrad. Or maybe he thought it was just a really cool camera shot… who knows? All I can say is that I really enjoyed this movie and call me crazy, but this unknown Deniro kid, I think maybe just maybe he’s got a future in this movie business.

Wag the Dog, by MirO

Helloooo, "1984." As soon as I understood what "Wag the dog" is about, I thought of George Orwell's book. The movie started with the elaborate explanation of the joke about the dog and its tail - if the tail is smart enough, it will wag the dog instead of the other way around. The movie showed how two smart men can manipulate the whole nation. Their power to control all the media is a little far-fetched because such a big scam will have a leak from somewhere; for example - someone form the set where they shot the clip with the Albanian girl.

However, the idea is what important. Mass media is a very powerful tool and the image that the average man has is the key to unite the nation under one cause. History shows that too - Communist propaganda and Hitler's reign in Germany controlled the masses.

De Niro's character, Conrad, impressed me with his methods. First, the whole idea with getting nation's attention away from the sex scandal with a made-up war was brilliant. Even his assistants were asking him about the B-3 bomber - that's how persuasive he was. Second, the talk with the man from the CIA was another great example of rhetoric. Conrad went for the weak spot in CIA's position - he actually blamed them for not being able to find any evidence of terrorism, bombs, or preparations for war.

Another important point made by the movie was the power that Hollywood has. Although mass media reaches everybody in the country every day, Hollywood creates images and stereotypes that also affect the mindset of the people.

Finally, the movie also reminded about a piece of information that reached me in a way or another. During some of the wars, CNN actually artificially shot some of the footages that were supposed to be part of a report on one of the wars in Asia. The source where I read or watched that (I don't remember since it was a long time ago), pointed out that due to the lack of "action" at the war front, CNN made up such action just to have fresh material to show.

Who Wagged the Dog?

“Wag the Dog” is a movie about an ideology of rhetoric and how it affects its audience. First, the ideology is to take advantage of the audience’s trust. Almost everyone relies on the government and has some level of trust with them. This is a trust, but not as powerful as the impact the media has on people. This is the medium that is powerful enough to convince a large population of people of whatever they want them to believe. The rhetoric comes in play when two people, Conrad and Stanley, use their rhetorical skills with the power they are given, and use the medium of national media to orchestrate their own war. The audience, which is the general public, is going along with the whole thing, because the two things they trust and rely on, the government and the media, are working together with some powerful people to generate a series of events which are completely fictional.
The title of the movie is very interesting. It’s taken from the joke: Why does a dog wag its tail? Because a dog is smarter than its tail. If the tail was smarter, the tail would wag the dog." This is the first sequence shown in the movie. There are many ways to interpret the title. First, the dog is public opinion, and the tail represents the media. Second, the dog is the media, and the tail is political campaigns, and thirdly the dog is the people, and the tail is the government. When considering the personal relations in the movie, the dog is the president and the tail represents his PR assistants, who immediately assume the authority for the damage control. Plus the expression "the tail wagging the dog" refers to any case where something of greater significance is driven by something lesser. The last sequence, when Stanley is taken away by the agents, I knew he was going to be killed, because he was the “something lesser” and Conrad was the “something greater”. I believe Conrad knew from the beginning that this was going to be the demise of Stanley, and he was the one wagging the entire time.

Second Persona Reaction

Although the article The Second Persona beats the phrase ‘cancer of communism’ to death, Edwin Black’s extensive analysis produces several interesting points. The Second Persona first discusses the idea of human bias in all forms of rhetoric even the most seemingly arbitrary. He also discusses the extreme difference between idiom and ideology. Finally, the most interesting point that he alludes to is the power of words and the psychology that accompanies rhetoric.
Black puts the ethics of rhetoric into perspective by stating that no human work goes without some bias. “Moral judgments, however balanced, however elaborately qualified, are nonetheless categorical. Once rendered, they shape decisively one’s relationship to the object judged,” (Black). Black defines the ‘second persona’ as the auditor and focuses his essay more on the ethical responsibility of the auditor because they must acknowledge the constant biases in the speaker.
Addressing the issue of personal bias, Black brings up his definition of ideology. He addresses the fact that any human concept and moral position on a certain subject can become their ideology and exemplifies this through the rhetoric used for school integration. “…if the auditor himself begins using the pejorative term, it will be a fallible sign that he has adopted not just a position on school integration, but an ideology,” (Black). Identifying certain beliefs as an ideology becomes in itself an ideology and bias. In his discourse, he craftily displays his own personal biases by identifying the biases in even such simple terms as “cancer of communism”.
Black argues that this term is not just an idiom, a stylistic expression with non-literal meaning, but a rightwing ideology. Through an extensive analysis of each word and word origin Black conveys that this term, which can many times be absorbed peripherally, actually involves an extensive centralized though-processes. Black brings to light the power of words in his “word psychology”, if you will. “…if psychiatry had a “line” of any kind on this symptom—such clinical information could be applicable in some way to those people who are affected by the communism-as-cancer metaphor,” (Black).
Black states that all rhetoric contains a bias and this is reflected in the ideology of the rhetorician, but it is also the duty of the auditor to identify this. “…the association between an idiom and an ideology is much more than a matter of arbitrary convention or inexplicable accident,” (Black). He encourages us not to take seemingly simple idioms for granted if we want to be a responsible auditor and truly exhibit a perceptive ‘second persona’.

Let's Talk about Violence

Watch these movie trailers, and think about the aesthetics of violence... What is the ethics of violent response? How do these two movies address different notion of appropriate responses? How might pretty persuasion like this shape our understanding or interpretation of the current war?

Stop Loss-a movie about US troops in (and out of) Iraq.


Defiance-a movie about Jewish/Russian refugees/warriors in WWII.

Second Persona by Edwin Black

Hey...

Question: Have you ever read something, and after you read it asked, "What the hell?"

Answer: Second Persona by Edwin Black takes the cake of boredom and confusion. The only piece of wisdom I got from this essay was when Black stated:

"Each one of us, after all, defines himself by what he believes and does. Few of us are born to grow into an identity that was incipiently structured before births. That was, centuries ago, the
way with men, but it certainly is not with us. The quest for identity is the modern pilgrimage. And we look to one another for hints as to whom we should become. Perhaps these reflections do not apply to everyone, but they do apply to the persuasible, and that makes them germane to rhetoric."

Will I be wrong if I say that each person in my class is a victim of "social proof"? How many us of look to someone for hints as to whom he/she should become? I will take a guess here and say that we all did. Every person (no matter how original you are) comes to a point where fitting in or following someone is the if and but of all things! It is natural...if we dont follow how do expect to lead?! Burke makes a point that since "some" follow...they are persuasible, thus vulnerable to rhetoric. But aren't we ALL vulnerable...to speakers with fancy words, people with good looks...its society. For Burke to conclude that it does not apply to everyone is naive. Everyone is has the ability to persusade and to be persuaded.

Cheating is in the Air

Check out this blog, written by a friend of mine. Look at the clip about cheating, and tell me there isn't something weird going on around here.