Chief Seattle's Similes and Metaphors

                As I served my LDS mission nearby and on many of the reservations that may have been part of the offer which Chief Seattle addresses in his speech, I thought it was more than appropriate for me to do some rhetorical analysis on his words.

                Chief Seattle’s address is chalked full of beautiful metaphors and similes. Because this document was not only translated twice before making it to English I am not sure how much of these wonderful sayings are in an essence the original words of the Chief, but it is certainly the foundation of how he builds his argument. He does a great job at analyzing the past and building his speech to the current moment giving his speech both a judicial (review of the past) and epideictic (present issue) feel.

The name of Chief Seattle's Tribe

          He touches on some of the ideas of “self-development without interference” which we discussed in class the other day, in regards to his people and the new settlers in his area. He uses these liberalistic ideals to compare and contrast his argument, to make a list of pros and cons, and to eventually state what it would take for him to agree to the terms of the reservation deal. It is evident more than anything else at these points that Chief Seattle paid good attention to the Kairos of the situation at hand. There were likely many opinions as to what should be done with regards to the offer from the “white men”, and it is clear from this speech that the Chief was very tactful and careful to not step on anyone’s toes, or rather not include any possible thoughts that his tribe may have had. 

Women's "Revolution"

A short plug: There is a very powerful movie about women's rights called Ironed Jawed Angels, which accurately portrays the brutalities that these women faced like Susan B. Anthony. I would highly recommend this movie to anyone interested in learning more about the situation during that day.

Susan B. Anthony wrote the address that I read in 1873, three years after the 15th amendment was ratified, giving blacks, but not women, the right to vote. This caused a lot of turmoil among women's rights activists because they felt that sex, almost over race, should not be a reason to disfranchise a major portion of the population.

I particularly think it is interesting that women's rights during the 19th century were very reminiscent of the Revolutionary War rhetoric. Both written and verbal arguments followed similar patterns from the Revolutionary War except that instead of being repressed by the King, they were being repressed by men. For instance, during the Seneca Falls convention these women put forth the Declaration of Sentiments where they borrowed the wording of the Declaration of Independence to show that women were endowed with the same unalienable rights as men: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal." Thus, we see that not only are is a similar wording and voice used, but these women are extremely passionate about the cause.

I feel like the two speeches I read follow this same pattern of drawing on the passion and the rhetoric of earlier revolutionary writing. For instance, Susan B. Anthony quoted the Preamble to the Constitution in her address and uses the actual words from the document to develop her point. She is using the legitimacy and authority of the historical documents to show that women's right to vote should never have been an issue because they should have always had the right to vote.

Overall, I would definitely place these speeches in the same category as some of the other revolutionary pieces that we have read. They are written and given because there is passion and there is change that needs to take place. 

With Two Intents

With the introduction of factories into the Americas, industrialization began to grow at an exponential rate. Progressives started to induce change in a multitude of aspects within their lives. Nationalism initiated a feeling of superiority in their way of life. These feelings in turn justified their expansion westward now known as manifest destiny. Knowing that their way of life was threatened, Chief Seattle made a brilliant appeal to the the white man through an intelligent use of simile.

All I do is work, work, work

American's are known for working hard. But if you ask me, we've gone off the deep end with the idea! Why? We rarely work out of necessity anymore but work because we want more stuff, more power, and more prestige. American's take fewer days off then most countries out there and many American's do it because they are trying to keep up with the Jones'. Though working is important, all of this stuff isn't going to mean anything if we don't take the time to enjoy it! So maybe it's time we step out of the office for awhile and use those vacations so we can once again realize how we need to enjoy the time we have because memories are the only thing we'll take with us.

Small Piece of Paper: Big Problems

This video wraps up some of my thoughts on the perception that future actuaries need to go through the same process that the preceding generations went through to become certified.  Although this is a very specific topic to my field of study I hope that you can't take away some of the highlights to some of the more general dogmas with regards to credentialing. (Some of the other students in our class have done their videos/blog posts about this topic.)

(Hopefully this video updates soon so that it doesn't look as raw as it currently does. Either way, Enjoy!)