Kanye West, "I Don't Read"
Describe the rhetorical situation in David Cowen's response to Kanye West. What do you think is the exigence, or the catalyst, that caused Cowen to write this story? What observations has Cowen made about his audience?
The Idea of people either not reading in general, or not finding it important to read is the catalyst that caused Cowen to write this story. His example of the Father Bill and his Son Bill Jr is an example of people not finding reading essential. The Father “felt extra bad because he hadn’t read that a consumer safety group had placed the Sticky Stones™ on its annual list of the ten worst toys”. This example shows that not reading could possibly be precarious. Cowen realizes that people would rather do other things than read books. He first states that he likes matchbooks. This could be an indirect example of people who don’t go to school. These are mainly the people who commit crimes like robbery, extortion, Murder, or Arson. The reference to the MacBook is an example of people who all stay on their computers and socialize. His Statement, “Like see how many followers you have on Twitter, or take pictures of yourself with Photo Booth, or play Second Life, or check if Bill has checked your e-mail.” Is case in point what people would rather do than read.
ReplyDeleteLike Kanye West, many people believe that it is not necessary to acquire knowledge from a book. This belief is the exigence for David Cohen to write his story. A famous celebrity like Kanye West can write a book and people would read it because a celebrity wrote it. However, another rhetoric is Kanye West admitted to not liking to read yet he is going to promote a book in which he himself would not read. He stated that he "likes to get information from doing stuff like actually talking to people and living real life," when a book can provide one with a copious amount of information and knowledge. This knowledge may be from that author's real life and interactions with others in which that information in the book can be acquired to the person that will read that book. Many people would much rather choose to read their wall posts on Facebook or see who their followers are on Twitter than sit down and read a book. Cohen agrees that in todays society, people believe their social life is more important than sitting down and reading a good book.
ReplyDeleteKanye West made a statement that not only contradicts his own actions, but sums up a good amount of today's society's feelings on reading. This is the catalyst for David Cohen to write this article. Mr. West says that he does not like to read. That he would rather be "doing stuff.: However, one might find it funny that Kanye wrote book, intended for others to read, something he does not approve of. Cohen has observed that in today's world, most people would rather sit at home on the computer and socialize with people rather than actually see them face to face. He also concludes that more people would rather sleep, have more fans on facebook, and bask in the never ending salad and pasta bowls at the olive garden than read a book. Compliant with the fact that no one wants to read, Cohen also pints out that in order to be a functioning member f society, you must be able to read, and the only way to get good at it is to practice.
ReplyDeleteMocking Kanye West seems to have become a trend lately and, as writer David Cowen has pointed out, a quite necessary one as well. Ranging from triple platinum album sales to the worldwide production of glasses that probably make their user legally blind, it is clear that West's influence on younger generations of Americans is immense. In his article "Live your Life," Cowen mocks the hypocrisy of a cultural icon who really shouldn't even be one in the first place. West's disapproval of the human race's most essential ability is more than enough reason to question his celebrity status. The absurdity of a society that worships a man who promotes illiteracy is the exigence of Cowens article. Through Bob Jr., a boy in the hospital from swallowing 'Sticky Stones', Cowen emphasizes the tragic consequences of ignorance. Cowen observes that West is not alone in regards to his attitude towards reading. Many people would rather spend time on social networks, sleep or experience unconsciousness than read a book. These networks have replaced peoples conception of knowledge. Instead of reading the history of our nation, people would rather read their friend's tweet about the new shoes they just bought.
ReplyDeleteKanye West’s perspective on reading epitomizes the distinct shift of interests and values in today’s culture. An exponentially growing faction of our generation finds reading to be seemingly purposeless; others like Kanye find it even laughable. When you take a look at some of today’s highest grossing icons such as Lil’ Wayne or Snooki you’ll find that one never finished fourth grade and the other drinks her body weight in Jose Cuervo daily. Cowen condemns the glorification of such people who demote the significance of reading and education. Using mockery,Cowen illustrates the vitality of literacy.
ReplyDeleteThe catalyst behind this article by Cowen can be seen in Kanye's statement about not supporting reading and saying he would rather live life thinking he will acquire all the knowledge he needs without reading anything. This just paralles today's society where people are less likely to sit down and read and more likely to go on facebook for hours on end. He wants people to support the book he wrote but yet says he does not read anyway. I like the example that the author uses when he describes the father that never read the directions for this toy and now his son is in the hospital showing that you have to be aware of your surroundings and reading is a good thing, it always will be, the only way that human kind will survive is by passing knowledge through written down items, word of mouth just isnt reliable.
ReplyDeleteKanye West has a history of making obscene remarks that are questioned almost every time he speaks. Cowen's incentive to write this piece is based on the fact that West is openly encouraging people to not read while in the meantime promoting his own book. The fact that a man like this is allowed to write a book allows Cowen to speak in a rhetorical fashion. In his example of Bill and his dilemma, Cowen mocks how a man could put his child's health at risk by not reading. He goes on to show the shift away from reading books by many people who use facebook and other online wastes of time instead of bettering their mind by reading a book. Cowen's mockery of Kanye West and the rest of the non reading public is the catalyst for writing a piece that explains how people would rather waste time "living their lives" rather than reading the literary genius of mankind.
ReplyDeleteThe rhetorical situation in Cowen’s response to Kanye West is the way he is mocking him for being a non-reader. It is also the irony that goes along with Kanye West stating, “I am not a fan of books”, while promoting his own book. The rhetorical exigence of this piece is that people now a day are reading less, along with relaying less on knowledge and more on technology. An example is explained in this article when Cowen describes one of his favorite books as being the MacBook. This just emphasizes how many people are focusing more on technology. Cowen chose this style of writing to connect to his audience on a more personal level. He wrote in a way that was easily understood by all types of reading levels. I think Cowens audience was directed more at people ages 15-25. This is a critical time for people to expand on their learning and is crucial to read and become knowledgeable. I thought this article was very interesting and enjoyed the way Cowen wrote in a mocking tone.
ReplyDeleteThe direct exigence in this rhetorical situation is Kanye's comment. However, the subtle, underlying exigence is the one that is addressed by Cowen in his article. The underlying exigence is the fact that reading books is becoming less and less popular as time goes on. Cowen uses a sarcastic tone to convey to his audience what he thinks is the stupidity of Kanye's contradicting approach to advertising his book. His intended audience, I feel, is anyone who is aware of today's society, meaning a very wide range of ages. His purpose is to pointlessly and unsuccessfully alert people upon the paradign shift that society is taking on. Why do I say pointlessly and unsuccessfully? Because what is Cowen hoping for as he writes from the humor section of a newspaper, a revolution back to the days of reading books? Cowen's lack of credibility and use of statistics says otherwise, then again maybe he's just writing this article for money to put bread on the table.
ReplyDeleteThe exigence that caused Cowen to write this article is obviously the statement made by Kanye. The rhetorical situation in his response has a simple complexity to it. While Cowen writes in speaking terms and in words that people of all ages could understand, he’s making a daring point. He’s able to tactfully make fun of Kanye West in a subtle manor using humor and sarcasm. He references “books,” rather matchbooks and MacBooks, showing that people these days are more interested in “real life” as opposed to reading a book. People are concerned with “how many followers you have on Twitter, or take pictures of yourself with Photo Booth, or play Second Life, or check if Bill has checked your e-mail.” People won’t take the time to sit down and read a good book, which is why this article takes on a sarcastic tone. Kanye West says he is “a proud non-reader of books,” yet he is publicizing his new book. He says that he himself wouldn’t read a book, so why should the public take the time to read his?
ReplyDeleteThe rhetorical situation Cowen is describing comes in the form of mocking West’s dislike of books. The media driven society we exist in causes us to stray from ink and paper, and focus our energy on screens and keyboards. As West implied, he would rather learn from the real world, than read a book. Reading has come somewhat of a passé tradition. Cowen uses the example of a father who neglected to read the directions before his child ended up in the hospital after swallowing parts of a toy. Which illustrates the lack of simple reading that takes place everyday. Neglecting something so simple as reading the directions can invoke even greater consequences. This proves, reading will forever be needed to function in society and no one can rely on picking up information from friends, or the television, or the internet. Cowen wrote his article to appeal to a vast majority of society. His mockery of preferring his MacBook to a book exemplifies societies fascination with “real life” and technology.
ReplyDeleteThe exigence that motivated Cowen to write his sarcastic article was the stupidity of Kanye West’s statement. Cowen, being a writer, and therefore obviously a fan of books and reading disagrees heavily with his statement. Using sarcasm and making absurd comments about books and how they are a waste of time Cowen mocks Kanye West. Cowen ingeniously pretends like he shares Kanye’s view to just to show how absurd Kanye’s argument really is. The audience that Cowen is targeting is today’s pop culture. These are people who would probably share Kanye’s views or be swayed by him. It is a major problem and embarrassment that the young people of today are looking up to celebrities like Kanye West. Cowen successfully uses his sarcasm to persuade people that Kanye West is a terrible role model and makes ludicrous remarks. The people that will actually read this article will probably be adults who would find this humorous an agree.
ReplyDeleteCowen's essay on Kanye West's statement reflects West's ignorance in a sarcastic tone. Cowen describes the rhetorical situation with humor and extreme sarcasm in a order to emphasize the absurdity of West's comment. Ordinary people reading the article are most likely to agree with Cowen, thinking West is foolish and uneducated. Cowen's tone makes the article very persuasive and has the underlying idea that such a statement, that is meant to make the speaker sound profound and assertive, does the exact opposite. Cowen's humor magnifies the situation by mocking West and focusing on the 'books' that most people know and hear about nowadays. His hyperboles emphasize the ignorance Kanye portrays and Cowen even suggests that West may not be the only who feels this way about reading.
ReplyDeleteCowen’s observation of West’s statement became the original exigence fueling his cause to write a response. The extreme lack of critical thinking on the part of West leads to a statement to be refuted by many, including Cowen, and is why Cowen’s article came about. I believe that he sees West’s ignorance as a blatant error in communication, for not only does the entertainer have a public image that many follow, but he also cannot facilitate information in support of his statement. Cowen uses his writing to show how the quote cannot stand up to his belief of book reading.
ReplyDeleteThe writer has also gone through the process of analyzing the rhetorical audience. It was through this analysis that he chose to pick a route of sarcasm instead of straight-forwardness. Cowen could have listed reasons why book reading is important, but instead brought to light the actions that are incurred by lack of reading in the first place. Cowen feels that this route will be much more effective in getting across his point to his audience, and I believe it is extremely successful.
The rhetorical situation, as defined, consists of exigence, purpose, sender, message, receiver, and context. Under the context that Kanye west claiming no need to read, Dave Cowen, the sender, tires to persuade the audiences that living one's life is very important, yet learning from books is also an essential part of life. The exigence which leads Dave Cowen to write his story is that he considers Kaney West is misleading the audiences and thus he feels he is responsible to make a response to Dave Cowen's claim. Dave sarcastically points out the fact that Kaney West claims himself a proud non-reader of books, while he sells his own book. Dave Cowen uses his sense of humor and sarcasm to mock Kaney’s point of view. Dave Cowen uses life experiences and observations to convince people of his point. Dave uses the example of Bill not reading stick stones placed on a toy by a consumer safety group and caused his son to swallow the toys to demonstrate the importance of reading in our life. Dave Cowen uses rhetoric, as defined by Aristotle “the faculty of observing in any given situation the available means of persuasion,” to convey his point to the audiences. Dave’s ultimate goal was not to prove Kanye’s point false but to persuade the audience the critical value of reading in people’s daily life by providing some convincing facts.
ReplyDeleteDavid Cowen's exigence came as a statement from Kanye West who has stated that he is a “Proud non-reader of books,” yet has himself written a book. Kanye’s statement is not just his alone, most American find it not cool to read books and would prefer to know that they are popular then educated. He also states how crucial reading is to get certain information that you may not be told using the story of Billy Bob swallowing the Sticky Stones™ as an example. If Billy Bob had read the warning on the box or his father had read the consumer safety group’s list of dangerous toys they would have acquired vital information that could have saved Billy Bob a lot of pain. He also notes that people aren’t out there doing stuff in “Real Life” all the time and would have plenty of time to read but just choose not to because they think it will require more effort or be boring compared to playing a computer game or checking their twitter.
ReplyDeleteThe exigence that Mr. Cowen is addressing is the idea that reading of books or literature is unnecessary in obtaining information or knowledge and that this lack of knowledge can be supplemented with real life experiences such as “doing stuff”. He speaks sarcasticly from the anti-reader’s perspective which is ironic because his audience is obviously people who have the ability to read: and use it. This was a wise choice because a straight-forward message of “you should read” would not have been affective in reaching his audience. He further reveals his audience by making references to thought provoking books such as Catch-22 and Farenheit 451. Cowen tells us of a little boy whose father did not read the saftey warnings on a dangerous toy which led to his hospitalization. He uses this tactic to send his message that books play a vital roll in learning and even common sense. Cowen uses the examples of a matchbook and Macbook to mock Kanye’s disregard to books as not “real”. Socialogically, smoking is a habit, or vice, of the poor. I like his use of the matchbook as a kind of inverse of reading books because it touches upon the fact that people who do not read usually don’t further their education and work blue collar jobs where the smoking of cigarettes is nearly a universal trait. Whether through stupidity, ignorance, or reverse-psycology , I find it hilarious that Mr. West promotes his book with the message that reading is waste of time.
ReplyDeleteThe catalyst that invoked this article from author Dave Cowen is Kanye West's statement, "I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book’s autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books. I like to get information from doing stuff like actually talking to people and living real life." Kanye expresses his disinterest in reading through this quote which contradicts himself since he is the author of his own book. Kanye however is no alone in his belief, a lot of the country feels this feeling as well. We are more fixated on other things in our lives, most noticably, technology. The author describes this in his section on MacBooks where he discusses how "you can really do stuff on them". Cowen realizes that it is all these things that we now have in our world that have drawn people from reading books, which has led to the "proud non-reader" movement in America.
ReplyDeleteThe catalyst which led to David Cowen writing this article was the statement from Kanye West which read,"I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book's autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books. I like to get information from doing stuff like actually talking to people and living real life." Kanye West is not the best person to be commenting like this because of he is an author himself. However, the information contained is the statement is not completely untrue. People are more interested in many things other then books, primarily new technologies. Cowen has taken the strategy of using sarcasm and examples of people not being able to read to get his point across. I believe this is a much better route then coming across with a few main points that are very dry in which reading is a must do.
ReplyDeleteThe hypocritical nature behind Kanye West's remarks at his own book promotion provided the exigence for Cowen's response. Cowen's sarcastic tone throughout the article not only exposes the weak argument of Kanye, but also helps transcend his own opinion of modern day pop culture to his rhetorical audience. Instead of researching and listing all of the reasons why books are beneficial, Cowen stresses their importance with the subtle use of an underlying comparison of books to Mac books. In his article, he questions "Do you know how many fans Books have?" This strategy is ingenious due to the fact that his audience in the rhetorical situation obviously already read and therefore can more easily understand his disagreement with people constituting checking Facebook statuses as “stuff” instead of reading books.
ReplyDeleteThe catalyst, otherwise known as exigence, for Cowen's article was Kayne West's ignorant and repulsive statements about reading books. Kayne West, although he wrote his own book for the public's pleasure, hypocritically states in his own disinterest with books - which can be taken as obviously not true if Kayne took time out of his precious life to write his own novel. Therefore, Cowen responds to Kayne West's slander by deliberately attacking the points that Mr. West states: of books not being important and that by reading a book you are not living your own life. He continues to say, sarcastically throughout his entire response, of all the "stuff" that should be done and how none of these things involve reading in any manner. Cowen then proves just how important reading books are by giving the example of the young boy who accidentally swallowed metal plates and how the father knows he could have protected his son from the catastrophe if he had only read a little. Cowen uses these tactics to purposefully reach out to his audience: he believes that the audience is intelligent enough to pick up on his sarcasm and use it to see the ignorance in Kayne's words, thereby complimenting his readers. He tells the story to build a bridge between him and his audience by showing them a real life event that happened within his life, thereby allowing the audience to feel connected with both him and his response to Kayne West.
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