Michael Moore Idiot Nation Summary

1677 Words4 Pages

American Society: Careless and Mediocracy Are we the dumbest country on earth? Well, apparently we hold that tittle according to Michael Moore an Oscar winner who mentioned it in his Idiot Nation essay (124). Moore makes a clear and well defined points, which includes the reality of the United States citizen's and where they are heading, not just as individuals, but as a nation. To thrive, a nation needs a great foundation that holds and builds up each brick. However, if the foundation is damaged in losing its sight of the goal then, it will not be able to hold and build the greatest nation of this world. In addition, the bricks, which are the citizens will be defective and therefore easily crumble down. This is the scenario that the United …show more content…

In Rose essay A Just Wanna be Average he mentions how he becomes ignorant due to seeing his grandfather and father as victims. “My grandfather had lost his leg in a stockyard accident. Now my father too was crippled”. (5) An analysis of the word “crippled” reveals that Rose saw his grandfather and father as victims because of their physical handicap, which in turned, mentally handicapped him. This mentally handicap kept him from reaching out, out of the vocational sphere. However, when his father dies, he realized that he had logged up too many years of scholastic indifference (5). Meaning that the victimizing, ignorance had ended and therefore he was able to see beyond what has kept him in the same sphere. Being attracted to ignorance plays an important role in the lives of Americans because, like Rose, he became ignorant due to victimizing others and to an unconsciously extent victimizing himself. Another reason why American portray themselves as ignorant is because they tend to compare themselves with others and it makes them feel better of …show more content…

For example, Catalonia is thriving in arts and crafts. “From pottery and ceramics, to leather, a rich mix of art and artisanship offer an opportunity to appreciate some of the traditional customs blended with a young, artistic twist”. (Art and Craft) Catalonia is benefiting not just economically by trading these arts and crafts, but also teaching the young about traditions. As compared to the United States where those values are lost and people are replaced by machines because people prefer to be ignorant. In addition, India is thriving in the publishing industry. “We are a different phenomenon, we have so many thousands of publications in print, while publication is a dying industry across the world”. (Publishing Industries) Meaning that India is benefiting like Catalonia from the traditional ways. In addition, India doesn’t have the resources that the United States has which is technology, but that doesn’t stop them from thriving because Americans don’t get the best out of their resources like India does. In India the few who own an IPod use it to read eBooks and get more knowledgeable and in the United States gadgets are used for social networking and media which in the end doesn’t benefit them in acquiring any knowledge. Because in America there is a “purchasable education”. Now in days, the name of the school a

Rhetorical Analysis Of Blue Collar Brilliance
1112 Words | 3 Pages
Rose begins his article with his first rhetorical strategy of storytelling and description to describe his mother and uncle’s work environments and the hardship they go through. As a child, he would go to his mother’s work to watch her, “Rosie took customers’ orders, pencil poised over pad, while fielding questions about the food. She walked full tilt through the room with plates stretching up her left arm and two cups of coffee somehow cradled in her right hand.” (Rose 1) Another example that we see Rose’s use of storytelling is when he was brought to his uncle’s factory. “Joe took me on a tour of the factory. The floor was loud—in some places deafening—and when I turned a corner or opened a door, the smell of chemicals knocked my head back. The work was repetitive and taxing, and the pace was inhumane.” (Rose 3) He uses these moments to relate to you and show you the hardship they go through in their workforce. Rose wants his audience to understand that blue-collar workers, even though they don’t have a proper education for their trade, that have the hands on experience to gain the proper knowledge they need to know to successfully complete their job. He’s showing the type of environment they work in and the chaos that’s
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Michael Moore Idiot Nation Summary
579 Words | 2 Pages
In Rereading America Michael Moore entitled “Idiot Nation” focuses on the failing educational system in the United States of America. The American nation has decreased in their studies and have lowered their standards, yet America still claims they have their priorities in order, which is education. Moore attempts to persuade his readers that the people who are to blame are lack of education in politics and the budget cuts they are making, however, politics blame teachers for making America decrease in their schooling test scores. Americas have many opportunities and useful tools to be successful; however,
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Analysis Of Not Again By Arundhati Roy
1022 Words | 3 Pages
Though the world economy as a whole has grown in recent years, a factor that is not taken into account is that the number “of the poor in the world has increased by 100 million” (Roy 3). In other words, the gap between rich and poor is widening. For India, this has startling implications. Though it is a nation that is developing in many ways, it also is a nation blessed with over one billion citizens, a population tally that continues to grow at a rapid rate. This population increase will greatly tax resources, which can create a setback in the development process. The tragedy, of course, is that the world is full of resources and wealth. In fact, Roy quotes a statistic showing that corporations, and not even just countries, represent 51 of the 100 largest economies in the world (Roy 3). For a country struggling to develop, such information is disheartening. However, there is also a more nefarious consequence of the growing disparity between rich and poor, and power and money being concentrated in the hands of multinational corporations: war is propagated in the name of resource acquisition, and corruption can reign as multinationals seek confederates in developing countries that will help companies drive through their plans, resulting in not only environmental destruction but also the subversion of democracy (Roy 3).
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Theme Of Harrison Bergeron
740 Words | 2 Pages
Harrison Bergeron’s mother, Hazel Bergeron, is the definition of the Handicapper General’s “normal” and model for enforced equality. Everyone must be leveled and thereby oppressed to her standards. Hazel’s husband, George Bergeron, is no exception. “‘I’d think it would be real interesting, hearing all the different sounds,’ said Hazel, a little envious. ‘All the things they think up.’” (Vonnegut 910). George suffers from his own comically ludicrous mental handicap. The fact that this incites jealousy in Hazel reaffirms the artificial equality Vonnegut ridicules. The author satirizes oppression in American society through his depictions of misery and restraint exhibited in his characters’ ordeals. “The different times that George is interrupted from thinking, and his inner monologue is cut, we have a sort of stopping his having dialogue with himself. So he can’t have a unique personality, which itself involves his worldviews” (Joodaki 71). Not being able to know oneself epitomizes
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Critical Evaluation: Michael Moore’s “Idiot Nation”
1051 Words | 3 Pages
This essay “Idiot Nation” is seen as a voice for the people. The author Michael Moore is communicating what the people think to the government. He gives for examples of how to take action. This only emphasizes his argument.
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Analysis of Michael Moore’s Treatment of His Subject Matter within the Documentaries Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 911
2341 Words | 5 Pages
Analysis of Michael Moore’s Treatment of His Subject Matter within the Documentaries Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 911
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Nancy Mairs, Andre Dubus, Harriet McBryde Johnson: Disability
1916 Words | 4 Pages
...ive most of their life as a perfectly able-bodied person until a tragic accident one day could rob you of the function of your legs, and you have to learn how to cope with being disabled. Mairs illustrates that being disabled is more common than the media portrays, and it’s hard to deal with feeling alienated for your disabilities. These three authors have evoked a sense of sympathy from the reader, but they also imply that they don’t want non-handicapped people to pity them. The goal these authors have is to reach out to the able-bodied person, and help them understand how to treat a disabled person. The disabled people don’t want to be pitied, but they still need our help sometimes, just like if you saw someone with an arm full of grocery bags having difficulty opening their car door. They want us to accept them not as a different species, but as functional people.
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Lives on the Boundary by Mike Rose
1216 Words | 3 Pages
First and most importantly Mike Rose writes the book in the first person. This provides an invaluable view to the actual thoughts and perceptions of a student who considered himself to be underprepared. Mike Rose begins his accounts in grammar school when he felt lost in the material. The teacher did not hold his attention and therefore he began to “daydream to avoid inadequacy” (Rose 19).
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Disabilities in The Short Bus by Jonathan Mooney
1259 Words | 3 Pages
In the book, The Short Bus, Jonathan Mooney’s thesis is that there is more to people than their disabilities, it is not restricting nor is it shameful but infact it is beautiful in its own way. With a plan to travel the United States, Mooney decides to travel in a Short bus with intentions of collecting experiences from people who have overcome--or not overcome--being labeled disabled or abnormal. In this Mooney reinvents this concept that normal people suck; that a simple small message of “you’re not normal” could have a destructive and deteriorating effect. With an idea of what disabilities are, Mooney’s trip gives light to disabilities even he was not prepared to face, that he feared.
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William Peace Speech
1191 Words | 3 Pages
This tone is also used to establish an appeal to pathos which he hopes to convince the audience of the fact that handicapped people are still people and not less than anyone else. A very prominent example of Peace’s emotion is displayed when he says, “Like many disabled people, I embrace an identity that is tied to my body. I have been made to feel different, inferior, since I began using a wheelchair thirty years ago and by claiming that I am disabled and proud, I am empowered,” (para. 15). This declaration demonstrates to his audience that Peace is honored by who he is and what disabled people can do and that he is tired of being oppressed by the media. Peace also makes this claim to support his thesis in the first paragraph that states, “The negative portrayal of disabled people is not only oppressive but also confirms that nondisabled people set the terms of the debate about the meaning of disability,” (para. 1). This is Peace’s central argument for the whole article and explains his frustration with society’s generalization of handicapped people and the preconceived limitations set on them. Peace’s appeal to pathos and tone throughout are extremely effective in displaying to his audience (society) that those who have disabilities are fed up with the limits that have been placed in the
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Rhetorical Analysis Of Handicapped By Nancy Mairs
502 Words | 2 Pages
Society is quick to judge and label people different from themselves. Whether it is because of different ethnicities or any form of disability. Most of the time these labels are put forward with intention to hurt the recipient’s feelings. In the passage Nancy Mairs challenges and rebels against society’s discrimination and use of improper labels. She emphasizes that she should only be called crippled rather than handicapped or disabled because from her perspective the other labels make her seem weak and inferior. Mairs establishes her claim through the use of rhetorical devices such as tone, diction, and anaphora.
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Repressive Society in Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut
762 Words | 2 Pages
The most important theme that we can easily notice in the story is the lack of freedom, which is extremely significant to the American ideals, and Harrison demonstrates it as his escapes from jail, remove his handicaps, and influence others around him. In order to have a completely equal society in Harrison Bergeron’s world, people cannot choose what they want to take part in or what they are good at because if a person is above average in anything, even appearance, they are handicapped. These brain and body devices are implanted in an effort to make everyone equal. However, instead of raising everyone up to the better level, the government chooses instead to lower people to the lowest common level of human thought and action, which means that people with beautiful faces wear masks. Also, people with above average intelligence wear a device that gives a soul-shattering piercing noise directly into the ear to destroy any train of thought. Larger and stronger people have bags of buckshot padlocked a...
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Analysis Of Michael Moore's Idiot Nation
1636 Words | 4 Pages
In his piece titled Idiot Nation, Michael Moore depicts many faults of the American education system. One quote that caught my attention was “teachers are politician’s favorite punching bags” (pg. 160). Teachers in the public school system are grouped together as the number one predicament when it comes to America’s lack of worldly knowledge. He goes on to discuss the much more egregious and omnipresent issues. I enjoyed Moore’s counter arguments, because I have always disagreed with this myth without knowing the actual problems in our schools.
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Does Geography control your destiny?
651 Words | 2 Pages
India and China however, were landlocked and were by far the greatest industrial powers in the world till the Industrial revolution. Technology, not geography, helped temperate agriculture and industry to zoom ahead. One way a country overcomes geographical isolation is to improve its transportation infrastructure. Better roads, ports, paths, and other modes of transport provide access to world markets. But a country can only derive full benefits from these investments against a backdrop of good trade and macroeconomic policies. Consequently this leads to the belief that people again control the thought of their own geography.
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Understanding the Disabled
1223 Words | 3 Pages
In the essay “Disability,” Nancy Mairs discusses the lack of media attention for the disabled, writing: “To depict disabled people in the ordinary activities of life is to admit that there is something ordinary about disability itself, that it may enter anyone’s life.” An ordinary person has very little exposure to the disabled, and therefore can only draw conclusions from what is seen in the media. As soon as people can picture the disabled as regular people with a debilitating condition, they can begin to respect them and see to their needs without it seeming like an afterthought or a burden. As Mairs wrote: “The fact is that ours is the only minority you can join involuntarily, without warning, at any time.” Looking at the issue from this angle, it is easy to see that many disabled people were ordinary people prior to some sort of accident. Mairs develops this po...
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Michael Moore Idiot Nation Summary

Rhetorical Analysis Of Blue Collar Brilliance