Elie Wiesel delivered his speech, “The Perils of Indifference” to the White House in April of 1999. His impassioned message was that indifference is more dangerous to others than anger or hate could ever be. Wiesel solemnly tells the story of when the Nazis took him and his family to concentration camps. He vividly recalls the rage on the faces of the United States soldiers who later liberated him. Wiesel discloses that he will never forget their faces and will always be thankful for that rage as well as the compassion he was shown by those soldiers. This is because rage meant they cared. Indifference elicits no response. If they were not enraged, they would not have felt the need to liberate the camp. Wiesel acknowledges that indifference is seductive, as caring for others can create obligations, negative feelings, and more. However, to be indifferent is to be inhuman. With indifference comes a lack of compassion for fellow people. Without compassion or concern, community ceases to exist. Wiesel …show more content…
Amongst the audience were former President Bill Clinton, former First Lady Hillary Clinton, other White House Administration, press, guests, and more. During the speech, the audience was silent. Everyone was listening intently to Wiesel. In the video, one can see the former First Lady Hillary Clinton sitting absolutely still with her eyes locked on Wiesel. She is concentrating on his every word. Former President Bill Clinton is also in the picture and one can see him focused as well. Unlike the former First Lady, Clinton moves around a bit, adjusting his body position, head position, and hands. He looks down a few times, but always reorients his focus back to Wiesel. He was not as taken as former First Lady Clinton, but was still focused. At the end of the speech, the room erupted in applause for many seconds. Wiesel stood there naturally and thoughtfully as the audience thanked
Irish Playwright, George Bernard Shaw, once said, “The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.” Inhumanity is mankind’s worse attribute. Every so often, ordinary humans are driven to the point were they have no choice but to think of themselves. One of the most famous example used today is the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night demonstrates how fear is a debilitating force that causes people to lose sight of who they once were. After being forced into concentration camps, Elie was rudely awakened into reality. Traumatizing incidents such as Nazi persecution or even the mistreatment among fellow prisoners pushed Elie to realize the cruelty around him; Or even the wickedness Elie himself is capable of doing. This resulted in the loss of faith, innocence, and the close bonds with others.
Speeches are given for a purpose. Whether it is for persuasion, or education, or even entertainment, they all target certain parts of people’s minds. This speech, The Perils of Indifference, was given by Elie Wiesel with intention to persuade his audience that indifference is the downfall of humanity, and also to educate his audience about his conclusions about the Holocaust and the corresponding events. He was very successful in achieving those goals. Not only was the audience enlightened, but also President Bill Clinton, and the First Lady, Hillary Clinton, themselves were deeply touched by Wiesel’s words.
In the eyes of Elie Wiesel, author of Night, indifference whether it be in relationship abuse or another problem, is mentally damaging and needs to be eliminated. In his memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel illustrates how indifference can harm the mind of the victim when he says, “Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live,” (Night 34). In this, Wiesel is speaking of his first night in Auschwitz. When he mentions silence he is referring to the indifference that the Jews in concentration camps faced from the rest of the world. Wiesel refers to that night as the time he lost his desire to live because he saw so much indifference toward the suffering of the inmates and the horrific things that were happening to them. After this, his desire to stay alive was destroyed because he watched as the world stood by, indifferent to the senseless murder of millions. Throught this, Wiesel illustrates that indifference will impact people for the rest of their lives. Because indifference
Indifference is seductive, inhumane, and the line between good and evil. Indifference is helping the enemy, it is death. Writer and Holocaust Survivor, Wiesel Elie in his speech, “The Perils of Indifference”, argues that being indifferent to those who are suffering assists the enemy. He supports his claim by first defining and describing indifference as “seductive”, “tempting”, and “easier.” Wiesel goes on to illustrate the dangers of indifference by using personal experience and historical events as examples. Finally, the author creates awareness of indifference from the past, present, and future. Wiesel’s purpose is to describe why indifference is inhumane in order to persuade people not to be indifferent. He establishes a serious tone, critical, and somber tone for Politicians, Ambassadors, Mr. President, and members of congress.
To the people in the concentration camps, apathy is a “harsher punishment” (Wiesel) than anger or rage, because anger has feelings in it, while indifference just makes a suffering person feel even smaller and more insignificant. Indifference in humans potentially goes against religion, because it blurs the lines between “light and darkness” (Wiesel). Throughout his speech at the Millennium Lectures, Elie Wiesel both enlightens on the consequences of apathy towards those who need help, and inspires hope for a better future.
The unimaginable actions from German authorities in the concentration camps of the Holocaust were expected to be tolerated by weak prisoners like Wiesel or death was an alternate. These constant actions from the S.S. officers crushed the identification of who Wiesel really was. When Wiesel’s physical state left, so did his mental state. If a prisoner chose to have a mind of their own and did not follow the S.S. officer’s commands they were written brutally beaten or even in severe cases sentenced to their death. After Wiesel was liberated he looked at himself in the mirror and didn’t even recognize who he was anymore. No prisoner that was a part of the Holocaust could avoid inner and outer turmoil.
Persuasion Throughout history there have been many struggles for freedom and equality. There was the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. There was the fight against government censorship in Argentina, spoken against by Luisa Valenzuela. And there was the struggle for women's equality in politics, aided by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
Throughout history, there have been hardships on the human race, such as war, famine, natural disasters, and poverty. In these hardships, people have demonstrated acts of kindness and generosity. World War ll was a time of sorrow and suffering, especially for the people of the Jewish religion. Elie Wiesel's nonfiction work, “Night”, proves that kindness and generosity can exist in times of cruelty and suffering.
In “The Perils of Indifference” Elie Wiesel uses several techniques to get his point across. Three of them in the speech are Ethos, Repetition, and Pathos. He uses a combination of the three elements throughout the paragraphs of his speech to attract the readers. The combination of these elements help draw the reader’s emotions and interest towards his subject. He focuses on word choice that would pertain to his audience’s level of vocabulary.
As the speech, more forwards with the issue of Indifference, Wiesel states more personal experience of how indifference split his community to represent addition proof of the negative side of indifference to gain credibility. Nevertheless, he hypothesized that if the nation knew what was having the would have intervene as soon as possible therefore we reach a state when he had proclaimed that if only Americans had bomb those railways just once, they all could have been saved. Here Wiesel body movements turned to a throw down fist as the sense of a tone change appears as disappointed. This Historical fact that lead to the body movement was use to symbolize that all the Americans look over anything that affects them and not others. Wiesel suddenly mentions Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his actions towards this
Sherry Turkle’s article in The New York Times “The Flight From Conversation”, she disputes that we need to put down the technology and rehabilitate our ability to converse with other human beings because we are replacing deep relationships with actual people for casual encounters on technology. Turkle tries to convince young and middle age individuals who are so enthralled by the technology that they are losing the ability to communicate in a public setting. Sherry Turkle unsuccessfully persuades her audience to put down the technology and engage with others in public through her strong logos appeal that overpowers her weak logos and doesn’t reliably represent herself and her research.
Although the former president was sure to be embarrassed and nervous about his infelicitous acts, he remained dedicated to truthfully inform and apologize to the American people. Throughout the speech, Clinton uses absolutely no gestures. This represents a sign of confidence and seriousness but can also be misunderstood as nervousness, as it was by many viewers. Also, the use of his straight and focused facial expression is used to portray the importance of the issue and his earnestness about his selfish mistakes. He maintains the same calm and resolutely blank facial expression throughout majority of the speech, conveying his seriousness and focus he has for this apology. Lastly, during the entirety of the speech, Clinton gazes directly into the camera to simulate eye contact with all viewers. This technique was used to establish a sense of security, trust, and honesty while also creating bonds between the viewers by making it feel as if he was talking to each individual specifically. Clintons overall purpose of his lack of movement and blank facial expression was ultimately used to reveal his focus on the issue and express his most sincere apologies for wronging the American people. Not only did his physical expressions help contribute to the main ideas of the speech back then, but today it still remains significant because it may have reestablished the trust between the former president and the
”Lie down on it! On your belly! I obeyed. I no longer felt anything except the lashes of the whip. One! Two! He took time between the lashes. Ten eleven! Twenty-three. Twenty four, twenty five! It was over. I had not realized it, but I fainted” (Wiesel 58). It was hard to imagine that a human being just like Elie Wiesel would be treating others so cruelly. There are many acts that Elie has been through with his father and his fellow inmates. Experiencing inhumanity can affect others in a variety of ways. When faced with extreme inhumanity, The people responded by becoming incredulous, losing their faith, and becoming inhumane themselves.
Wiesel’s speech, persuasive in nature, was designed to educate his audience as to the violence and killing of innocent people across the globe. Wiesel spoke of acts that had taken place throughout his lifetime, from his youth, up through present day atrocities. His focu...
In 1729, Jonathan Swift published a pamphlet called “A Modest Proposal”. It is a satirical piece that described a radical and humorous proposal to a very serious problem. The problem Swift was attacking was the poverty and state of destitution that Ireland was in at the time. Swift wanted to bring attention to the seriousness of the problem and does so by satirically proposing to eat the babies of poor families in order to rid Ireland of poverty. Clearly, this proposal is not to be taken seriously, but merely to prompt others to work to better the state of the nation. Swift hoped to reach not only the people of Ireland who he was calling to action, but the British, who were oppressing the poor. He writes with contempt for those who are oppressing the Irish and also dissatisfaction with the people in Ireland themselves to be oppressed.