TOW #7 The Power of Disgust

In a speech given at a TED conference filmed in May, psychologist David Pizarro details the findings of his study on the emotion of disgust and how it might play a role in our political decisions.  Pizarro is currently an associate psychology professor at Cornell University and recently conducted a survey in which he measured a person’s tendency to be disgusted and how it might affect their political leanings.  He was able to engage the audience by describing the exact process he went through to conduct the survey, which involved showing the exact same images in the presentation that he used to illicit a disgusted response during the survey, such as blood and vomit.  In addition, he repeatedly used humor as a way to keep the audience entertained yet focused on the topic at hand.  Pizarro eventually determined that the more likely a person was to be disgusted, the more likely they were to be politically conservative.  

Beyond simply stating this conclusion though, Pizarro also posed a specific question to his audience, most of whom were TED speakers themselves and therefore were familiar with the scientific process Pizarro used to conduct his study.  Ultimately, he questioned why we tend to view things like gay marriage as disgusting, even though disgust as an emotion is meant to protect us from disease and potential contamination. By providing statistical evidence, Pizarro forces his audience to question their own method of political decision-making and to be wary of those trying to manipulate the emotion of disgust as a tool for political gain.          

TOW #6 "If You Fix Cities, You Kind of Fix the World"

Experts estimate that by the end of the century, up to 75% of the world’s population will live in urban areas.  It is for this reason that Tony Hsieh, chief operator of the online store Zappos, believes that “If you fix cities, you kind of fix the world.”  An article recently published in the New York Times Magazine details Hsieh’s efforts to fix the city of Las Vegas through an effort known as the Downtown Project.  Timothy Pratt, the author of the piece, works as a journalist for the Las Vegas Sun and the publisher of the article, the New York Time Magazine, operates as a supplement to the New York Times. 

In his article, Pratt describes how the Downtown Project works through investing in business start-ups that require their employees to live and work in Las Vegas.  In addition, he uses the article as a way to highlight the fact that despite Hsieh’s ambitious plans, the success of city revitalization projects is often difficult to measure.  Throughout the text, Pratt cites various authorities in the field such as Edward Glaeser, a Harvard economist, and Richard Florida, an urban theorist, as a means of employing logos.  Furthermore, Pratt includes dialogues between Hsieh and the owners of potential investment opportunities as way to establish credibility as an author and to reveal the way in which Hsieh runs the Downtown Project.  Readers of the New York Times Magazine will ultimately gain not only a better understanding of one particular endeavor to revitalize the city of Las Vegas, but also an understanding of the challenges that face all city revitalization projects.    

TOW #5 "The Hit Man's Tale"

                Work is scarce Detroit, Michigan and as a result, drug trafficking has become increasingly prevalent in recent years.  An article titled “The Hit Man’s Tale”, written by Nadya Labi and published in The New Yorker, details how one man named Vincent Smothers turned to the drug business to become a contracted killer.  Labi, formerly a senior editor at Legal Affairs, now writes for The Atlantic.  The New Yorker is a weekly publication well known for its cultural commentaries and was first published in 1925.  The article describes Smother’s plight and provides information regarding the state of poverty within Detroit.  Beyond just analyzing police reports, Labi utilizes conversations she’s had with Smother and others to ask a central question: is there such a thing as an ethical hit man?  For example, when she asked him what he felt about killing his first victim Labi writes that he said, “Emotionally, it didn’t affect me.  It wasn’t, like, ‘Wow, I just killed someone.’”   In addition to using dialogue to establish her credibility as an author, Labi also presents Smothers’ history as a well-performing student from a relatively stable family side-by-side with his unusual career choice as a method of juxtaposition.  For example, she writes, “Charlene Handelman, his twelfth-grade English teacher, said, ‘He wasn’t the first of my honor students who turned to murder-for-hire.’”  By writing in such a straightforward manner, Labi is able to ask that central question of her readers, who are most likely affluent people who have never been at all involved with the drug business, and provide enough information to give them a sense of the difficulties facing the poor of Detroit.   

TOW #4 "Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from it All"

David Foster Wallace is considered by many to be one of the greatest authors of his generation, having received numerous literary awards including a MacArthur Fellowship grant for his work.  His 1997 collection of nonfiction writing, titled A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again includes seven essays of his, one of which is called “Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from it All”.  This essay was written by Wallace for Harper’s Magazine, which he describes as a “swanky East-coast magazine”, and describes his time spent covering the Illinois State Fair.  Throughout the piece, Wallace constantly contrasts his self-perceived cynical “East-coast” attitude with the nature of the Midwesterners that surround him.  In order to do so, Wallace utilizes personal anecdotes about his time spent growing up in rural Illinois.  In addition, in what is probably the most recognizable characteristic of Wallace’s writing, he employs a lofty vocabulary in order to further distance himself from the stereotypical, unintelligent crowds that surround him.  For example, when describing a Midwestern friend he writes, “She likes to put on a parodic hick accent whenever I utter a term like ‘peripatetic’” (117).  The essay, rather than simply being a description of the Illinois State Fair, serves primarily as a way for Wallace to highlight the grotesque nature of American consumption.  By making humorous and cynical insights into the type of people attending the state fair, Wallace effectively accomplishes his purpose.