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The three essays, Thank God For The Atom Bomb by Paul Fuel, Democracy by Carl Becker, and Chief Seattle: Letter to President Pierce, 1855 are three different rhetorical modes of writing that exports theoretical, personal reasoning on the realities of certain controversial historical topics. The main focus of the essays are in proving a steadfast view of an ambiguous subject through sarcastic criticism of opposing ideas and by applying clever use of irony; the authors? sentiments vary from imperialistic to anti-imperialistic, and from attesting to detesting a past event. Thank God For The Atom Bomb is a straightforward imperialistic literature which analyzes cause and effect to justify the use of the Atomic bomb during World War 2. The author continuously criticizes the evil of the Japanese in an attempt to convince the reader why the Japs deserved what they got. He sites a Japanese pilot saying, All Japanese must become soldiers and die for the Emperor to prove his point that the general mentality of the enemy was just that?
implacable, treacherous, barbaric (p 460), and savage. He consistently acknowledges his up-close experience with the war to inform the reader that he has sufficient basis for his analysis. But to reinforce his authenticity that his view is not just possessed by himself, he borrows many statements and examples used by others who share his ideas. The U. S. war committee already drew out plans for a full-scale coastal assault and that was about to take action anytime; if the bomb was not to be dropped, an armed invasion on the mainland would call for a hellish massacre of unpredictable proportions on both the American and Japanese side.
He noted a British observer saying But for the atomic bombs, they would have annihilated the lot of us (p 457). Just preventing an anticipated one million American casualties was sufficient cause for the Nagasaki bomb that led to peace (p 459). The effect of the bomb should be obvious that the killing was all going to be over, and peace was actually going to be the state of things (p 462). Though not a very compassionate statement, it is true to the fact that the war was over and the killing has come to an end; the reason being that the Japanese has already been killed.
We were going to grow to adulthood after all (p 462) and instantly, it seems that this explosive miracle has brought relief and joy (p 462) to the world, or at least to the author? s side of the world. The cause and effect of the A-bomb is therefore justified; the cause was to cease further bloodshed and the effect was the carnage ended. The positive effects does not only pertain to the Americans, but for the Japanese also, for the postwar Japan, an economic powerhouse hustling (p 460) successfully in today? s markets is the pay-off for it being destroyed and then being humiliated, tamed, and constitutional ized by the West. (p 460)? obviously an imperialistic point of view.
Thank God For The Atom Bomb ironically can be viewed by some as anti-imperialistic as some view it imperialistic for it attacks Japanese imperialism and the Japanese psychology of the pre-war era which believed themselves to possess invincible superiority (p 459) thus having jurisdiction to treat another people they see fit, and that includes gleeful use of bayonets on civilians, on nurses and the wounded, in Hong Kong and Singapore. (p 460). And it was Japan who decided to conquer the world and to deploy their diabolic armies of destruction across the globe. It must not be forgotten that the episode started by the incident at Pearl Harbor and ended by the incident at Nagasaki. The author?
s voice throughout the whole essay is filled with sarcastic contempt for the people who question the moral of the bomb? s usage. He repeatedly attacks those critics by emphasizing their obscurity to the horrific realities of the battlefield for they lack firsthand experience confronting the enemy in combat. He scorns John Kenneth Gallbraith, a detester of the bomb, for being so ignorant and na? ve as to say the war was ending anyway (p 456) with or without blowing up civilian cities into smithereens. Being a frontline soldier, the author recognizes the universal Japanese ethos One Hundred Million Souls for the Emperor (p 455); Japan was far from ready to surrender.
He rebuked Gallbraith? s notion by saying I don? t demand that he experience having his ass shot off. I merely note that he didn? t (p 456). Historian Michael Sherry, author of The Creation of Armageddon, a philophosical critique discussing the ethics of the A-bomb, was denounced as possessing unrealistic imaginations (p 457).
The author notes that the more distant one is from the scene of horror, the more easier it is to talk, and Sherry was speaking while he was safe at home (p 456). Not only does he use his own experience to assess opposing ideas, because he is not the only one who despise errors? [caused] by remoteness of experience (p 463), other people? s opinions are presented along with his. John F. Kennedy wrote, I like to check from where he? s talking: it?
s seldom out here (p 457), and Winston Churchill noted that people who favor invasion over A-bomb possess no intention of proceeding to the Japanese front themselves (p 457). The author condemned the Japanese for their conducts of routinely firing on medics, killing the wounded (torturing them first, if possible), and cutting off the penises of the dead to stick in the corpses? mouths (p 460), and thus he rationalizes himself to be fiery and ever more sardonic. Why not blow them all up. ? Why not, indeed, drop a new kind of bomb on them, and on the un-uniformed ones too (p 461) for, he added, there are no civilians in Japan (p 461). For people calling the A-bomb a crime on humanity, the author cleverly twisted it around to say the A-bomb is humanity?
s way to punish a crime. Democracy by Carl Becker can be translated to contain anti-imperialistic insights derived from his method of defining democracy. He wittily began the essay siting common misusage of this unexplicit word. It has no? referent? (p 554) or at least there is no precise benchmark to measure this word with which we are all so familiar that we rarely take the trouble to ask what we mean by it (p 554). Because of this reason, any government, no matter how despotic can attribute their regime as being democratic.
From this idea, he hits the origin of imperialism, for colonization starts with a justification that the colonizer is more democratic, thus being more virtuous and civilized; therefore they inherit a divine right to correct and constitutionality an inferior people? an irony Chief Seattle also tries to address. With a little manipulation of the term, the empire of Napoleon, the Soviet regime of Stalin, and the Fascist systems of Mussolini and Hitler are safely in the bag (p 554). For his views, Becker makes for a good opponent to Paul Russel who stated Japan is tamed and constitutional ized by the West (p 460).
With his idea of democracy being an ambiguous term laid out, he starts defining democracy from his personal point of view as a historian (p 555). Carl Becker? s definition of democracy is neither the original idealistic form of government of the people, by the people, for the people nor is it the contemporary form: government of the people, by the politicians, for whatever pressure groups can get their interests taken care of (p 555). He gave many instances of government as supported by a majority of the people yet they can be in no way be regarded as democratic.
Caesar? s power derived from a popular mandate (p 555) but his reign was oppressive to mention the least. Napoleon? s empire was christened as a government under democracy but in fact, the last vestiges of the democratic republic (p 555) were destroyed after he succeeded to overthrow the previous government in his so-called democratic revolution. Using these examples to form his basis, he is able to give a clear standing of how his own definition fits in actuality.
In the real world, demonstrated by history, it is not possible for succeeding democracy in the original Greek definition, because human nature is not universally harmonious; there are always those individuals that would tear down a democracy for their own gain of power. Therefore democracy in its real form is a government effectively representing a sufficient amount of citizens and those citizens can freely if common will permits to appoint or recall the magistrates and to enact or revoke the laws by which the community is governed (p 555). This is the factual definition for which the author take to be the meaning? . upon the term democracy (p 555). Like the other two essays which draws its power through ironical insights, Chief Seattle: Letter to President Pierce, 1855 performs no less in discoursing his anti-imperialistic sentiment. Its deviation is in its rhetorical mode of employing comparison and contrasts to bring out its satire.
Chief Seattle, the writer of the letter, uses a very unusual technique to compare the difference of the white man with the red man? the ideas are viewed by a red man? s mind through the white man? s eyes.
The purpose of his letter was for the white man to be convinced of their own evil and barbaric ways, yet Chief Seattle constantly refers to his own kind as savages. He a savage sees the white man as a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs (p 408). The white man? s heart is cold; he has no sentiment for his father? s grave, his children? s birthright, nor will he be touched by the natural beauties of the land; he will only relentlessly conquer it, and move on (p 408).
Chief Seattle states that the savage does not understand the white man (p 409). For the savages only understand love for the earth they stand on, the very earth where all things share the same breath? the beasts, the trees, the man (p 409). They are agrarian anarchists, people who believe man can not own the earth for man belongs to the earth, a believe completely contrasting that of the white man who sees, in order to claim land, they will have to conquer it, to tame it, and to master it. How could they ever understand the white man who thinks himself superior for replacing the aesthetical forests with cities that churn out black smoke. The very irony of the letter is Chief Seattle?
s reference of his people by what the white imperialists sees them as. Since if savage is a term for the wild and untamed, then isn? t the white man more savage than the savage? Also he repeatedly acknowledges the red man not being able to understand, yet by what he cites, the red man does seem to understand a great deal about the white man; the main purpose for that is for the intended reader to realize it is himself, the white man, who does not understand he who makes the incorrect assumption of a more peaceful people, labeling the civilized as savages.
The last sentence The white man? s dreams are hidden from us (p 409) concludes the sarcasm in referring to the white man? s destructive motives as his endeavors dream, something obscured from his inferior red counterpart. These three pieces of literature are exclusively fanatical essays preaching the oblivious existence of ethical errors in people and in the general society through different expository styles. All three rationalizes on ego superiority, the foundation of imperialism. Yet their philosophies are not exactly conforming with one another.
It can be derived from Democracy that the author dislikes people for labeling any fascist government as democratic thus a superior state to justify for unrelated wars or revolutions (i. e. the Nazi imperialism); while Thank God For The Atom Bomb attests American righteous-superiority during the Pacific Wars and criticizes people who thinks his ideas imperialistic. Chief Seattle who detested against imperialism, can no doubt be seen as also possessing self superiority for it can be judged that he believes the red man to be superior, at least from a moral point of view.
Therefore concludes the similarities and differences of the essays. 33 c
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