"The Future is Now" by Katherine Anne Porter

Katherine Anne Porter was an American journalist who is well known for her short stories. Having lived through two world wars and immersed in the fear of the Cold War, she comments on the death and destruction she had witnessed and might witness in the future.

“The Future is Now” begins with an anecdote of her reading an article on how to survive an atomic bomb. She looks out her window, observing the city down below, and comes to the realization that people are living too much in the future, fearing death via bomb, when they should be living in the present, while there is still peace. She parallels this concept to mankind as a whole. Porter uses mankind as an apostrophe throughout the passage to convey this point, such as her statement, “Man has obviously outreached himself, to the point where he cannot understand his own science or control his own inventions” (196). She believes that mankind is living too much in the future, trying to advance its technology, but we as a society are not stepping back and realizing that the technology we are creating is killing millions of people. Mankind’s intellectual curiosity has led it down a path of death and destruction.

On the contrary,  Porter believes that it is this curiosity that helped us evolve into civilized people in advanced societies. She asks the rhetorical question, “What would you have advised instead? That the human race should have gone on sitting in caves gnawing raw meat and beating each other over the head with the bones?” (198). Thus, a paradox is created where we need our drive to improve the human civilization, but we also use this drive for mass destruction. Porter addresses the people of America and the people of the western world, the two main culprits of this crime, that we should use our appetite for improvement solely for good to advance society and not destroy it.

I believe that by using a vibrant mood that is full of promise, Porter has accomplished her purpose to put a stop to death in the world.

Technological Advance for the Great Good
(http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/how-close-are-we-to-simulating-the-human-brain)

"How It Feels to Be Colored Me" by Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston is an African-American novelist. Born in the south in 1891, she experienced discrimination towards “colored” people first hand. These personal experiences establish her credibility in this passage.

“How It Feels to Be Colored Me” is about Hurston’s experiences that helped to shape her outlook on life and find her true identity. After being sent to boarding school at the age of thirteen, she truly felt racism in America, but instead of letting that negatively affect her, she used others’ hatred to boost her pride for being an African-American woman.

Written in 1928, this passage is directed towards other African American people during this time. She is trying to tell them not to be beat down by discrimination, but to have pride in their own race. She makes many allusions to African tribal culture, mentioning things like body paint and assegais, which strengthens her purpose of bringing out African pride.

One of the most powerful ways that Hurston communicates her purpose is through metaphors. For example, she says, “No, I do not weep at the world– I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife” (115). Metaphors like this show her African pride and tell others not to let discrimination knock them down. She also uses metaphors to describe her self-identity. She concludes the passage saying, “I feel like a brown bag of miscellany propped against a wall...in company with other bags, white, red and yellow...[They] all might be dumped in a single heap and the bags refilled without altering the content of any greatly” (117). This conclusion shows her belief that she is no different than other people, regardless of race.

Lastly, Hurston’s use of colloquialisms, such as when she says, “I would probably ‘go a piece of the way’ with them, as we say in farthest Florida” (114), gives this passage a conversational tone that is easy to understand. Her purpose is conveyed clearly, which helps to her passage appeal to people’s pathos. Because of this, I believe that Hurston was successful in accomplishing her purpose to instill pride within African Americans during this time.

African-American Pride Is Greater than Racism
(http://www.blackhistoryflag.com/)

"The Moral Equivalent of War" by William James

Dubbed as the “Father of American Psychology” and one of the main influencers in the pragmatist movement (a philosophy based on practical application), James is a well respected theorist. His theories influenced thousands across the country, which gives him ethos in this field.

In “The Moral Equivalent of War,” William James discusses the balance between war and pacifism. Being a pacifist himself, he believes that a world without war against one another would be the ideal society. On the contrary, he does not believe in the total eradication of war as there are many benefits that help to create productive society. He proposes a utopian society where we wage war against nature instead of one another. This way, our society would reap the benefits of war without the fatalities.

This passage was relevant around the early 1900s when it was published because of growing tensions across the ocean with Japan’s expanding empire and with Europe’s pre-WWI state. James’s plea for a peaceful society was directed towards the American people as war seemed like an inevitable event among these growing tensions.

One rhetorical device that stands out in this passage is James’s use of pathos. He says, “War is, in short, a permanent human obligation” (49). The use of words like “permanent” and “obligation” draw powerful emotion such as fear and urgency from the audience. Sentences like this are used throughout the entirety of the passage. Another example is when he says, “We should get toughness without callousness, authority with as little criminal cruelty as possible...because the duty... threatens not to degrade the whole remainder of one’s life” (54). The use of these powerful sentences also sets a pressing mood, which makes his purpose seem more real and in-the-moment.

All in all, I believe that James conveys his ideas in a clear way that the audience can easily understand, but I do not think that he successfully convinces them, as he romanticizes the idea of war. He makes war seem like a great deed to humanity, when in reality, it is full of bloodshed and violence.

A War Against Nature and Not Against Each Other
(http://voiceseducation.org/content/make-war-against-war)