Cameron Postelwait / perceptum

My take on his:

Purpose—As you can guess from the title of his essay, his purpose is to treat the study of social class by studying the discourse (a word loosely used in this paper to mean any public action whether it be a spoken discourse or a speechless action, such as the Post Office violence phenomenon of the 80s, p. 537). This would be contrary to the “Academy’s” current method of study, being heartless macro-economics. Which leads us to the

Thesis – The simple study of macro-socio-economics is an inadequate way of studying social class. Social class and class struggle can only be fully understood by also taking micro-emotional points into consideration and by studying back-and-forth discourse (keeping in mind the broad definition of discourse of the classes).

Structure – Zebroski’s structure was one of his tools of his Marxist rhetoric. He uses a structure that is superficially organized and somewhat deceptively fair by comparing social discourses prior to and following Hurricane Katrina. He however uses this to build up to a point. Using Worsham’s “Going Postal” piece (which he has framed in the mind of the reader with nothing but praise: “…Worsham’s work…is certainly one of the landmark works in this area.” (536)), Z. builds evidence to try to prove the Marxist attitude of a ruling class owning even the “emotional labor (539)” of the exploited lower class.

Audience – As much of America’s long line of rhetorical masterpieces that defend the lowly labor class, the language of the essay is geared to the more learned elite. Although this is a paradox, it is also for a good reason. Just like the trickle down economics that the writer so blatantly bashes from the Reagan era, trickle down intellect finds its way through various media channels that the elite control and into the minds of the less academically literate working class.

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