Bonus 13 - Class Review - Brandon Ince

         What a wild ride. I liked this class. Often times I find myself talking all about the fun stuff I have been doing or learning at college to my folks at home. The cool part about talking about what is going on in discourse 300 with Ms. Casady is that a discussion always spawns from the topic. If the topic is anything else like history or classics, then the event is mostly me just talking to the air and occasionally being told that what I was saying is "nice, sweety." With discourse this is entirely different often times all I do is ask their opinion on the topic of the week and the rest of the time my time is spent in silence listening to everyone else's perspective - which helps me develop and enrich my own opinion, which is useful enough.
          I think that if there is any way in which this course can be improved it would be to include a section that stresses the importance of the opposition. Often times in lower level discourse, and especially in college level discourse, there is a catastrophic failure in the system of discourse which manifests itself when one side feels it is already vindicated in what they are advocating. Believing in what you preach is perfectly fine, but shutting down all opposition and not valuing the other party's perspective is instrumental in the failure of discourse.
          If you want an example of what I am talking about then watch this video, however if you do not have one hour to spend let me give you the TLDW. Dave Rubin is a free speech advocate and is giving a lecture/speech at the University of New Hampshire when mid-speech he is interrupted by aggressive protesters. Later, when he opens the floor to questions he is verbally attacked by a student who disagree with the institution of free speech as it currently stands. This student, instead of working with Rubin to garner a better understanding of each other and free speech, the student instead opts for snide ad-hominems and a deferral in favor of a pathos charged appeal. This student does not honor the opposition and as a result the student is robbed of a richer understanding and growth as an individual. I am not saying that one side is correct and the other should learn to adopt the former's world view in order to become a better person. What I am saying is that empathy breeds understanding and if you ignore the other human being then you can not grow to understand, not agree - understand.
          So to wrap up, I feel like a lot of this class was devoted to analysis, creating an opinion, expounding on that idea, then presentation. Or in other words - everything you need to speak your piece. I think that the ability to be able to do this is invaluable and will serve to help in all avenues of life to come. However, the ability to disagree but listen is just as valuable and twice as noble. Which is cool  - being a noble person and all.