Prejudice: Activity 2. Unit 4.2

Activity 1

1.    Item A illustrates prejudice as it evidences how Hitler pre-judged Jews irrationally —excusing his antisemitic behaviour by saying he was "fighting for the work of the Lord".

    Item B's cartoons display Jews behaving immorally and portrays a whole ethnic group as evil, based on the German dictator's  own prejudice of them being "subhuman".

2.    This prejudice is irrational as "100.000 German Jews had fought and died alongside non-Jews in the German army". This means that Jew intolerance was totally unfounded, as historical evidence shows that Jews were as patriotic as Aryan Germans. Moreover, the cartoons are not accurate, as they are mere drawings which lack factual evidence.

3.     These sources are not credible as they are influenced by the author's own antisemitism and intolerance. The cartoons display exaggerated and non-realistic situations of Jews performing perverse acts. 

Activity 2

1.     Language used in item A clearly indicates bias; adjectives such as "mad dogs", "brainwashed" and "ruthless" used to describe Iraqis, deeply contrast with The Guardian's depiction of Englishmen —who were professional, confident heroes. In addition, negative vocabulary is used strategically to describe a war situation —while the allied missiles just caused "colateral damage", Iraq's caused "civilian casualties". 

       On the other hand, item B describes Saddam Hussein as a "demented monster", which seems to enjoy holding a gun and being at war.

2.     These sources are biased to the point of absurdity. Both item A and B show such unilateral views that they end up losing credibility.

Mad Men: The Smoking Pitch's vested interests.

      In the Thinking Skills class, we watched and analyzed a scene of the episode 'The Smoking Pitch', Mad Men. The setting is an office inside the Lucky Strike Company, in 1960's New York. Here, a couple of businessmen are having a discussion about advertising techniques.

      We realized that there were certain vested interests in this company; the product needs to be sold in order to keep the sales’ number up. That being said, it does not matter whether cigarettes are healthy or unhealthy. The main goal is selling, and for reaching it, the product needs to be attractive for the consumers.

      On the other hand, we noticed how Peter’s ideas are rejected while Don’s are accepted. The first man is rejected because he implies that cigs are dangerous, and that “if you are going to die, at least have fun in the middle”. For his colleagues, Peter's slogan sounds pretty morbid and off-puting. However, Don’s proposal emphasizes what distinguishes Lucky Strike’s from other brands –the toastiness. All in all, it can be said that Don adressed the company’s main aim; selling happiness.

     On a side note, I also analyzed an old tobacco advertisement.

     In this Chesterfield ad, it is noticeable how desperate to sell tobacco companies were. Not only did marketing asisstants came up with witty slogans such as ''Is best for you", but also they manipulated scientific evidence by financing medical research and hiring their own doctors. What seriously called my attention, is how the poster gloats on that Chesterfield's have "no adverse effects on the nose, throat and sinuses [...]" but fails to deny the product's carcinogenic risks, for example. Moreover, bright colours and happy faces misleaded people into believing that they were in presence of a harmless commodity. Once again, it is evident how the companies' vested interests in getting richer lead to the manipulation of information regarding their products' effects on peoples' health.

Credibility Criteria.

   For the subject Thinking Skills, we've learned about critical thinking and how to assess the credibility of sources. Here is a summary of unit number one of the book Critical Thinking for OCR AS Level by Michael Haralambos and Rob Jones.

    Critical thinking is required to evaluate arguments. These consist of a reason(s) which support(s) a conclusion. Meanwhile, evidence refers to the information used to support the reasons and conclusion contained in an argument. Evidence can have different levels of credibility –credible means believable–, which we are going to read about below. It always comes frome somewhere; it has a source. These can be either a magazine´s article, a TV programme, an eye-witness, a photograph, and so forth. It is important to take into account the credibility of the source.

   There are certain techniques which can help to evaluate the credibility of the sources. These are known as the credibility criteria. 

   The most reliable type of source is a neutral one; it is impartial and does not take sides. On the contrary, when there is a vested interest the credibility is reduced. When someone has something to gain for having a certain point of view, there might be lies, distortion and evidence withholding involved. However, having a vested interest is not always something bad or immoral; sometimes even telling the truth is one’s interest. 
    A vested interest can lead to bias, which means having a preference for something. A biased argument is no different than an opinion and, therefore, unreliable. Nevertheless, just because people are biased it does not mean that they would be influenced at the moment of providing evidence. 

   Expertise, on the other hand, is evidence given by a specialist. Their knowledge and skills make them credible sources –even though they can sometimes either be wrong or not reach expertise standards. Reputation is also important as it refers to a person’s character or an organization´s standing. Even so, sometimes people may tell a false story out of fear (in a totalitarian regime, for example). 

   Another credibility criterion is selectivity and representativeness. The evidence selected has to be relevant and representative of all sides in order to be trustworthy. Sometimes the selected information represents bias, which is a negative point as it reduces credibility. Last but not least, context is used to assess the effect of the context on the evidence´s trustworthiness. Context refers to the situation in which the evidence is produced; if an eye-witness sees something at night, their argument might lose objectiveness.

   Finally, we have to take into account that sometimes highly-convicting evidence can be wrong; evidence does not have to be true in order to be credible.