Banana For Thought

The thing that I find so interesting about Ishmael is that the teacher in the novel is a gorilla. It really makes me wonder, do we ponder his philosophies more because he is an animal? Had the teacher been another human being, would we have considered their thoughts as much? I don't mean to say that we linger on every word that we receive from Ishmael because he is a gorilla, but simply because we have heard so many narrations from people that human philosophy has actually lost some value. I believe that if Ishmael were a person, the audience would point fingers and ask themselves why he is any different: an exception to the rules he creates about mankind. Instead, we give him a greater benefit of the doubt because we know he is not guilty of the same things we are.

I think this is a reflection of Daniel Quinn's narrative ethic. I feel that Quinn understood the implications of making the "teacher" a gorilla, but wanted the audience to remove themselves from their usually judgmental state. It's almost a bit cynical to think that a human wouldn't listen to a fellow human, but that is the impression I get. After all, if words of wisdom are coming from the lips of a gorilla, who are we to second guess?

Arrangement in "The 11th Hour" and Ishmael

The arrangement in Ishmael and The 11th Hour leave the reader unsatisfied in the former and give the reader a sense of hope in the latter.

The arrangement in “The 11th Hour,” as we discussed in class, has a sense of building. Like the horror movie trailers that we watched, there are quick flashes of scary scenes and foreboding music. The expert testimonies compound from every conceivable field of study, leaving the viewer feeling the full weight of the damage that humans are doing to the earth. But then the tone of the film completely changes. The focus begins to be on hope and how this generation can change things. They can “redefine design” and set an example for all of the generations to come. This arrangement of scenes gives the reader a direction to go in, from chaos to order by changing the cause and effect.

In Ishmael, the arrangement is different. The reader is warned in the beginning that much of what they discuss might not make sense in context. This is true because at times the Parts of Ishmael seem to be disconnected discussions of interesting, but unrelated topics, such as the story of the Takers and the Laws of Nature. Eventually the reader is able to synthesize the information, to the extent that the Takers must enact a different story in order to be subject to the laws of nature. But, there is no clear cause and effect for personal action because of the arrangement of the story. This leaves the reader unsure of how to proceed, although they are now fully conscious of how they are impacting the world.

The arrangement of “The 11th Hour” and Ishmael show how the author must give the reader a plan of action, because although they may realize the problem on their own, they must be led to the solution.

The Socratic Method of Ideological Critique

In class, we discussed how Ishmael is written in the style of the socratic method. This means that there is a teacher, Ishmael, and a student, the narrator and the reader. Ishmael asks questions and allows the student to answer them, which leads to another question. In Ishmael, the line of questioning involves the ideology of the Takers and helps the reader and the narrator to find the discordant aspects of the ideology in an attempt to overturn it.

For example, Ishmael asks the student if he would be willing to leave the Taker way of life and begin to enact a Leaver story. The student adamantly says no. This happens after he realizes that the Leaver way of life is both more sustainable than the Taker’s way of life and that they are much happier people. This shows how the ideology of the Takers is contradictory. They try to reach happiness and sustain a larger and larger population, but they are neither happy nor sustainable.

The socratic method of the novel helps to overturn the ideology by drawing out ideas from the student, who in turn synthesizes them and realizes that they contradict. The book is a good example of the socratic method because its primary goal is to find the problems with the ideology instead of trying to find a story to replace it with.

Proposal Questions for Takers

I suppose that John D. Ramage's idea "What should we do about this thing?" would be able to tie in with Ishmael's lecture. In his lecture, the Takers seem to make the world for only one species, humans. If Takers find any difficulties for humans in the world, they improve it and require advantage and benefit for only them. For this statement, I would like to insist that the people's criterion for worth and value is different and depending on the society, the community, the world that they live in. As an example, I introduce one of my experiences in the activities of a Non Profit Organization in the slums in Cambodia.

In fact, the organizations that are active in the slum are not only our organization but also other organizations from several countries. Because our main field is Japan, even though the active slum is in Cambodia, we are always hard to observe the then current situation of the slum. Actually, although our stay is often long, we cannot visit Cambodia more than twice or three times in a year. Anyway, two years ago, when we visited a kind of school in the slum, there was a rebuilt school building from one of the other organizations. Although we already knew the information in Japan, we still could not expect what kind of things would happen in the school because we were apprehensive about the material of building from woods to bricks. Of course, the children seemed to be please with the new one because they always wish to contact any new matters and information which is things from so-called "developed countries".

However, there happened a problem when temperature inside of the school building warmed up, because the building had windows of glass in spite of the material, bricks. Furthermore, it did not have even air-conditioner inside of the building because of the restricted supply of electricity. Of course, the temperature in the country is always really hot. Therefore, there was a problem that every class could not work because the student could not concentrate on the lecture.

Ishmael insists that "So now we have a clearer idea what this story is all about: The world was made for man, and man was made to rule it" (p.72). We would be able to figure out the statement that we tend to consider what the good things for us must be also good for everyone. However, Ramage explains that "That is, ask yourself, For whom is the problem a problem? Who is paying the cost of the problem? Who will benefit from the solution? And who will pay the cost of the solution?" (p.120). That is, I believe that a good thing for some is not always necessarily adaptable for others. Even though our technologies have much advantage for Takers, they could not be adapted to other animals. That is, we should evaluate from not only our point of view but also from other different position.

Finally, I also post the pictures of Today's class. These pictures will introduce new students in my university. Till now, I have really enjoyed this class and learned so many things. I will never forget everything about this class. It became my precious memory in the United States. Thank you to everyone.

Cain & Abel; Murderer & Martyr

Our discussion last class glazed briefly over the story of Cain and Abel within the pages of “Ishmael”, and it got me to remember something one of my history teachers said about this era in human history. He said something along the lines of that this story may have been based on the Sumerian tale, which represented the conflict between nomadic shepherds and settled farmers. This would make sense within the context of Ishmael’s teachings of Leavers and Takers as real presences within our (the readers’) collective past.

The story of Cain and Abel in relation to Ishmael’s teachings was imperative in leading the narrator to the conclusion that ‘the gods’ preferred a Leaver culture after creating a Taker culture. Cain represents the Takers as an agriculturalist and Abel represents the Leavers as a shepherd. When God (the gods) refused Cain’s offering of produce and crop in favor of Abel’s animal sacrifices, we see Ishmael’s teaching of Takers wiping out those that would be considered a ‘competitor’ take affect. Cain kills his competitor for God’s love and praise, his own brother, and commits the first murder.

Since Abel is the victim within this biblical/analogical story he is often also seen as the first martyr. The fate of the Takers is to eventually wipe out all of the Leavers, for they are competition to land and life. Ishmael explains that the Takers do all of this gladly as well as heartlessly, because they are blinded by their pride, selfishness, and their fundamental ‘truth’ that they are right. They are right to modernize and/or exterminate these primitive nomadic people because their way of life is wrong.

Would that therefore mean that the Leavers, even today, are in effect martyrs for a lost cause to live healthily with the world? What could that mean for Humanity?

Inability to Escape the Teacher, and Human Race

Unlike The Jungle, Ishmael doesn’t show strong tragic moments constructing the conventional form (dealing with individual character) of tragedy, though the novel deals with the limit of human races which threaten us, and ends with the death of Ishmael. The novel targets whole people in the earth.

When the novel first shows the protagonist, he seems to be tired of the way of the world, and even hates his monotonous life. When he first appears, he chokes and curses to the ad which reads ”Must have an earnest desire to save the world” (Quinn 4). However, once he meets the teacher who is a gorilla, he starts to ask unlimited questions, “why & how?”, and starts to find answers by visiting the teacher’s office in regular basis, with totally changed behavior. In this way, the novel depicts the main character’s desire and happiness to pursue the truth and the knowledge from the teacher he never expected before that a gorilla would give a lesson, and human kills its nest.

Besides, the whole dialogue in the novel shows human’s cruelty about unlimited consumption without fear and the remains what human has left. As the lesson of Ishmael proceeds, the newly gained thoughts and conclusions made by stases seemed to make us feel sorrow by itself, because most results of the conversation gives us our inability to save the earth that we readers are encouraged to feel emptiness. Also the novel highlights the main character’s inability to help his teacher to escape. Likewise, the novel hints readers the problem is that even if we know the reason of problem and the way to solve it, it is a literally huge project which is really difficult to practice. Hence readers are guided to find inability to undo the mistake we made, and impossibility to come back to the time when the takers first appeared.

Who is the Narrator?

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn has two main characters: Ishmael and the narrator. The narrator is never given a name or a gender. In my opinion, the importance of not giving the narrator a name or gender is to distance the narrator from Ishmael and the reader. By creating distance, the reader is able to engage more on what the narrator is saying rather than who the character is. Ishmael has a Socratic dialogue, which is when an in-depth understanding of moral issues is conveyed in a piece of literature or speech. Since Ishmael is a Socratic dialogue with a distant narrator, the reader is able to understand what dialogue is being discussed and allow the reader to think and reflect on the topics.

As discussed in class, we wondered why the narrator asks Ishmael so many questions and if this plays an effective role in Ishmael. I think that the narrator asks a lot of questions because Quinn wanted his readers to clearly understand the Socratic dialogue within the novel. If the reader better understands the material, this would lead the reader to having another perspective on life. Ishmael is a controversial novel and if the reader has the understanding of Ishmael’s beliefs then the reader can decide how they feel about the topics. In my opinion, this was Quinn’s exigency for the novel, wanting to make sure the objectives for the novel were completed. In today’s world, people often do not know why they think the way they do, but Quinn challenges his readers through Ishmael and the narrator’s relationship. The narrator’s familiarity to the readers play a positive role in distancing the reader and this allows the reader to reflect on their own beliefs rather than Ishmael telling the narrator what to believe.

What We Miss in Daily Life

In chapter 8, Ishmael uses a metaphor -- the jungle and an animal’s way to live in the jungle. Quinn uses this image as an ideal type of society, and expresses the importance of having limits to process one’s own game and to share the resources by explaining how the jungle is sustained. Quinn highlights that the animals don’t reach beyond what is required to survive: ”The lion defends its kill as its own, but it doesn’t defend the herds as its own” (Quinn 127). However, how human races differ from the wild animal is that we don’t have the custom of saving foods and resources for others so that we come to start destroying the balance of system we live in and threatening the portions of other people’s foods and resources. Moreover, in chapter 9, Quinn provides the reason of human’s customs reminding us the notion of takers and leavers. According to what he constructed in chapters 8 and 9, the main reason of denying others to access to foods and continuing to belong to takers is that [we] “had to be forced to live like the Takers, because the Takers had the one right way” which is forced us to live like everyone in the world to do (Quinn 167).

The novel uses Socratic dialogue to keep asking questions to a pupil and to reach to the point way to miss its importance in our daily life. By using this type of narration, what he achieves is helping readers to re-think about the issue which is very easy to ignore and deny because we are so familiar with. Rather than constructing a new concept, Quinn applies the image of jungle as a metaphor that he helps us to reflect ourselves comparing what we don’t see and have forgotten for longtime.

Tragic Ending?

Was the death of Ishmael a tragedy? After reading Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, that question was posed in class today and I would like to suggest that the death of Ishmael was not a tragedy but a hopeful ending. As Ishmael states, “I mean only that I’ve finished what I set out to do. As a teacher, I have nothing more to give you” (Quinn 254). Ishmael had taught the narrator all he could learn and when he died it was a symbol of the end of a chapter. When the narrator found out that Ishmael had died from pneumonia, his expression was that he, “stood there blinking at him (gentlemen at the carnival), unable to fathom what he was getting at” (Quinn 260). When the narrator first found out about Ishmael’s death, he was shocked and in disbelief, not knowing what to do next. When he gathered Ishmael’s belongings and went home he, “discovered there were messages on both sides [of the poster]” (Quinn 262). For the narrator to find the two messages, this was a start of a new chapter, signifying that he had hope. “With gorilla gone, will there be hope for man?” the readings of these words gave the narrator a hope that he could go forward with what Ishmael had taught him. Ishmael had once told him, “What you do is to teach a hundred what I’ve taught you, and inspire each of them to teach a hundred” this was told to the narrator when Ishmael explained that he could save the world, just as it was written in the ad (Quinn 248). Ishmael’s death was not a tragedy but an example that we are supposing to move forward and to hold onto the knowledge we have been given or discovered on our own.

Ishmael: Altering our Habitual Culture for Sense of Value

In Ishmael, Daniel Quinn suggests that we alter our fixed idea for our (Takers') sense of value in order to save the world of Takers. In my statement, the sense of value means what we make important for us when we desire to live comfortably in this world. At first sight, whenever Ishmael mentions the view of Takers (us) and implies a comment that we should improve our behavior with consciousness of saving the world, we would encounter difficulties with actually making this happen. For instance, in part 8, Ishmael explains about storing food that "In the wild, the lion kills a gazelle to save for tomorrow. The deer eats the grass that's there. It doesn't cut the grass down and save it for the winter. But these are things the Takers do" (p. 128). In these statements, I believe there is the implied message by Ishmael that if we (Takers) ingest our minimum sources that we need to live, we never compete with others. If we never had the idea that we are forced to ingest extra sources, then we could reject the idea that it must be better for us that we always have advantage to others by extra sources.

In the above opinion, we are captives in terms of the fixed idea that is habitual culture. As Dr. Graban said in today's class, the following of Ishmael's statements explains our state so well that "There's nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as your does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact in which they are the lords of the world, they will act like lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now" (p. 84). That is, because we believe that our fixed images and the status quo are our right way, we would not be able to see a matter from different point of view.

In fact, when we consider Ishmael's lesson regardless of the reality, all of his suggestions seem to be realized easily by our own hands because most of the suggestions are based on our way to think, consider, and believe. Because we believe that the right way is always one in spite of the fact that the way is just habitual culture from the past, we tend to reject different opinions and tend to consider that different opinions are strange. Therefore, we would still be captives by the only one way of sense of values.

Different Ways to Construct Stases

Ramage’s article "Rhetoric and Persuasion II" helps us to compare how the 11th hour and Ishmael construct stasis and what different persuasive compositions result.

First of all, 11th hour does not construct elements of the stasis in order from simplest to most complex, but the film tends to mix the elements of the stasis in a scene or in an interview. In the beginning of the film, when environment specialists explain about the earth life support system which is now severely damaged, they not just express the image of the earth and human race but also partially show the tragic truth and the cause of the catastrophic results. Though, in the big picture the beginning of the film seems to construct “definitional questions” for the film to progress the argument, it also seems to contain “Resemblance questions”, “Causal questions”, “evaluative questions”, “ethical questions”, and “proposal questions” (Ramage).

However, compared to 11th hour, Ishmael seems to construct stasis elements which Ramage introduced in order, and Quinn seems to mix together less. The definition of myth as “definitional questions” connects to the current society, and we are more clearly guided to the concept what Ishmael tries to teach the pupil. But the content of the lesson seems apparently less clear compared to 11th hour because the stasis is delivered to the readers by dialogue and the lesson always ends when readers reach to the most curious point.

The film and the novel have a different way to construct stases that might me be based on the characteristic of the two different genres, and the strategy to appeal to the audience, whether showing combination of numerous elements of stases early or develop final arguments step by step.

Tropes in "The 11th Hour"

“The 11th Hour” uses tropes as an appeal.

The first chapter sets up a metaphor. The ratio is that humans are to the earth as an infection is to the body. This relates to the “tendency of all metaphors to connect the world to the body, to relate unfamiliar things to the familiar experience of physical existence” (Killingsworth 124). Therefore, this trope draws the reader closer to the importance and danger that humans have in their relationship to the earth.

A similar appeal occurs when pollution is blamed for the increase in asthma. This appeal forms a causal relationship between human activity and human illness. This once again makes “an appeal to the body that ultimately supports the key theme” (Killingsworth 124).Humans are hastening their own demise.

These appeals emphasize our responsibility for our own physical existence in order to make the viewer feel like part of the problem. This sets us up to be empowered as part of the solution.

The idea of captivity in the world of Takers

I would like to add more information to my comment of today's class. As I commented in today's class about the story Ishmael, the idea of "captivity" is really important. I believe that the reason why the people who are categorized into the world of Takers cannot escape the world is because they are in the captivity without their consciousness. According to Ishmael, the gorilla, "Even if you privately thought the whole thing was madness, you had to play your part, you had to take your place in the place. The only way to avoid that was to escape from Germany entirely" (p.35). I figured out this statement by Ishmael that the people are forced to play their role by their world, especially in the competitive society. Takers who indicate us in fact seem to enact their role. For instance, all teachers are considered that they should behave as "teachers". Furthermore, when people are forced to suit their role, it happens that they are going to compete their best as the role in the society. Therefore, I believe that the Taker is always bound to engage playing its role.

Ishmael and The 11th Hour Compared

In “Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn, Ishmael informs us how people treat their world carelessly through “the deterioration of the ozone layer, the pollution of the oceans, the destruction of the rain forests, and even human extinction and it pacifies them” (Quinn 44). We are able to relate this information from Ishmael to “The 11th Hour” because we are told multiple times that humans tend to not care about their environment or they are uneducated therefore they do not seek information. As Ishmael continues, he shares that, “they put their shoulders to the wheel during the day, stupefy themselves with drugs and television at night, and try not to think too searchingly about the world they’re leaving their children to cope with” (Quinn 44). “Ishmael” can be directly related to what “The 11th Hour” was trying to convey to the audience. We, as citizens of this world, have a tendency to overlook the importance of our environmental issues which leads to us being consumed in materialistic things. What is interesting about Ishmael’s insight is that “Ishmael” was published in 1992, seventeen years ago. Even though this novel was published in 1992 and “The 11th hour” was released in 2007, this just proves that environment issues what be evident for quite some time. Although the issues have been there, citizens have been uneducated about the environment and even did not have the interest to find out. Ishmael gives the reader a great point to ponder and hopefully his thoughts have constructed the readers react positively because the issues are real and need attention before it gets too late.

Expository Story Telling

I feel that a great similarity between Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and the film The 11th Hour is that their intensions are to shock, inform and persuade. The author's have a valuable story to tell and they must present it in a way that makes the audience feel obligated to bring change.

In The Jungle, Sinclair's purpose is to expose the dangerous and unhealthy ways of the meat packing industry, while also exposing the difficulties immigrants have while reaching for a romanticized "American Dream." Sinclair persuades the audience by using catharsis and constructing the audience to feel badly for the characters. He is able to "win over" the audience by avoiding sentimentalism, and instead uses ambiguity in order to make us analyze further.

In addition to writing the novel, Sinclair follows up with several speeches and essays about his cause and is successful in bringing change. In his case, his biggest desire is to have his audience informed, and he himself brought about a great change because of it.

In the case of The 11th Hour, the audience must be persuaded in order to do the work. The film uses appeals to logic and reasoning and shows us the facts. They instill hope in the audience by reminding them they can completely change the world. Therefore, by exposing the harsh reality that our biosphere is ill, the audience feels an obligation to change it.

"Redesign Design Itself"

For one reason or another, the quote "We must resign design itself" in the film The 11th Hour has really stuck with me. I feel that this is the most obvious appeal to young adults and teens because it seems exciting to be able to revolutionize the world in such a significant way. The film is instructing us to make change by rethinking everything we have ever thought about. This reminds me of so many of the books we have read because we have so greatly discussed bringing social change. Though bringing a change in our universe is on a much larger scale, it still requires the same steps that take place in any revolution. We must rethink what we already know. In the case of "The Mole People", redefining the word "homeless" actually led people to thinking they were no longer homeless. Their tunnel became their new community and suddenly a large issue was no longer one at all. It was not the situation that changed, but their outlook, and suddenly other improvements in their life occurred. I feel that the movie is urging us to redefine conserving, reusing and most importantly, revolutionizing. One might feel that cutting back on consumerism would be roughing it, but if they simply redefined their sacrifices, they might be more driven to bring change.

11th Hour's Concepts and Literature

The 11th Hour brought forth many different concepts that could be looked at through many different perspectives. One of these statements resonates that “the deterioration of the environment is an outward mirror of an inner condition; like inside like outside.” The inner human condition was mentioned earlier in the film in a theory that consisted of a deep engrained “loss of beauty” which holds that we are disconnected from reality. Reality being the real and natural world and the theory consisting that deep in our psyche the reason we work and focus so hard on materialistic and artificial desires is because we’ve lost sight of the fragile and free beauty of nature because of civilization and the influence of the concrete jungle. Our society has been structured to consider wealth over public opinion, mostly silencing those who would fight this theory. This inner chasm of lost direction and alienation from the earth itself has led to this social separation that “man is king of nature” and is thus segregated and more powerful. Of course this is not true. The earth will always regenerate whether we are there or not, because the earth has all the time in the world, and we don’t. This idea of “loss of beauty” has driven the human race to this dire pivotal point to decide our future course of action, now. So far we haven’t been making the best decisions, and the suffering “loss of beauty” of the “inner condition” mirrors the outward affect of our actions against the environment.

How is this concept relevant in other literature we’ve looked at? How about “The Jungle”? We can see the deterioration of the environment and the people in it of Packingtown based on this idea of wealth over public opinion. Or how about “Mole People”? How does the inner condition of the tunnel people reflect into their reality?
Not only does this film critique and educate audiences about our environmental crisis, it also presents universal concepts that shouldn’t be ignored lest a domino effect should befall another area of human concentration.

Relief in "The 11th Hour"

Our discussion of catharsis in class brought us to an interesting point, how do we move beyond the grief of catharsis into relief. This principle of catharsis is well illustrated in “The 11th Hour.”
Catharsis is supposed to have an emotional, intellectual, and physical aspect. The emotional aspect of catharsis in “The 11th Hour” is satisfied by many of the emotional and self-interest appeals. For example, there was a quote from the UN of the over 100,000 environmental refugees that they expect in the coming years. This highlights the possibility of danger to one’s self, the human suffering, and the potential economic toll of the the environmental disasters.
The intellectual aspect of catharsis is satisfied by the appeals to authority and logic. For example, scientists from many different fields and politicians were called upon to narrate the film. This adds legitimacy and an intellectual aspect to the conclusions of the film. The many sequences of shocking and juxtaposed images also causes an intellectual paradigm shift, particularly in the way the we view ourselves in relation to the rest of the world.
Finally, the film’s catharsis has a physical aspect with its discussion of the health effects of environmental destruction. For example, the asthma in school children is shown to be a recent phenomenon cause by air pollution. Also, environmental problems are cited for causing childhood cancers, heavy metal poisonings, colon cancer, breast cancer, and degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. This fear of physical harm is very personal to many of the intended audience.
“The 11th Hour” obviously has a strong intended catharsis designed to effect change through the viewer. But, in order to effect that change, relief from the catharsis must be brought, so that the audience doesn’t just wallow in grief and hopelessness. This relief from catharsis, I believe, must relieve the emotional, intellectual, and physical assaults of the argument in order to be complete. This can help to explain some of the rhetoric in “The 11th Hour.” For example, the scene depicting the release of the penguins was described in class as random, but hopeful. This though serves the specific purpose of relieving the emotional catharsis. The intellectual catharsis is relieved by showing that there are other paradigms under which we can operate that will keep the human race in balance with the Earth, as shown by the faith healers. Physical relief comes from the specific solutions that individuals can enact that were given in the film, such as recycling or voting with your dollars. This complete relief in “The 11th Hour” provides an example for the complex requirements of rhetoric in order to demonstrate catharsis.

Why the Intended Audience is the Younger Generation

When viewing the 11th Hour, the audience is told that all of the research is to test humankind. We are quickly constructed by shocking facts, photographs, but given hope for our future. We are shown and given hope because everyone can do something to help our environment. Although the implied audience is everyone that is living on the planet Earth, I think that the intended audience is the younger generation because of new technology and new ideas that our generation has to offer. Younger generations are young and the future leaders of America and the world. As it was mentioned, technology has taken over our world and that is an element that the younger generations have had their entire lives. Since the younger generations of people are still young, they are able to make a difference in our world. Although they are the younger generation, the older adults can still help structure our change in action. It seemed that the narrator and the many speakers put their hope in the younger generation by offering their ideas to us

To me, when the speakers and narrator shared their new ideas, I felt as if they were educating the younger generations so that they can expand their mind and start thinking of other things that this world could benefit. The younger generations, including college students, young adults and younger people, can be a great asset to where technology and innovations are going in our future.

The 11th Hour: Why Do Things Happen? Causal Questons

After watching the movie The 11th Hour, we have an urgency that it is time to do any effort for the earth because the scenes which show the current states of the earth and human's behavior appeal to our motivation to act. Although I was shocked by the content and had an idea of urgency about doing something for the earth, I also thought that I had already experienced the same thought many times in my life, even though I lived in Japan. That is, of course, this movie The 11th Hour is not first movie which makes an argument that we have to think about saving the earth as soon as possible seriously. In the article Rhetoric and Persuasion II, John D. Ramage explains that "In asking why something happened, we are asking what caused it to happen or what motivated its occurrence. Causal questions are important because once we understand why things happen, we are better able to predict consequences and shape policy so as to prevent bad things from recurring and encourage good things to keep on flourishing"(p.110). However, according to Ramage, his explanation also implies an ironic fact that most of us do not make any effort so far to save the earth in spite of the fact that we have already known the argument like as the story of The 11th Hour. That is, repeating messages that it is time to save the earth indicates the meaning of not only emergency, but also of humans still breaking the environment of the earth, unfortunately.

However, while some of us never stop the behavior to break the environment, it seems a fact that the population which started to contribute is increasing. In chapter 15 of the movie, we can see many figures of people who suggests how to contribute the earth and already practiced the contribution, for instance the scene of penguin. Actually, Ramage also explains that "We can use our understanding of how bad things came about to reverse a trend, solve a problem, or cure a disease" (p.110). Furthermore, Kenny Ausubel says in the movie that "You made the first choice because you know you have to do something". That is, we must know how to contribute the earth in order to regenerate its environment by watching this movie. Therefore, the statements of Ramage and Ausubel would mean that the action whether people improve their mind and behavior and attempt to start an individual effort or not, is finally depending on our each own decision because we also already knew how to stop the trend that people not act but only listen and receive the message that it is time to save the earth.