I'm trying to avoid taking any openly political stance in this class, but I found this image and thought it was worth noting from a political and rhetorical perspective, or in the very least cause some good discussion and reflection:
A hot-button topic for the debate this election is obviously unemployment. But whether it is Romney or Obama talking about their plans to stimulate the economy and create jobs, I feel their discussion is ignoring a crucial distinction in terms that is going unrecognized. In other words, there is an enthymeme present here: "create jobs." What does that mean?
The implied premise is that work is dependent on jobs; taken as something that needs to be created through some external force outside itself, this implies a false relationship between profit and need in the minds of the audience. However, what goes unnoticed is that creating jobs is not really creating work; the work was already there to begin with. Job creation is not about creating work, it's about creating profit. The need for jobs is simply the need to make a wage, but the need to work is something that will never disappear, regardless of the economy, and as long as humanity requires a certain amount of resources to survive.
I feel the real topic of discussion in the debates should be, "there is obviously much work that needs to be done, and many things that need to be improved around here. What exactly is stopping us from accomplishing this?"
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