Eléments de corrigés des exercices faits en classe - PTSI V

1) GRAMMAR:

corrige-grammaire-phrases-16-a-20.pdf (26.04 Ko)

2) CARTOONS:

cartoon-culture-wars-1.pdf (433.75 Ko)

a) Define culture wars: 

Cf. fiche culture (culture-wars-fiche.docx (3.28 Mo)) > Disagreements about cultural and social beliefs between groups, especially between people with more conservative opinions (= generally against social change) and people with more progressive opinions (= generally supporting social change). In the US, culture wars have become lightning rod subjects across the political spectrum with each party vying for marginalized groups' interests.

b) Desribe the first cartoon and say what ideological viewpoint the cartoonist is expressing.

On the cartoon we can see people queueing/lining up, literally and possibly metaphorically too up against a wall and cornered. Their faces are grim and they are holding placards reading “need work”, “job”, “unemployed”, “please help”. Meaning that what has them cornered here, begging for help, is joblessness and the economic crisis.

Taking up half the picture, on the left hand side, is a gigantic/huge poster representing an elephant, here standing for the Republican party, pointing at us, and pointing at people in general, and reading “I want you to fight the culture war”. This poster is a parody of a wartime propaganda poster representing Uncle Sam to recruit people in the US army. Here, it is the Republican party which is trying to enroll people in a war, the culture war. The people they are trying to enroll are those who are in desperate need of a job.

In this document, the cartoonist adopts a liberal point view, denouncing the conservatives for preying on the weak to fight their battles and gain votes in the culture wars that are going to serve their own interests.

c) What do the cartoonists define as culture wars here? 

The first cartoon refers to the traditional definition of the culture war as cultural issues becoming the new political battleground, while the second document confronts, with a liberal point of view, the liberal vision of this phenomenon (on the left with the priority being granted to gender issues in the military or with gay marriage, and social issues with for example abortion) and the conservative vision (on the right) which is less concerned with cultural issues than with foreign issues like Afghanistan or the defense of gun rights. This is why the second document ironically plays on words by opposing "war culture" (on left side of the political spectrum and of the cartoon) and the "culture of wars" (on the right side of the political spectrum and of the cartoon).

3) COLLE:

script.pdf (49.53 Ko)