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Life Is Worth Living Bishop Sheen Speech Analysis

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In the early years of the television program Life is Worth Living, Bishop Sheen found other ways to make his message popular. The way to do this was to have an anticommunist message in preaching. There were a few things that Catholics and Protestants had in common and that was their love for their country. Both groups were nationalistic and in favor of their institutions . They were also of course against the same ideology. Both groups were strongly against any fascism and communism . Many in the country feared the Soviet’s intentions and supported religious and anticommunist policies . With this in mind Sheen would early in his program win the audience over with anticommunist ideas. There were a few times where he would just go out and say …show more content…

His show was showing the values of how great the country is and how we are fortunate to be living in it. One of the episodes Sheen gives a speech on how and what it is like to be an American. The speech shows something that every person would have in common in the country not by religion but also ideology. Bishop Sheen goes on and talks about the importance of the individual and not a group. Writing on his chalkboard he draws the line between the two sides. Sheen states how everyone in America is in the free world and it is important that every individual matters no matter how young, old, rich, or poor you are . With the other side of the argument, he explains how the masses were the ideal in the communist society and the value of one person does not matter . The point Sheen wanted to make is that in America, everyone is special in their own way unlike the soviets which care about the masses not the individual. The emphasis on the term person was greatly used in this part of his explanation as well. In America he says the direction comes from one’s self and the communist masses direction is from the outside power or dictator . One of the arguments here goes on with the communists masses has the value and if the individual cannot produce then the person from the mass is expendable and doesn’t exist no more . The pride in America and the values that were gifted to the people were shown and that Sheen

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