Blog for November 18th, 2014: A Week Late, A Dollar Short?

When I started writing these blogs, I kept folder for them, numbering and filing them for my recollection. According to this folder, I’ve written fourteen different posts across these eighteen weeks (though, I haven’t necessarily posted everything I’ve written). It has been an interesting experience. I’ve experimented with a number of different styles and genres, and responded to a wide variety of texts. I’m not quite sure how to feel about closing the chapter on this experience. I can honestly say that these posts are one of the few times that I have actually enjoyed myself while working on assignments in grad school. While writing these blogs I felt like I had a chance to actually exercises my mind. That was often both a blessing and a curse. I probably spent way more time than I should have pondering over some of the things that I’ve discussed.

A Farewell to Crosswhite

This week, we finished reading A Rhetoric of Reason by James Crosswhite. The book ends on a rather bleak note. After several hundred pages of selling me a dream, Crosswhite basically says “Oh, wait. I was joking. Everything I said is impossible in the real world, and colleges are just going to get worse and worse.” Sadly, I’d have to say that Crosswhite’s assessment of the system was both accurate and prophetic. I decided to look up the cost of a Cal State education around the time that Crosswhite published the book. This period of time, as described by Crosswhite and others, was a period of time where tuition costs had been ballooning as schools focused more on administration and pumping out business students. The earliest I was able to find was in 1998, where the annual tuition and fees for the Cal States averaged a whopping $2000. Adjusting for inflation, the “bloated” $2000 cost works out to $3,000 in 2014. Currently, it costs roughly $6,500 for a undergraduate student to attend SFSU for a year. College isn’t about education. It’s a ponzi scheme of proportions that Crosswhite couldn’t have possibly imagined twenty years ago. Over a trillion dollars of student loan debt, and teachers become increasingly marginalized. The idea that anybody from my generation is every going to see a tenure tract position is laughable. All future professorships will be adjunct positions, and groveling for scraps will be the norm. Those who already have what they want will insist that things can be fixed, or that people just need to work harder. But it’s all a joke. The future is royally screwed, and as Crosswhite says, the best we can do is pretend like we actually matter in a system designed to negate our existence.

Beyond that, I’d like to return to the penultimate chapter of Crosswhite’s book, which was overlooked on here due to another writing commitment.  

The Missing Class Section

A “Super Storm” passed through the bay area this past Thursday, December 11^th. This storm was severe enough that schools in the area were closed down. Because of this, the in-class section of this class was cancelled, and nobody had a chance to discuss their blog posts or ideas in person. Ironically, I wasn’t planning to show up to class that day anyway, as an illness had left me so under the weather I couldn’t function. I’ll spare you the details, but I’m barely getting back to functioning. I was actually looking forward to class and the opportunity to discuss the chapter, and its removal left a hole in my heart bigger than I anticipated. As a way to alleviate some of this feeling, I decided I would take a shot at responding to every single blog posted by a classmate this week. I’m not presuming that my replies here are the final answer, but merely my attempt to mentally work through the questions and ideas they present. If I disagree with something or seem contentious, it is not my intent, and I am purely trying to engage with their works.

Aaron’s Post

When reflecting on the call to action that Crosswhite makes, Aaron ends up asking “What happened to inquiry for knowledge creation? Is the production of good citizens our goal as teachers?”

Although I’m not Crosswhite, and I can’t be sure that I’m answering correctly, I would like to take a stab at answering that question with my own reasoning. As a fan of science, I believe in the idea of inquiry for the sake of knowledge creation. Indeed, this is the fundamental basis of scientific development. However, inquiry for inquiry’s sake is completely without morals beyond itself. The information produced and developed is completely unconcerned with what uses it will be put to.

This issue, of inquiry being so far removed from morality, has been a rather popular topic of fiction and scientific discussions in the past few centuries. In particular, the invention of dynamite and the atomic bomb have stood out as moments where traditional human morality would argue that knowledge acquisition went beyond appropriate boundaries. Whenever I’m asked about my favorite book, I tend to vacillate between a number of different options. One of these options is Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. Although not his most popular novel, Cat’s Cradle  is intriguing in that it is largely a character profile of two different heroes- Bokonon, and Dr. Hoenikker. Bokonon is painted as something of a master rhetorician. Through a mixture of charisma and an understanding of human nature, he is able to manipulate an island nation into practicing a religion that he openly admits to being fraudulent. In comparison, Dr. Hoenikker is the master inquirer, the master scientist. Hoenikker has absolutely no interest in anything but learning more, exploring new avenues of thought. Without spoiling too much, Bokonon’s methodology ends up leading to a dictatorship enmeshed in a bizarre civil war, while Hoenikker’s methodology ends up killing every last thing on earth. It is Hoenikker’s behavior that I would like to focus on here, as I think it serves as the answer to Aaron’s question. When Hoenikker was engaging in his inquiry, he never asked any questions of morality. He simply explored for the sake of discovery, and ended up being responsible for an invention called Ice-9, a wildly dangerous product that eventually leads to the aforementioned apocalypse.

Although undeniably an extreme example, I think that genocide serves as a good argument as to why we would prefer that inquiry for knowledge creation be tempered by our desire to be good citizens, even if it’s a biased goal. Sometimes, our biases do have some value. For what it’s worth, so far, I’ve preferred being alive to being dead.

On another point, Aaron asks “If we have scholarship that raises questions that can lead to knowledge production, why should we worry if they contradict?”

To this, I agree completely. I have never let a contradiction stop me from finding an answer. Sometimes, this leads to the completely absurd. I’m okay with that. Without a true universal audience, there’s no reason not to use the audience that is applicable for the situation.

Gabriela’s Post

I’m something of an outlier when it comes to upper academia. I really, really don’t belong here. As my prior statements might make apparent, I loathe the university system and everything it stands for. So, when Gabriela asks whether Crosswhite lists appropriate problems in academia, my only answer is that he doesn’t go nearly far enough.

Kristi’s Post

I would like to look at Kristi’s blog on the evolution of her rhetoric. She discusses the way in which her focuses evolved from an emphasis on a communal answer to embracing difference and conflict. This is a pretty radical change, and one I am impressed by. She then asks if any of us have experienced our own development and changes in regards to the rhetoric of our blogging. I wish I had as clear-cut an answer to provide. As I’ve stated, I’ve tried to do new things, but I’m not quite sure whether I’ve truly revolutionized my writing. I can say that I believe that I’ve made at least some little changes, and learned a lot, and I hope that is enough.

Nelson’s Post

Both Aaron and Nelson emphasize the idea of writing about writing. I feel a certain cognitive dissonance whenever I think about the concept. This is because my philosophy of teaching actually focuses a lot on the kind of principles that would lead to writing about writing, and yet I don’t feel enamored with the concepts. I feel like something of a troglodyte because of it, but a year and a half of graduate school has only cemented the ideas that I originally came in with. I believed that learning amounted to the processes of practice and self-reflection on said practice. “Writing about writing” falls pretty obviously into the “self-reflection” part of that philosophy. And, yet, I’m still troubled by it. The only thing I can think is that I have bad memories associated with prior methodologies, rather than the concept. It seems to evoke ideas of boredom and repetition. Part of the practice and self-reflection process is enthusiasm, and it’s so easy to become jaded or bored when navel-gazing goes on too long. I’m not sure what the answer to this problem is, but I would like to take the opportunity to admit my own weakness here and recommit myself to finding a way to integrate this concept into my belief system effectively.

Michael’s Posts

Jeez. I thought I was cynical. For the record, I actually read the blogs in this order: Nelson, Gabriela, Michael, Aaron, Laura, Emily, Alex, Michelle, Troy, and Kristi. There’s no preference to this order, and I don’t remember how it was produced.

Laura’s Post

Laura asked “I am wondering if other members of the class have ideas for the ways in which they are going to apply Crosswhite's tome to their lesson plans and pedagogies.”

At the start of the semester, I said something along the lines of “I couldn’t imagine teaching without using rhetoric as a central focus.” Looking back on this entire semester, and Crosswhite in particular, I finally see how I could do that. Or, more accurately,  I see a number of ways I could end up doing that. Going back even further, at the end of Spring 2014, I said “I’m not sure I want to be a teacher anymore”. I’ve changed my opinion on that, by changing my definition of being a teacher. I cannot be complicit in this system. I don’t fault the people who are already in or those who believe things can be fixed from the inside (and I’ve actually loved 4/5 of my professors here at SFSU), but I’m increasingly feeling disconnected from the whole system and structure put in place. I’m not sure, and it’s easily possible that I could come crawling back eventually, but I think I’m going to get away from academia after I finish my degree (assuming I finish it. I hope I do).

So, what value is there in staying? Why do I continue to write, and why bother still learning about Crosswhite and others? Well, mainly, because I don’t see the situation as purely a sea of black. I think there are plenty of reasons that others would choose to stick around, and I was teetering on the edge for quite a while. I have always dreamed of being a teacher, of helping others through education. Although I no longer feel the need to do so through a formalized classroom, I can still see a number of benefits from learning and becoming certified through such a system. I don’t think I would have ever found Crosswhite without this class. With Crosswhite, I’ve argued with him quite a bit. We haven’t seen eye to eye on everything, and still firmly believe that he mischaracterizes a number of things. However, looking past those quibbles of presentation, he’s brilliant. Which means, as an answer to Laura’s question, I don’t believe that one even needs to have a classroom to help people have productive and meaningful conflicts.

Emily’s Post

Emily questions whether or not Crosswhite’s claim of “They [meaning basic writers and other writing students] need to acquire the habits of written conversation, the experience of reasoning in writing. If the researchers are right, then as basic writers gain these habits, the competence they already display in speech and informal writing will begin to show up in their performance in written reasoning,” constitutes a form of “magical thinking”. 

Again, I doubt I have definitive answer to a colleague’s question, but I would still like to take a shot at answering with what I think is a potentially meaningful solution. It seems to me that the appearance of these competencies and skills is not a result of magical thinking, but simple adaptive development. When an individual encounters an electrified cupcake, all but the most slow-witted do not persist in trying to pick up the cupcake after the first try or two. If somebody comes up with the idea to knock the cupcake off the electrifying mechanism with a stick, we don’t presume that they magically developed electrified cupcake displacement technology. Instead, we assume (and have evidence indicating as much) that the person activated prior schema on stick technology, and was able to adapt it to the situation at hand. At no pint are we expecting our students to create something out of nothing. It is instead our goal to provide them with the frameworks that allow them to unleash those skills and processes- we provide them with a place to experiment with sticks, in the event they ever come upon an electrified cupcake.

Of course, a corollary caveat to this is the way that learned behavior can also become detrimental to an individual’s development. A famous, yet apocryphal, example of this learned fear is the “Five Monkeys Experiment”. Although it is generally accepted that the experiment likely didn’t actually occur as described, its popularity as a story has endured as a model for where learning can go wrong. In the story, a group of monkeys is trained to fear climbing a ladder, despite a banana reward at the top of the ladder. This is achieved by punishing all the monkeys whenever a single monkey would go for the banana. Then, one by one, the monkeys are replaced with new subjects. In each case, the new subject is quickly taught by the other monkeys to avoid the ladder, resulting in a group of completely new monkeys who all avoid the ladder as a learned response, without ever actually becoming aware of any sort of punishment. In this situation, there becomes a failure of learned behavior, as the rational reasoning behind the action is slowly phased out over time. Therefore, to me, at least, it seems like the problem with having students express their competencies is not a matter of getting them to magically appear, but avoiding having them suppressed by unreasonable behavior and pressures.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/games-primates-play/201203/what-monkeys-can-teach-us-about-human-behavior-facts-fiction

Troy’s Post

Troy’s post contains a surprising amount of optimism, to a level I don’t think I would be capable of. Reading about the Summer Bridge coordinator, I could feel my blood beginning to boil. Although an unsurprising result (I’ll be shocked the day a college administration makes a decision not tied to the factory system and the almighty dollar), I still want Troy and our teachers to be able to help people gain critical thinking skills. Because of this, I continue to wonder whether there is some other avenue of education that we can push forward, one independent of the system. I look at Troy and our class, and I see potentially brilliant teachers. And then the administration just shoves us into some arbitrary, meaningless mold that could be filled by a chimpanzee (they’d probably prefer the ones that fear the ladder). People deserve more respect than that.

Michelle’s Post

I agree with Michelle that students have a number of opportunities to engage in social contexts of reasoning before they receive a formal education in college. However, I do see a caveat to the disagreement that Michelle makes with Crosswhite. At the time when Crosswhite was writing this book (in the 90’s presumably), written social contexts would have likely been extremely rare for students in pre-college situations. In this modern era, people have become increasingly text-driven creatures. Up until the early-mid-2000’s, the idea of even sending a text message as a form of communication was socially verboten. Now, making a phone call makes you the weird one. A similar shift has occurred in regards to online message boards and distribution systems. Although Youtube is popular, the primary means of digital social communication are still text-driven medium such as Facebook. In short, it seems that time has obsoleted one of Crosswhite’s claims regarding the availability of written social contexts. I’m not sure how we would take advantage of that as teachers, however.

Alex’s Post

Alex’s post presents an interesting conundrum for teachers of writing through debate. By his own estimations, he was able to lead the students to the debates, but he was unable to get them to engage with them beyond a game of “winning” or “losing”. Crosswhite seemed to peg “argument as inquiry” as one of the tougher aspects to teach, and it seems that this is definitely a problem with no easy answer. Without teaching experience, there’s no answer I can think to offer Alex. I do, however, want to request that he keep us updated, should he ever manage to find an answer. 

Postscript

When I started this endeavor, it seemed like a good way to make up for missing class and the lateness of the post. Now, I mostly feel sad. This class has been an amazing experience, even if it’s probably for reasons that wouldn’t inspire joy in most teachers. I’m grateful for all of you.

Blog for November 19th, 2014: Love is the True Reconciliatory Force

Feeling Lost

I’m not quite sure I understood what Crosswhite was saying in Chapters 6 and 7 of The Rhetoric of Reason. I tried engaging with his ideas, but I struggled to ground them in reality, stitch them into something particularly meaningful for me. I definitely feel like there are ideas of value present, but I feel so entangled in the deliberation process that the endgame seems like a distant fantasy. Instead of a particularly organized analysis of the chapters, I instead offer here a sampling of the notes I took while reading through the chapters. Most of these notes are simple direct responses or attempts to puzzle through various aspects of Crosswhite’s claims, and interconnect them with previous statements. I choose to do this particularly because I want to invite commentary. Because I am so unsure that I have processed the chapter properly, I want to directly encourage my readers to provide assessment and counter-claims to my interpretations of Crosswhite’s methods and claims.

Notes

Self-referential loops. Circles of conceptual repetition. Both philosophy and rhetoric are black holes of ideology from which no meaningful concept can escape unscathed. Fallacies do not exist outside of universal audiences. Universal audiences are a a theoretical example. Fallacies are therefore fictional. Everything is valid, presupposing the audience is localized enough. Although there is no universal truth, there exists an infinite number of universal truths in the particular subsets of each arbitrary universal audience. In many cases, when viewed together, they might contradict with each other. In these cases, it doesn't matter what the perceived thoughts and arguments are, as long as each audience accepts a universal truth.  All arguments are fallacious. All arguments fail to cover all universalities. 

The average lifespan is 75 years. This city has no children and can gain no more people. This city will perish in 75 years.

Our ideas of the individual and the group interact, rather than define each other. In both cases, our definitions remain as shorthand for representations of our arbitrary evaluation processes of observed matter classification.

Our soldiers are strong, but our unit is weak. There is no unity between the troops, and we are all slaughtered. Our claim of individual strength was misleading- our troops possessed vitality, but lacked coherence and willpower. The opposing troops were individually strong and a strong unit. They possessed vitality, coherence and willpower. The week following our battle, their entire unit died from complications related to autoimmune disorders.

All evaluative terminology is ambiguous. All terminology is evaluative.

I feel like a sociopath pretty often. If you pay attention to the web of humanity, it's impossible not to feel like one. The only path that is not overwhelmingly violent and narcissistic is absolute dissolution of the self in the name of the greater good. 

This is a chilling concept, insomuch that as beings which are only capable of perceiving the individual, we have no major internal incentive from which we should value the group over the self.

Therefore, all non-narcissistic efforts and beliefs are a result of a particular group making a persuasive argument that overrides the will of the self. However, in these cases, although the individual has disregarded itself in a physical sense, the process of coming into agreement with the group creates an identity extending beyond the individual.

However, even in cases where the individual gives entirely of itself to a group, the group will inevitably only represent an individual particular audience. The system scales upward, but only through an infinite spiral of narcissism. Only total devotion to peak universality represents a negation of sociopathy. 

Why must something be rational to be relevant? Rationality is only necessary for policies. 

In a movie, a man goes mad from entering the viewpoints of others. I enter the viewpoint of the man in the movie, and retain my sanity. Am I a superior specimen? An übermensch beyond the realm of identity?

If I claim that I have super powers of completely inarticulable dimensions, then I will generally be regarded as madder than any criminal. One cannot be mistaken about the fundamental nature of the world. French Feminist theory argues women have super powers of completely inarticulable dimensions.

Claiming is harder for men because of inarticulable reasons of simple gender differences created by the binary. Questioning is harder for women because of inarticulable reasons of simple gender differences created by the binary. Questions are claims. Claims presuppose questions.

Without full articulation, explorations of feminism, multiculturalism, and other concepts become as oppressive as the systems of reason they choose to redefine. This necessitates the presence of the "etc". At peak articulation, this etc becomes a universal blindness equal to the original articulations of the egotistical "reasons" of those in power.

Blog for November 13th, 2014: The Crosswhite Strikes Back

Editor's Note: Sorry about my lack of traditional formatting and editing. I wrote this post in a different word processor than I normally do, resulting in some unusual features. However, the content is as solid as ever. Albeit shorter than normal, I suppose.

I wrote a blog post for last week. It wasn't mandatory, so I didn't post it. However, within the not-posted post, I had an argument with myself. In this argument, I tried to decide how I felt about Crosswhite and the book.

I ultimately failed to make a decision, because I couldn't actually figure out what Crosswhite believes in. If I had to compare his writing to anything, it would be a Rorschach test. The first time I read through certain segments, I would have a certain visceral reaction to his assertions. However, returning to these assertions, I would realize that they could be interpreted in a way that was functionally the opposite of what I had originally read, with no change in meaning. I decided I was going to stop worrying about the feelings I was having, due to the lack of conclusions I was able to draw.

Of course, this week's readings brought them back in full force. Yet again, I found myself reading through segments of weasel words and phrases, statements of either direct praise or backhanded insults. Now, I say "weasel words", because I found myself roughly stuck with two options when addressing this continued behavior. The first option was that Crosswhite is a complete idiot, and had no idea what he was doing or writing. Considering the general brilliance evident in the rest of his writing and his overall accomplishments, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, and disregard this option. Which left me with my second conclusion- Crosswhite is being deliberately obtuse with his language, in order to push forward an agenda that otherwise wouldn't warrant a second glance from his audience.

Admittedly, where this became apparent to me was in his discussion of a topic I happen to be rather noticeably personally invested in. Skepticism has always been a core tenet of my life, and with that typically comes science and logic. Now, the funny thing about skepticism, science and logic is that they fundamentally cannot be wrong (at least in any way that is remotely meaningful to any human perception of the universe). This is because they are not actors, agents, activities or anything of the sort. They are processes, processes which are empirically derived and inevitably reach total accuracy, as this is literally their entire purpose. Crosswhite even alludes to this notion in the closing segments of chapter 5, where he discusses the idea of a supreme logician. However, it is exactly in this discussion that he returns to a dirty form of manipulation. Instead of accepting this reality and pointing out that it is beyond currently applicable methods or technology, Crosswhite dismisses the entire system of logic out of hand, saying that a supreme logician would be completely incapable of understanding the idiosyncrasies of human behavior, due to our ability to hold conflicting thoughts and actions. This is, of course, a complete load of garbage.

In my argument with myself last week, I found myself going through what Crosswhite calls "levels" of argumentation. This happened when reading through the story of the child who was killed by a tree. Crosswhite claimed that the modern world could not answer the "why" of this event, so I took it upon myself to try. Every time I had an answer for a behavior, I would then ask "why?", something like a petulant child. Eventually, I hit a point where the question became "Why does the universe exist?" Quite naturally, this left me completely stumped. This question, which I would contend is the absolutely "highest" level question that can be asked by humans, is completely unanswerable by anything other than completely arbitrary and meaningless assertions. And, yet, it is this question that Crosswhite relies on repeatedly to make his points regarding the need for rhetoric. By this, of course, I am referring again to the aforementioned supreme logician. The only way in which he can possibly fail in his task of logically explaining something is when he ultimately arrives at this highest level question. Without the assertion that humans are imbued with some impossible source of unpredictability and contradiction that was commingled with the creation of the universe, the idea that a supremely logical system would be unable to map humans is laughable.

So, assuming that Crosswhite knew what he was saying was fundamentally absurd, I had to come up with a reason as to WHY he was saying it. I am not sure that this is the right answer, but I present what the cynical side of Paul theorized:

Crosswhite does not think very highly of composition instructors. By making such pleasant-sounding, yet false or misleading statements, he's trying to reassure compositionists. As an outsider coming into the field to assert that everything they're doing is wrong, he's treading dangerous territory. In situations such as those, telling people "hey, you screwed up badly at your jobs. I have no training, but let me show you how to do it" is a good way to be shown the door. So, instead, he throws a number of scapegoats under the bus (including explicitly stating that logicians/philosophers/etc have failed to make things appealing enough to composition teachers).  

"It's not your fault you failed to grasp these basic concepts. You weren't wrong! The concepts were wrong and presented wrong! You are all very smart and clever, and here's how the concepts I approve of ACTUALLY match what you believe in!"

Blog for October 30th, 2014- Enter the Crosswhite

This post was put up deliberately late. It’s the best way to guarantee nobody will read it. I mean, if the length didn’t already do that.

James R. Crosswhite- The Rhetoric of Reason, Part One: Philosophy, Rhetoric and Argumentation, Chapter One: The End of Philosophy and the Resurgence of Rhetoric

The more I work on these blogs, the more I realize how much of my blogging in the world of rhetoric focuses on the ideological stances that the authors take. In a way, this is a compliment to the works that are studied. It seems to indicate that, overall, the methodologies and grunt work involved are fundamentally sound. With some authors and works, I find myself (mentally) shouting “No! That is not how data collection works! Your results are entirely meaningless for the conclusions you’re trying to draw. You could have saved everybody so much time by just spouting off your unfounded theories without all the hollow pseudoscience!” The fact that this hasn’t happened this semester is one of the few things keeping me sane.

With that said, I find myself returning to this frame of mind in order to criticize Crosswhite. As I’ve stated/implied at various times, I find no inherent value or meaning in anything. In order to declare that something is imbued with an inherent moral disposition, you have to prove an impossible set of complications, resolving endless questions of the nature of humans and the very universe. And yet, as with other authors, Crosswhite easily dismisses this concern, happily declaring “peace” to be a desirable value and insisting that rhetoric is a peaceful art. Ignoring the questions of desirability of peace, Crosswhite seems to largely gloss over the idea that rhetoric could be used for reasons beyond peaceful agreement. I’m not sure if he’ll ever return to the topic, but I can still envision blood being spilled through argumentation and discussion. On the most blatant level, I see no reason that discussion cannot be motivated by desires that are inwardly beneficial and outwardly destructive. If somebody convinces another that murder will bring about a better world, violence has been perpetrated.

Thoughts on Crosswhite through Facebook-

While reading through Crosswhite’s summaries of the philosophies of Heidegger, Derrida, Nietzsche and other writers, I became somewhat wary of the statements being made. I have not studied any of the authors in question enough to challenge any of Crosswhite’s claims (and I have no real reason to doubt him), but the breadth of his summarization sparked the following thought:

“Summary’ is an inherently insulting or violent action. Whenever anybody attempts to summarize, they are actively rejecting the narrative that the original author has put forth. In any event in which the summarizer does not believe they are misrepresenting the original statement, they are declaring that the original author's work is superfluous.”

I presented this theory to some friends online. Inspired by Gabriela’s stylistically intriguing piece from earlier this month, I decided it might be worthwhile to post the resulting  Facebook conversations*.

Lemon’s commentary is interesting in that it mirrors some of the ideas that Crosswhite presents on the language/cultural barrier between English speakers and the Athabaskan people**. In general, the commentary led me to slightly alter my line of thought, and I have developed a slightly revised maxim:

“Summary’ is an inherently insulting or violent action. Whenever anybody attempts to summarize, they are actively rejecting the narrative that the original author has put forth. In any event in which the summarizer does not believe they are misrepresenting the original statement, they are declaring that the original author's work is superfluous to their current needs. Summarization is essential to modern human communicative needs, but this does not negate the violence being perpetrated.”

Thoughts on Crosswhite, Feminism, Values and Institutions-

Crosswhite pretty convincingly argues the idea that human objectivity is an illusion. I have no quarrel with this assertion. Where Crosswhite and I again part ways is in what the resultant course of action should be. He seems to argue that the divide between different cognitive cultures means that the goal of objectivity should be abandoned, due to the way that it serves as a form of subjugation over whatever culture opposes your own vision of “objective” culture. Although seemingly progressive at first, upon deeper reflection I can’t help but see this assertion as an overwhelmingly cynical and hollow goal. If we go along with this mindset, it seems necessary to follow it to its endpoint- nihilism. If you can no longer agree on the goal of an objectively better world, you are embracing the essential entropy that defines our universe. While this is seemingly the only fundamental truth of our universe- everything fades eventually- it leaves no room or purpose for progress. Of course, all of this is an artificial conceit, because Crosswhite’s proposition is an inherently contradictory joke. If we abandon the idea of objective standards and ideals, where exactly are we getting the idea that respecting other cultures and humans matters?

As we’ve established, striving for objectivity has violent consequences. It is taking an extremely narcissistic stance, declaring “I am willing to destroy a person’s identity in the name of trying to define the universe through a process”. I don’t really care. For whatever it is worth, I have decided on my own set of values and my own personal vision for an ideal world, and that vision necessitates stripping the globe of identity. If culturally entrenched systems and institutional language structures give people the meanings that define their lives, perhaps we shouldn’t be celebrating diversity- perhaps everybody just needs to die. Now, before I get arrested or Section 5150’d here, I’m obviously not referring to any physical acts of violence.

Last week, I condemned the word “feminism”, declaring it unnecessary. This is a hefty topic, and I didn’t really get the opportunity to fully explore everything that comes along with it. So, since I’m already calling for genocide, I might as well clarify that this includes the total destruction of feminists and feminism. And Muslims and Islam. And Christians and Christianity. And Americans and the United States of America. And every single other arbitrarily defined system of cultural values that define people’s cultures and identities. These arbitrary systems provide absolutely nothing of value to the things I hold dear- physical peace, knowledge, laziness, and the pursuit of usefully objective knowledge of the world***. In all of the examples that I listed here, I can find something meaningful or valuable embedded in the core of their ideas. However, there are systems that provide these benefits without the costs associated with them. Returning to the term “feminism”, there is nothing wrong with the feminist idea of egalitarianism. What, exactly, does it offer over egalitarianism? Nothing. It is a gendered word, embedded not for value but for institutions. Should egalitarianism be a legitimate goal, then embracing bigotry due to institutional constraints is immensely distasteful.

As with many of these institutions, I actually fairly strongly agree with what might be labeled as the “non-extremists” of feminism. These feminists are, for all intents and purposes, completely identical to my vision of egalitarianists. Many would say it is insane to create so much friction between myself and these individuals over a “meaningless” word. Yet, as has been demonstrated (also by the very resistance to changing it), institutional words are far from meaningless. They are self-propagating, and they are prone to creating discrimination and violence. Because I choose to not use the term “feminist”, those who do so resent me purely for the sake of rejecting their historically-derived terminology, and this problem persists for all of these otherwise rational individuals and their terms. History holds no value for me- dead people aren’t going to care which words we use. Abandon all loaded terms, strive for a language of neutrality. Of course, any attempt at this will create institutions on its own. People will eventually become bigots in the name of egalitarianism. Maybe, if I’m lucky, they’ll even preach it in my name. At which point, I hope they’re (mentally) killed off in the same way that I want the identities that drive these terms to fade away. Permanent revolution for as long as it is necessary. Lexical Trotskyism, if you will. Except, I’m already beginning to loathe that term, and would prefer it not get attached to the idea.

Some More Thoughts Without a Name-

Since I started this blog, I have accumulated a respectable number of comments. I am averaging more than one comment per 150 page views, which, according to some research that I did, is a phenomenal return on investment for any website****. As a way of giving back to my dedicated fan base, I thought I would take some time to address comments and questions in one of my main posts.

After the blog post on Henry Louis Gates and Co, some people had questions about the meaning and intentions of some of my statements. In particular, Nrgblog asks…

“I’m puzzled by your closing narrative. Do you intend it to illustrate a point? If so, what point? Do you intend to be offensive? Do you intend to claim that you can use multiple layers of irony and not be offensive? Remembering that irony depends on the audience accepting the positions you have laid out, for what audience do you intend this?”

That is an excellent series of questions. So much so that I feel the need to answer each question more specifically than trying to lump it all into a big block of text.

“I’m puzzled by your closing narrative. Do you intend it to illustrate a point? If so, what point?”

I did intend to illustrate a point. Many points, even. The puzzling nature of the text was part of a deliberate attempt to avoid being too forthright. Though, perhaps I erred too far towards indirectness. Every artist intends for their work to signify more than they could explain directly (no reason to bother with art otherwise), so I believe both this explanation and the original story have value. For those of you not aware- the events of my story pretty directly parallel an actual event that occurred to Henry Louis gates in 2010. The Monkey represents Gates, the Lion is Obama, and the Boars are the Police. I chose these pairing-ups for the way that the events mirrored a number of aspects of the traditional Signifying Monkey stories. Gates is an intelligent smart-talker on the fringes of society (he was out of town for a month because he was busy filming a documentary in China). Obama is a boastful character who claims to be the supreme leader, while ultimately capitulating to every force that remotely opposes him. “Boars” is perhaps a too kind term for what police officers actually are, but it was an appropriate enough term for strong-arming enforcers who hold little adherence to any laws and even less respect for the worth of others.

 As I mentioned in the post, I struggled with my feelings towards Gates going into reading “Signifying Monkey” and writing my blog post. On the one hand, I have an immense respect for Gates and his works. I am well aware that he is a far smarter man than I will ever hope to be. However, I also lost a lot of respect for Gates in the wake of the “Beer Summit”. I view/viewed his willingness to go along with the “summit” as a form of capitulation to the wishes of a United States that is still fundamentally beholden to white supremacy and a love of fascism. I can understand and respect the obvious reasons for going along with the action, as I am sure he was concerned with his advanced age, societal pressures, presidential pressures, job security, and so on and so forth. However, such reasons don’t eliminate the fact that such a choice works to delegitimize him as a figure of racial awareness and ethnic resistance. In that moment, Gates made it clear that he was perfectly content to be nothing more than a detached Ivy League academic, quietly doing his research with no concern for the real-world ramifications of his thoughts and statements. Initially, I found myself simply explaining my frustration with this aspect of Gates. I ended up seeing my own explanation and ideas as too juvenile, lacking a certain nuance and respect for what Gates has actually managed to accomplish. Regardless of his failings in living up to my ideals of what a person should be, there is still a wealth of information to be plumbed from the writings and thoughts he has produced for the world.

As a sign of respect to that work, and the piece that I was responding to in particular, I decided to do my best to engage with everything that was presented. The world of Signifyin(g) that Gates presents ended up being a rather rich and engaging field of rhetorical communication. 

“Do you intend to be offensive?”

To a degree, I did intend to be offensive. I believe that being offensive, even in situations where it is being used positively, is an inherent aspect of what Gates identified as Signifyin(g). However, being offensive is not simply a matter of upsetting people- it is an aspect of communication that is still rhetorical, that still hopes to effect change in the audience. This “offense” and desire for change is also tempered by the relative adherence to fact, and the positions of the individuals involved in this signifying presentation. Although I am calling out Gates for his lack of resistance, I am still a small student in the cogs of a bigger system, failing in my own resistances and abilities. At the end of the day, Gates can still call on his list of accomplishments and awards. I have nothing.

“Do you intend to claim that you can use multiple layers of irony and not be offensive?”

I have spent a decent amount of time contemplating this question, and I think I finally found the correct answer: Yes, and no. It is impossible to say something with multiple layers of irony that will avoid offending everybody. Anything of sufficient complexity will inevitably contain content that is offensive to somebody. However, I do believe that it is possible to produce a piece of multilayered irony that is not deliberately or explicitly offensive. Or, perhaps, looking at the question differently, Nrgblog was asking whether I, personally, was capable of such a sophisticated act of composition. In which case, I have to admit that I am probably not skilled enough to pull off such a move. As should be evident from this blog, I am not particularly skilled when it comes to the more commercial and palatable aspects of producing appeals. Despite my best efforts, I am lumbering and crude, stuck in a certain foul baseness that can occasionally be alienating or disruptive. However, ideologically, I feel minimal pull to break away from such a mindset. Presume that one does manage to produce a completely toothless piece of layered irony. What is the purpose? Who benefits from such a piece? 

“Remembering that irony depends on the audience accepting the positions you have laid out, for what audience do you intend this?”

In a way, I never intend my blogs to go out to a real audience. I’m arguing with myself, most of the time. It’s part of why I feel so comfortable making definitive statements and occasionally being very wrong. When I write about a person, I like to imagine that there’s a chance they’ll read it personally, even if it’s completely impossible or implausible. Beyond that, I suppose my target audience is informed consumers- an outsider to the class I am continually referring to is going to have a difficult time following along (despite my numerous efforts to make this blog as independent as it is dependent). Any readers who are unfamiliar with the documents or situations that I am referencing is going to have an even tougher time. I always make sure there’s a way to find (what I see as) necessary context for my statements, but I try to avoid making things too easy. Too much summarizing is pretty violent, you know?

In addition to Nrgblog’s questions, one particular comment that stood out was from user “emily” on the blog post for October 14^th. Emily brought to my attention a pair of TED talks regarding disability and its perceptions. I found both videos to be rather emotionally stirring, and believe they do an excellent job at illustrating some of the tribulations regarding perceptions of mental illnesses.

Bonus Mini-Topic-

Last week in class, we briefly discussed the history of grading and grades. Although I wouldn’t consider it the definitive text, I recommend checking out this article for a pretty interesting overview.

Bonus Blog Statistics-

As of this post, this blog contains nine distinct posts, averaging roughly 1,774 words per post. The shortest post, covering the rhetoric of blogging, weighs in at only 670 words. This post is the longest, being a hefty 3,532 words. Extra-textual links make their first appearance in the second post, and there are over twenty links to other sources and topics scattered throughout these posts. If stitched together (with blog titles discarded), this blog would total at 15,961 words, equaling more than forty pages of printed text. Since the first post of this blog went up, the average American has slept 334 hours. Since the first post of this blog went up, I’ve slept roughly 500 hours. That doesn’t really mean anything. I just sleep a lot, and thought it was moderately interesting.

Corrections-

Last week’s blog contained a fairly large oversight, an oversight that was that was thankfully caught by one astute reader. When searching for a copy of Alternative Rhetorics, I scoured University Bookstores, private booksellers and public libraries. However, it never occurred to me to check university libraries- and SFSU does indeed posses a copy of the book. Our society has devoted a truly astounding amount of infrastructure to the storage and continued presence of printed texts, which is something I find both admirable and utterly insane. 

It seems like we’ve used up all of our time slot, and we will have to bypass responding to any further comments. Thank you, and see you all next week.

*Were this still the section on Jackson and Wallin, I would devote more time to assessing the nature of internet comments. My “Friends” list is obviously a more limited audience than a publicly available Youtube video, but I was somewhat surprised by the fact that real discussion was sparked.

**Interestingly enough, my spellcheck keeps flagging “Crosswhite”, while Athabaskan goes through smoothly. This is mostly an excuse to segue into something that I forgot to cover previously- In this blog post by Gabriela, she noted that the Wordrpress spellcheck service refused to acknowledge Puerto Rico as a proper term. She would probably find it interesting to know that it likely wasn’t Wordpress that was disavowing the existence of our little national colony. I experimented with posting the term into Wordpress across various web browsers, and discovered that “Puerto Rico” being marked as spelled incorrectly was actually a result of the particular spellchecker of said browser. I don’t own any Windows products, but the only major browser that marked “Puerto” as incorrect for me was Firefox- Safari, Opera, and Google Chrome all deemed the term acceptable. I can’t guarantee my theory is correct, but based on the evidence I gathered, it appears that Firefox’s behavior is not derived from any hatred on Brendan Eich’s part, but is instead due to licensing restrictions arising from the fact that Firefox is an open-source program, and the dictionaries involved are therefore also open-license. 

***Should these ideals ever be exposed as having flaws that are incompatible with scientifically-derived objective evidence, I will readily abandon them. I am aware that these ideals are as inherently arbitrary as any other human values, but as far as I can tell, they result in a lot less pain and death than any currently established system. That’s good enough for me.

****Viewer interactivity on websites is often measured in Comments-Per-Mille, indicating how much participation versus passive viewership is occurring. For example, a typical popular Youtube video might receive 5 million views and 5 thousand comments, giving it a comment per mille of 1. My blog is currently averaging nearly six times that volume, indicating a very involved readership. (There is also a CPM that stands for Clicks-Per-Mille, but that refers to advertisements, and this blog has a commitment to remaining independent.)

Blog for October 23rd, 2014: Diving in to the Hornet's Nest

Theresa Enos and Shane Borrowman- “Authority and Credibility: Classical Rhetoric, the Internet, and the Teaching of Techno-Ethos”

I have something of an automated routine when it comes to doing my schoolwork, and this week was no exception. First, I went to my computer, logged into the cloud, and began streaming from my library of instrumental music, which includes thousands of songs from hundreds of composers across time. Then, I turned on my iPad, and logged into my school’s online system, where I proceeded to download the required readings for the week, along with a few of the “elective” pieces I had come across on the JP Leonard Library database. After going through the process of downloading the documents, I sorted them into the appropriate folders, so that they would not get mixed up with the hundreds of other academic papers from various classes and journals that I have stored on my iPad. Finally, I chose an appropriate text, curl up somewhere, and begin reading.

For this class this week, I decided to start my reading chronologically and in order. Therefore, one of the very first sentences I came across was the following: “…Cyberspace is far more transitory in nature than is the printed world of the popular press and professional book/article.” This very true proclamation was made by Enos and Borrowman in the 2001 book Alternative Rhetorics: Challenges to the Rhetorical Tradition. I was able to figure out the particular book by using Google and textual clues to discern the origin. Interested in finding out more about the book, I went to the website for the San Francisco Public Library, and searched their availability catalog for the book. Unfortunately, they did not have the book. Neither did any of the public libraries of the surrounding cities. Although not available for free, I figured I could perhaps purchase a copy of the book somewhere. So, I searched all the university bookstores in the region for a copy of the book. Not a single one had it in stock. Disappointed yet undaunted, I was forced to turn yet again to the transitory internet, and searched Amazon.com for the text. However, unfortunately, the book appeared to not even make it onto the list of the top ten million best-selling books on Amazon, and therefore was not kept in stock. As a last and desperate resort, I turned to the publishers at SUNY press, to see if I could order a copy directly from them. Through them, I was able to discover that I could actually special order a print copy of the book, for only $65 and $8 shipping costs (with only 5-7 business days to arrive)! However, they then immediately suggested that I could save some money and receive the book immediately by just downloading the digital version they had available on the Google Play store for only $16. I scoffed. If every single electronic device I owned was destroyed at once, and then Google stopped existing simultaneously, and all of the cloud-based backup services I subscribe to suddenly lost all their storage, there would be no way to ever get ahold of my transitory data ever again. The permanence of the physical was far more reliable, as nobody has ever managed to lose or get rid of the only physical copy of a textbook within a 100 mile radius.

Realizing I had managed to get a bit distracted by this search (thankfully, it was all digital- had I tried to engage in this search without the aid of the internet, I would still be scouring the landscape and bookstores in my car), I returned to the text, only to be stunned by even greater brilliance in the same paragraph. “…When students do research that involves books and articles, the rules are understood; if something comes into print from a university press or other respectable publisher, it can be afforded a certain amount of credibility.” When a big-name publishing house like Simon & Schuster, Harpercollins, Random House, or a leading academic journal, is willing to publish something, I know I have to inherently afford the author credibility. Being incredulous and critical of everything that I encounter, and only judging individually on merit of ideas presented, would be just plain dumb.

In fact, there are just so many statements of insightful truthiness that I don’t think I can afford to praise them all in such great detail. Instead, I’ll simply highlight and respond to each one briefly.

“The night before an assignment is due, claims to credibility by on-line writers are likely to go unexamined.” This is important to remember, because rushed students cramming through their work otherwise never cut corners.

On student’s negative reaction to an unpopular and likely incorrect line of thought: “We have found [this] a useful example… [because] they intuitively understand its illegitimacy.” This is an important thing to stress in pedagogy. We never want students to question or rethink their immediate intuitive and visceral reactions, so this style of teaching will certainly have no downsides.

There is too much I would have to quote here, but Enos and Borrowman follow this up with a brief explanation of a distinction between the aforementioned intuitively illegitimate idea- those who argue for a blanket mindset, and those who question details and argue for ambiguity. “For our purposes here, all such groups fall under the [same] umbrella.” This is a healthy mindset to take, because all people with intuitively unappealing ideas never have anything meaningful to add to discussions, regardless of how they try to argue.

When exploring the appeals of these intuitively repulsive people, Enos and Borrowman point out that many of the proponents consider, and label, themselves as “concerned with truth”. This is an important detail to focus on, because of all the groups and individuals out there who try to paint their ideas and causes as the works of liars. People often deliberately discredit themselves by accusing themselves of being worthless charlatans, so this is certainly a very important idea and aspect of ethos to focus on.

——————————

Speaking  a little less critically, the article actually does manage to make a small handful of meaningful and salient points regarding the rhetoric of online discourse, and discourse in general. This comes mainly from their discussion of the way that visual style can often outweigh substance in the eyes of viewers. It’s a shame they didn’t bother to explore the concept beyond pointing out that illegitimate arguments can have legitimate-looking fronts.

Brian Jackson and Jon Wallin- “Rediscovering the ‘Back-and-Forthness’ of Rhetoric in the Age of Youtube”

Jackson and Wallin really lucked out on the video they chose for this article- they readily admit in the text that they expected their example to have faded out of the public consciousness, possibly by the time their article was published. However, instead, “Don’t taze me, bro!” has become an enduring catchphrase on the internet. This is perhaps a result of the remarkable levels of police brutality that have continued to plague this nation, but it is still remarkable how memes are almost impossible to predict.

Going beyond that surface observation, I found myself intrigued by the greater discussion of the internet as a dialogic place. I’ve always known that I favor a more “conversational” writing style in general. But, it was only as Jackson and Wallin described the nature of dialogic conversation that I realized how much of my writing is derived from an assumption of a dialogue. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that I have a tendency to distrust any writing style that doesn’t involve the author both responding to something and inviting responses. As the authors described, this distrust is actually fairly reminiscent of Socratic/Platonic ideology. In this way, my attitude has something of a regressive nature, as composition has largely moved past the idea of binary monologic or dialogic writing. I feel this is likely a moment where I will just have to accept my regressive nature- I cannot imagine dedicating a further substantial portion of my life to inert and dead writing styles. I can accept that there is a place for every style of conversation, but that doesn’t mean that every compositionist has to embrace and master every style.

One intriguing/outdated aspect of Jackson and Wallin’s argument is their explanation that Youtube uses anonymity and usernames. There is something of an intuitive assumption that a masking username has an effect on the rhetorical presentation made by people communicating online. However, in 2013, Google decided to merge all of their account services into Google+, meaning that a large number of Youtube comments are now made under people’s real names. It is entirely possible to create a pseudonym for this system, but a large enough number of people don’t bother to. Remarkably, at least to the casual viewer, this seems to have caused absolutely no change in the substance or quality of Youtube comments. I attempted to find the stupidest topic possible, and therefore went with a holocaust denial video and the “Loose Change” video. In both cases, these are topics where the supporters would have a vested interest in maintaining their anonymity, due to the fact that the videos claim to be exposing heavy-handed government conspiracies. In both cases, users commenting with real names was plentiful. I am unsure of the cause behind this phenomenon- are people simply unconcerned with anonymity, or is it that the internet is perceived as inherently anonymous, even when it is not? Regardless, it is a point of rhetorical focus deserving of further exploration.

Bo Wang- “Engaging Nüquanzhuyi: The Making of a Chinese Feminist Rhetoric”

To be completely open and honest- I could probably think of something that I care less about than early 19^th century Chinese Feminist literary rhetoric, but it would be an arduous task. With no disrespect to Ms. Wang or the topic, which I am sure is as rich as the text indicates it is, the issues surrounding it simply mean nothing to me. However, the total irrelevancy of the topic opened up my mind to a broader form of rhetorical analysis. Unburdened from actually trying to determine the worth and relevance of the text, I began to dwell on the rhetoric of rhetorical analysis. As I examined the moves that Wang made, I began to realize how politicized and subjective the topic of rhetorical analysis actually is. When completely disconnected from the topic and language, it becomes painfully obvious how reliant even the most objective rhetorical analysis is on subjectivity and personal experience. What one person chooses to label as “objective” suddenly becomes violently subjective in another person’s eyes. I have no real objection to Wang’s assertions regarding the writings of the Chinese authors that she discusses, but her repeated focus on the translation of the texts from Chinese made me aware of the reality that all of our rhetorical work is just that- translational and heavily subjective. To provide an arbitrary example- one could claim that Chinese writing styles are “repetitive”, and intend it as a purely objective analysis of one of the rhetorical moves made by authors. However, another reader could examine that statement from another angle, and find the concept of labeling something “repetitive” to be a subjective and personal statement, one designed to deride the work. Wang is constantly forced to navigate these sort of situations in her presentation of the text, and it really highlights this ambiguity. Yet again, I find myself lost on where this continues, or whether these problems are ever reconcilable. In a way, I suppose these problems have always been there, and we have always touched on them in these blogs and discussions. But, thanks to Wang, these ideas became just a bit clearer in my mind.

Gesa E. Kirsch and Jacqueline J. Royster- “Feminist Rhetorical Practices: In Search of Excellence”

I have always had an objection to the term “feminism”. In clarifying what they mean by their discussion of feminism, Kirsch and Royster explain that “We chose [] to honor the concept of ‘feminism’ as a variously articulated commitment to justice, equality, empowerment and peace…” If this is the case, what, then, is their definition of the term “masculism”? Is it the exact opposite, a variously articulated commitment to corruption, unfairness, denial, and strife? If somebody is to claim that masculism embodies these negative traits, any sane person would find it their moral obligation to reject such sexism as the puerile and offensive nonsense that it is- labeling one gender as inherently more desirable and superior is the peak of gender bigotry. And, yet, without this distinction, what is the purpose of either word? Assuming that Masculism and Feminism both embody justice, equality, empowerment and peace, it seems unnecessary to produce two different terms for a concept that is 100% identical. In which case, it seems we already have a term that represents a commitment to these notions- it’s called “egalitarianism”. In fact, “egalitarianism” is the term used for literally every other form of this discussion. As far as I am aware, nobody would ever dare to label all support of racial equality as “Blackism”. Even the idea of trying to co-opt the notion of equality and trying to paint it as the purview of a single race is immediately seen as the contradictory and absurd concept that it is.

But, here’s where the real fun of rhetorical debates comes in- by preaching a support of equality and tolerance through non-gender preferential language, I have now, and completely against my will, been placed in alignment with the foulest bigots. For those unaware of what I am referring to, I recommend being wary when doing further research online- the bile flung by sexists feigning egalitarianism is horrifying. However, interestingly enough, the sheer bigotry being exuded by those who claim to be proponents of feminism is equally extreme. These feminists are more than happy to lump me in with the bigots, and espousing the views that I have presented here are enough to garner death threats, harassment, and blacklisting. Which is why I deem it essential to reject Kirsh and Royster’s choice to define feminism as justice and equality, or anything close to these things. If it is the case that the supporters of all terms contain folks who represent the foulest humans, it seems that, at best, the terminology is completely arbitrary. At worst, as I believe is the case with the continued usage of the term “feminism”, it can propagate bigotry.

For the sake of engaging with the paper, however, I will accept the definition that Kirsch and Royster present, and assume that feminism is a commitment to justice, equality, empowerment and peace. So, what do the authors have to say on these topics? Well, actually, not much of anything. The paper is entirely focused on two different topics- 1. Female empowerment, and 2. Recommending and emphasizing specific rhetorical and teaching styles that Kirsch and Royster have decided are feminist. Apparently, male-derived rhetoric has never been interested in paying attention to or respecting subjects, collaborating or considered subjects of race. It is impossible to take the article seriously in the context of the definition that the authors provide- it is only by outright rejecting that notion and focusing on feminism as a female-centric, female-focused genre of study that privileges focusing on a single gender that anything of this article makes sense. And, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that- there are some interesting ideas about female rhetoric that the authors bring up. But, it ends up getting mired in so much gunk through their attempts to define every single concept as a novel feminine invention that I can’t help but laugh.

Blog for October 14th, 2014: Rhetorical Agency and Footing

Marilyn M. Cooper- “Rhetorical Agency as Emergent and Enacted”

I wonder whether I would get along with Marilyn M. Cooper, if we were to meet in person. Reading through this document, I found myself nodding along enthusiastically with the evidence and ideas presented. However, as much as the evidence and documentation impressed me, I found myself vehemently disagreeing with the conclusions that Cooper derived from said evidence. From what I understood, Cooper wants to move past postmodernism, in order to produce an interpretation of rhetorical agency that offers better functional utility. However, I believe it’s impossible to most past postmodernism. I may be wrong, but part of the major appeal of postmodern thought is the way that it represents the end game of rhetorical thought. It is not necessarily the most practical line of thought, but it is difficult to go beyond the complete deconstruction of, well, everything. 

Rather than simply explicitly accepting the necessary regression of thought needed for her interpretation of rhetorical agency, Cooper insists on forging ahead, creating a paradox that can’t be reconciled. Cooper explicitly acknowledges the fact that free will is fundamentally an illusion, in that everything is predetermined by environment and biological predisposition. Explicating this notion is a central half of the argument. However, she then counters this by claiming that rhetorical agency represents the other half of this system, by representing the choices that an actor is capable of making in the moment, based on these influences. The problem with this is in the fact that she fails to explain a way for distancing the corporeal here. She simply brushes away the fact that the agent’s actions are ultimately reliant on the chemicals and elements that currently make up the body of the agent. I can accept ignoring this reality, but I can’t get over the way that Cooper attempts to frame it as evolution, rather than a practical devolution. Her analysis of Obama’s speech and the usefulness of understanding the inter-positionality of these systems is fantastic. The fact that she is able to spin this into a system of educational and rhetorical responsibility is equally enjoyable. And, yet, despite all that, this key premise is still illusory, broken by her own admission of the concrete, relying on what amounts to an ephemeral soul.

Stephanie Kerschbaum- “On Rhetorical Agency and Disclosing Disability in Academic Writing”

I am continually surprised by the variety of topics that I encounter in academia. I often find myself dwelling on ideas that I would have never imagined possible. This Kerschbaum piece sparked one of these moments, when I found myself thinking “Well, she’s only focusing on the sexy disabilities.” Throughout the article, we are treated to deafness, blindness, amputees, individuals in wheelchairs, dyslexia and autism*. All of these are legitimate issues with their own unique concerns and necessary compensations/assistances. However, these are all also disabilities that people generally understand and have a sense of sympathy for. For all the problems and issues that Kerschbaum brings up, being deaf is not something that you have to try to hide or cover up. As she noted herself, people are willing, even excited, to engage with a better understanding of these sorts of disabilities. The worst criticism she leverages against the observers is that they are oblivious to the full extent of the rhetoric involved- such as not understanding the intricacies of paralytic physiology.

However, this completely overlooks all the disabilities that aren’t so neat and easy to process. I don’t wish to make this a “disability contest”, but there’s a lot more stigma in being a malformed or internally diseased individual than there is in the more binary and “sexy” disabilities. While the man in the wheelchair invokes sympathy, the elephant man elicits revulsion. I don’t have enough knowledge to pronounce judgment on the effects of such disabilities on disclosure, but it is a glaring gap in the discussion. This gap is further compounded by the aforementioned internal disabilities. Here, there is some variation between people’s reactions- cancer and autoimmune diseases get a favorable response, viral and bacterial infections can go either way, and congenital organ diseases seem to only cause discomfort and a desire to move away from the topic. The average person wants to know more about the rhetorical situation of a blind person. Nobody wants to hear a word about the person who has to store their fecal matter in a plastic bag taped to their stomach.

But, really, even these disabilities, as unappealing as they are, still tend to elicit a visceral sympathy. Regardless of the distaste, there is a comprehension that the physical is a genuine problem. Mental disabilities of the unappealing nature are basically unspeakable. The openly schizophrenic man is rarely offered a PHD- more often, he’s escorted off campus by multiple officers. Even John Forbes Nash, the famed game theorist, had his life whitewashed and his experiences marginalized- A Beautiful Mind is a fantasy interpretation that has virtually nothing to do with his actual disclosures of his schizophrenic experiences. Experiences that are largely brushed away and hid by his family and university. Then, when it comes to less abrasive disabilities, such as depression, the situation becomes yet another caricature. Disclosing that one suffers from depression is something reserved purely for the creative arts. Talking about it anywhere else gets you painted as a loony. Again, I don’t have an answer as to what any of this means, or what the implications of this sort of disclosure are. If I were to have anything disabling about myself in these categories, I’m certainly not going to ever disclose it to my classmates or fellow academics about it. I value whatever legitimacy is afforded to me too much to ever sabotage that. And, that’s not really something Kerschbaum ever has to worry about with being deaf.

As an aside- I was bit surprised when I dug into this piece. I  had researched Melanie Yergeau earlier this year (for a research project/paper on autism in academia), and I really wasn’t expecting to see references to her in other composition pieces.  If you ever find yourself thinking “Man, I really wish I could read a quality paper on autism and rhetoric right now”, I highly recommend the Heilker, P., & Melanie Yergeau article,  “Autism and Rhetoric”. (College English, 73(5), 485-497.)

*I wonder whether Yergeau would have contentions to being included in this list. A fundamental aspect of her arguments, at least as far as I understood them, is the idea that autism is not inherently a disability, but a variety. This has earned her quite a lot of ire, in fact- if you google her name, I believe one of the first-page links is a scathing criticism of the notion. To so casually lump her into the “disabled” category after reading her work comes off as vaguely disrespectful.

Erving Goffman’s Forms of Talk, Chapter 3- “Footing”

I am truly impressed by Goffman’s ability to pad out this topic into a full chapter of nearly 40 pages. There is always a bit of over-articulation that occurs in academic writing. However, typically speaking, the authors don’t go out of their way to talk down to their audience while using absurd terminology to explain simplistic concepts. A hefty chunk of this text seems to be dedicated to explaining an infantile interpretation of how conversations occur, an interpretation that I find difficult to believe was ever relevant, let alone in the 80’s. Goffman then explains how this interoperation, which is clearly painfully incorrect, is in fact incorrect. The rest of the chapter is then dedicated to explaining all the complicating factors of conversation, centered around the notion of “footing”. Here, he doesn’t really seem to have anything to offer beyond describing various positions of footing that are available to those engaging in conversation and observation. I could see using the document as a reference guide, but Goffman fails to even organize the document in a manner that would make it convenient. I can’t say that reading the piece was a total waste of my time- it is at least nice to have some of these concepts directly laid out. I just can’t ever imagine wanting to go back to it.