Blog for September 18th, 2014- A Fond Farewell to Killingsworth

We will continue with Killingsworth this week, wrapping up the entirety of the last half of the book in this segment. I have decided to keep this introduction brief, and include my summarizing reflections at the bottom of the post.

Chapter Six: Appeals to Body

In the previous post, I expressed some disappointment in the fact that this textbook was not more modern. This chapter sparked that feeling yet again. It is clear that Killingsworth had no clue what the future of the internet was going to be. His descriptions of appeals to body and place are magnificent- for mass media cultures and situations. The advertising model that he presents is purely an example of the world of yesteryear. In Killingsworth’s description of advertising, the advertiser is modeled as somebody aiming for universal penetration in high viewership programs and situations. However, in today’s economic climate, the advertising model has largely shifted away from “Network” advertising, instead choosing to favor targeted ads. The single biggest ad agency in the nation is a certain Bay Area tech company, and the secret to their advertising model is that they offer hyper-specific analytic information for every possible consumer market. The universal appeal of the appeal to generic body desires has become somewhat unnecessary in the face of this new model of advertising that now exists and proliferates. Of course, the general notion of an appeal to body still applies fully- humans are still corporeal creatures with an overweening obsession to maximize their physical state. However, whereas advertisers may have originally said “Don’t you want to have washboard abs?” to everyone, they now may instead say to me “One easy trick to increase your bench press” or some such nonsense, and “Best places for sub dermal piercings in the Bay” for somebody else. The idea of a universally appealing body is no longer universally appealing.
Of course, for the most part, good health of the body is still universally appealing, too, but even then, the method of appeal is often different. Again, I might get an empirically-based ad for a new type of apnea prevention system, while somebody else in the Bay might get an ad for woo-based homeopathic placebo.

Chapter Seven: Appeals to Gender

For the sake of my health and sanity, I now abstain from talking on this issue unless actively forced to. Safe to say, there is a lot of politicking and argumentation around the nature of gender and appealing to it.

Chapter Eight: Appeals to Race (Aka: Appeals to Literacy)

When I first looked at the length of chapter eight, I was somewhat shocked. As much as I appreciate the value of race relations and studies, I couldn’t think a reason as to why race would be the longest chapter of a book based on outlining basic ideas of rhetoric. Of course, as evident from my modified title, the chapter is actually two chapters with overlapping content. Although race is clearly the central focus of the chapter, race is explore primarily through the notion of literacy. I am reducing this down to extremely simple concepts here, but, basically speaking, your race is more representative of the cultural background and literacy you have than it is a reflection of your skin color. Somebody who is unable to assimilate and imitate the culture around them is going to suffer from stigmatization and complications in communication. This lack of literacy of a culture is costing them, due to their rhetorical ignorance, whereas an individual who modifies their style to placate the others is using rhetoric to their advantage perfectly. This brings up a lot of potential questions and complications regarding racial identity and cultures, but this is probably not the place for that.

Chapter Nine: Appeal Through Tropes

As part of my dedicated effort to include as many tangential topics as possible in these postings, I would like to take the opportunity to mention one of the more entertaining abstracted wikis on the internet- TV Tropes. Massively informal and often totally idiotic in many ways, TV Tropes is also a fantastic repository for understanding the popular trophic movements in most forms of entertainment and popular culture. Since the terminology used by the site is often satirical, self-referential and somewhat arbitrary, it fails to even serve as a dictionary service. However, as you will note if you go to visit the site, it is still an indispensable treasure trove of information regarding coming to understand the actual acts and moves that an author makes. Perhaps another way to describe it- imagine that a schizophrenic court jester was tasked with creating a comprehensive breakdown of all the tropes and rhetorical moves that a creator could possibly use in their work. A magnificent companion for this chapter, and somewhat less esoteric than awful equal sign examples he tried to give.

Chapter Ten: The Appeal of Narrative

I like to think of myself as a writer. I write a lot of narratives, and I’ve always struggled to understand why I bother. This chapter helped me to understand some of the reasonings behind it. I’m not actually entirely happy with the answer I found for myself. It appears that, more or less, I’m drawn to narrative formats because of the way that they better allow you to gratify your own ego. Even though empirical knowledge is far more valuable for accuracy, narratives are what compel the masses.

Concluding Thoughts:

As I wrapped up reading the final chapter of the book, only one sentence stuck in my mind- “What on Earth did I just read?” Killingsworth has absolutely produced a text that is truly intriguing and unique. It is a product of a certain time, place, and person, and becomes more than just a textbook. As should be obvious from my prior allusions, Killingsworth does not simply produce the text- he occupies it. His personality, his tastes, his ideals and his failings are all weaved directly into the information we are presented with. I’m not sure that it’s an ethical choice for a textbook writer. However, despite my uncertainty regarding this ethical dilemma, I’m satisfied with the product I was offered. The problem I have is that I’m not sure whether or not others should be satisfied with what was offered. What Killingsworth presents here is something of a bait-and-switch-and-also-keep-the-first-thing-too. The product offers everything that it seems to advertise- it is absolutely a mid-upper college level textbook that comprehensively covers the basics of modern rhetoric a la 2005. However, the question becomes- does Killingsworth’s styling offer added value, or is it just a bloated way of foisting ideology on readers? Personally, I’m inclined to side with the notion that he has no responsibility to curtail such editorializing- but I’m still really not sure.