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!"
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