Bringing Berlin Up to Date and Into Comp 1113

After finishing Berlin, one question that was on my mind, and likely on the minds of some of you was well, was “how do I incorporate this into Comp 1113 or 1213?” So I started thinking about what essays in the sequence would lend themselves to incorporating some of Berlin’s lessons. While I understand that his goal is to have social-epistemic rhetoric at the heart of the entire course, and while I think that is probably possible, I have decided to solely focus on creating a unit for Essay 3 in Comp 1113 that mirrors but updates Berlin’s television unit. Like Berlin’s description of his unit, I’m not going to lay out specific lesson plans, but the overall approach I would take, the general direction of lessons, and finally, an assignment sheet that asks students to write a comparative analysis of the subjectivities two sitcoms The Middle and Modern Family attempt to create for the audience and the effects the medium of television has on shaping those subjectivities.

Where to Start

Like Berlin, I would start by introducing the class to Fiske’s Television Culture and the heuristic used for analyzing television programs. I think this image is helpful for understanding the heuristic. Fiske’s Television Culture. The questions that would be used to drive the unit are these, “What imagined realities are The Middle and Modern Family representations of?” and “How are these shows coded constructions?”

Students would be assigned to view a number of episodes of these shows which are available through a number of online players, but we would also view at least one episode of each show together in class. Each episode without commercials is about 20 minutes.

The Middle

A working class family from Indiana.

The Middle follows the ups and downs of a working class family in suburban Indiana. Frankie Heck, the mother, works as a used car salesperson while Mike Heck, the father, works as the foreman of the local quarry. They have three children, Axl, Sue, and Brick. Axl is a junior in high school who excels at sports but struggles with academics, Sue has just started highschool and is completely oblivious of her own nerdiness, and Brick excels in school and is a prolific reader but is socially awkward and in a special “social skill building” group. Episodes revolve around the children’s problems at school, Frankie’s problems at work and home, and the gradual decay of the Heck home.

Modern Family

Modern Family is in fact the story of an extended family: the patriarch, Jay Pritchett, his second wife Gloria and his stepson Manny; Jay’s daughter Claire Dunphy, her husband Phil and their children Haley, Alex, and Luke; and Jay’s son Mitchell Pritchett, his husband Cam Tucker and their daughter Lily. The tag line for the show is “One big (straight, gay, multi-cultural, traditional) happy family.” The Pritchetts and Dunphy’s all live near each other in sunny southern California in large and stylish homes. Jay works, but it’s not very clear exactly what he does – something with designing and installing closets – the viewer rarely sees him working. Phil is a real estate agent, and Mitchell is a lawyer. Gloria, Claire, and Cam all are stay at home parents. Manny, Gloria’s son, is excentric, smart, and ultimately a hopeless romantic. Haley is the popular girl in high school who struggles academically and is constantly on her phone texting. Her sister Alex is the exact opposite. She is unpopular and takes school very seriously. Luke, while sweet and naive, may or may not have ADHD. Cam and Mitchell adopted Lily from China.

Part 1: Reality

I would begin the unit by having students look at each show’s representation of “reality” that is forwarded through the raw materials. Over the course of a few days, I would have students identify the appearances, environements, etc. of each show. This analysis may lend itself nicely to a jig-saw type of activity, with groups of students focusing on one aspect of the raw materials and then bringing their findings back to the rest of the class.

For example, analysis of the environments of these shows may lead students to note the disparities between the Heck’s home, which is constantly falling apart, and the spacious and spick and span homes of the families in Modern Family. Students will notice the Heck’s home is outdated with old olive colored applicances compared to the stainless steel appliances in the homes on Modern Family. Berlin’s students noticed differences in home decor in Family Ties and Roseanne, and that this sense of taste was related more to class affiliations than finance (129). This distinction may be made between the sense of taste of the Heck’s and the Pritchetts/Dunphys and  can be expanded beyond home decor to include looking at the families’ sense of taste concerning family activities, family vehicles, etc. (The Heck’s drive an old station wagon, which may be based on finance, but Jay drives an Audi and Mitchell and Cam drive a Prius, which are more based on class affiliation).

Another aspect students can analyze is the problems that the families face. Berlin’s students noted that the problems the families in Family Ties and Roseanne faced were in general related to income, job stability and class (130). Students could analyze a number of episodes taking note of the problems the families face and what these problems are related to. Two episodes in particular came to mind when I considered family problems.

This episode of The Middle deals with Frankie and Mike considering walking out on their mortgage. They are in desperate need of a new roof, but can’t afford one. Other families in the neighborhood have foreclosed on their houses, and the Frankie and Mike consider moving to an apartment complex rather than “being both above and below water.” When compared to the issues faced by the Prichetts and Dunphys in this episode if Modern Family (Claire – whether or not to run for city council or continue to stay at home taking care of the kids, Mitchell and Cam -whether or not to chase after the guy who rear-ended their Prius, Jay and Manny -how to handle the “Bieberization” of America), it is easy to see how the problems the families face are related to income and class. It would also be interesting to have students look at the gender codes across the classes.

Part 2: Representation

Students can then move to analyzing the ways editing, lighting, music, etc. are used to create the realities presented in these two sitcoms. Just as we ask students to analyze an author’s choices in a written text, we can apply these same skills to director’s choices in television. Once again, a few days may be spent analyzing and discussing different technical aspects and their contribution to the imagined reality.

Part 3: Ideological Codes

Discussion of the sitcoms can then move to how the reality and representation are organized by ideological codes. I think looking at the ideological codes in The Middle and Modern Family will result in rich and lively discussion. Even within Modern Family there seem to be many ideological contradictions, but these contradictions don’t seem to bother viewers (they didn’t really bother me until I started to think about it for this blog post). While Modern Family may be breaking new ground in that they are presenting both nuclear and non-traditional families (the modern family), the show holds to very traditional gender roles and stereotypes. Claire, Gloria, and Cam are all stay-at-home parents, reinforcing patriarchy and stereotyping gay males in the process. While neither Cam nor Mitchell are particularly masculine, the more effeminate Cam stays at home with Lily.

Part 4: Socioeconomic Environment

Berlin’s lessons involve looking at a text “successively within its generic, ideological, and socioeconomic environment” (125), so once the initial analyses of reality and representation have taken place, I would move toward looking at these sitcoms in their ideological and socioeconomic environments.  While Family Ties and Roseanne were products of different economic times (130), Modern Family and The Middle are being produced in the same economic time, and they even air on the same network on the same evening with only a half hour in between. Students can also research the ratings of these shows.

Hopefully exploring the larger socioeconomic environment will lead students to similar realizations reached by Berlin’s students:

 “They begin to understand that television’s presentation of family and the place of work in it are related to popular perceptions of ‘the real,’ ‘the normal,’ and ‘the everyday.’ In other words, the family the largest segment of the television audience chooses to watch is a function of its self-perception, and this in turn is as much related to its conception of what it would like to think is true as to what in face exists.” (130)

I think these two sitcoms are an especially interesting case study in our current socioeconomic climate. Lately, there has been a lot of discussion concerning the disappearing middle class. See for example, this NPR story, “American Dream for Middle Class: Just a Dream?” about new research that indicates that one out of every three Americans raised in the middle class will fall out of the middle class as adults. Students might consider the ratings of The Middle and Modern Family and the potential implications the ratings have given our current socioeconomic condition.

Part 5: Formation of Subjectivities

Next students need to describe their own reactions to the two shows, and “explore their reasons for preferring the version of work and family found in one or the other program, investigating the class, gender, race, religious, and ethnic codes that they have been encouraged to enact” (132). By identifying what students find worthy of emulating, they can start to identify the different subject positions the shows try to create for their audiences.

I think students will require a discussion of what “subjectivities” actually means, and I found Faigley’s quick recap of the subject helpful in the opening of Fragments of Rationality:Postmodernity and the Subject of Composition.  He goes into much greater detail later in the book, but in the first few pages he explains the modern subject as pure consciousness that is detached from the world and that language provides the modern subject access to reality. In contrast, the postmodern subject is a subject whose consciousness originates in language. The postmodern subject is an effect of discourse (Faigley 8). Working with the postmodern subject, students can identify the different effects (subjects) the discourse of The Middle and Modern Family create with their realities and representations.

Connecting to Comp 1113

When considering where this unit might fit into the Comp 1113 essay sequence, I felt that Essay 3 was a good fit. The departmental guidelines for Essay 3 (Comparative Analysis) say that “students should write a thesis driven essay which analyzes and/or draws connections between two or more texts. In this essay, the analytical frames may be more loosely-defined than the one used in essay two.” So for this essay, I suggest using Berlin’s socio-epistemic frame to compare the two texts of The Middle and Modern Family. I’ve created an assignment sheet for this essay, which I would love to get feedback on as I would like to actually teach this unit in the future.Comparative Analysis of Sitcoms Assignment Sheet

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Semi successes and failures in rhetorical listening.

How can we know what is so natural to us that it is no longer visible to us? One answer to that question . . . is listening” (Ratcliffe 28).

While reading through Ratcliffe, what was so natural as to be invisible to me started to become more and more visible and audible. More than any of the other texts we’ve read this semester (yes, even more than Crowley), I found myself thinking about Ratcliffe’s concept of rhetorical listening constantly: while listening to this PRI interview with Jean and Joan Millington, the “Godmothers of Chic Rock,” while watching this segment on The Daily Show, particularly the round table discussion sparked by Ann Coulter’s remarks; while conversing with friends and family; and while reflecting on my own experiences in the classroom. All of these instances were perfect opportunities for rhetorical listening, but for this blog post I’ve decided to focus my analysis on a conversation I had with a friend and then on a particular classroom experience.

A Call from Tiffany*

Last week, a friend called to tell me about the rough week she was having at school. This video will offer a quick recap of our conversation. (Unfortunately, my first version was lost in an epic coffee spill, thank goodness the lap top survived. My second version isn’t as fancy or developed. Sorry. Also, you may need to pause the video to read the text. I wasn’t able to adjust the timing. Every program has its hiccups.)

WATCH MY VIDEO HERE

http://www.xtranormal.com/xtraplayr/12642349/practice-in-listening-rhetorically

My intentions for using this conversation are not to invite nor pass judgement on Tiffany, although as Ratcliffe suggests to her graduate student who tried to befriend a black classmate, the effects aren’t always those we intend. My intentions are to show how in this fifteen minute conversation with a friend, I was able to engage in some rhetorical listening moves, even though I may not have been able to identify them at the time. Keep in mind that this video includes only the bare bones of the conversation and virtually no context.

Context for my conversation with Tiffany

Tiffany and I have almost nothing in common, yet we’re friends. This has meant that over the course of our friendship we have encountered numerous topics on which we disagree. Now, the more that I reflect on our friendship, the more I realize how closely my interactions with Tiffany have resembled rhetorical listening. On page 33 Ratcliffe says that “by focusing on claims and cultural logics, listeners may still disagree with each other’s claims, but they may better appreciate that the other person is not simply wrong but functioning from within a different logic.” Whenever Tiffany makes a claim that I disagree with, I am constantly reminding myself to remember her background and history and her identifications and disidentifications. This doesn’t mean that I come to agree with her, it means that I have a better understanding of why she makes that claim. Without knowing exactly what I’ve been doing, I’ve been trying to, as Ratcliffe explains, “negotiate [my] always evolving standpoints, [my] identity, with the always evolving standpoints of [Tiffany]” (34).

In sharing this experience, I also am not trying to pat myself on the back or brag about my rhetorical listening abilities. I only want to suggest that my eyes and ears are starting to pick up on things that were previously invisible. So here comes my counter-example. In this second situation, I would have benefited greatly from Ratcliffe’s tactic of listening pedagogically.

Teaching world literature to students in middle class white suburbia

If only I had read Ratcliffe years ago. My second teaching job was in the wealthy suburbs of south Jersey. The student population was not diverse — at all — and the senior curriculum was World Literature. From among the options on our reading list, I selected Kite Runner as a jumping off point for the year.

I personally enjoyed reading the novel, it’s topical, and I thought it would hold my students’ attention. While reading my students were required to keep reading journal entries. Many of my students responded to the novel similarly to the ways I had responded to it, but then there were the students whose responses I did not  anticipate – but I might have understood them better had I listened to them rhetorically.

What an ungrateful brat

I found one of my student’s responses to be so insensitive, so ignorant, so . . . AHH! It made me angry. SPOILER ALERT! At the end of the novel, an Afghani child whose parents were executed in his presence, who was sent to live in an orphanage that could not provide for the many orphans, who was then taken from the orphanage by a Taliban official who sexually abused him, who was then rescued from the Taliban official and told he would never be put in an orphanage again, who was then told he would have to go back to the orphanage, who then tried to commit suicide, who then survived and was brought to the U.S., lives with his new family for a year without speaking. At the end of the novel, he finally smiles.

One of my student’s responses included these comments: “I don’t understand why he would try to commit suicide. It seems like he was just being over dramatic about the whole situation. And I think it was really rude and ungrateful of him to not even say ‘thank you’ to his new family. I mean, they brought him to the U.S. all the way from Afghanistan, the least he could do is say ‘thank you.'”

This response enraged me. Far from rhetorical listening, this student couldn’t even consider putting him/herself in this little boy’s shoes. While this comment is the one I remember most vividly, there were many students who at one point or another expressed resistance to the novel, its characters, and its themes.

What I did but maybe shouldn’t have . . .

Ratcliffe notes on page 147 that, “student/teacher resistance is not always based on an unwillingness to hear but sometimes on an incapacity to hear, an incapacity grounded in a lack of reflective lived experience or in a lack of the work necessary to understand commonalities and differences.” When I considered my upper-middle class white suburbia students’ resistances to this novel, these two incapacities seemed to be the problem. So what did I do? I couldn’t make them have reflective lived experiences (although that’s what Claire did to Haley in this past week’s episode of Modern Family), so instead I went the route of working on understanding commonalities. I decided to pair Kite Runner with the film Persepolis, and I asked my students to view the film looking for aspects about growing up that are universal. Oh boy . . .

First, did you notice that I said I went the route of working on understanding commonalities and left out understanding differences? I was as Ratcliffe diagnoses, “gravitat[ing], almost by default, toward places of common ground, that is, places of commonalities with other people, texts, and cultures” (32).  In my approach differences were “glossed over or erased, left outside the circle of consubstantiality.” Is it possible I took such a Burkean stance on identifications because my students were operating as postmodernists who perceived commonalities as “impossible or as impossibly naive?” (32). Second, did you notice I missed the important step of Move #5: Exposing the perceived “universality” of tropes and that universality is a situated term (152-153).

If only I had known Ratcliffe’s tactics of rhetorical listening, I would have still done my Kite Runner/Persepolis pairing, but I would have gone about it differently. Just as Ratcliffe shares how she wishes she had handled her student’s response in the Cornel West discussion differently, I wish I had handled that reading journal response differently and the subsequent cramming of my stance down my students’ throats. While my ears have been perking up these last two weeks, I hope that I continue to hone my rhetorical listening skills.

* Psydonym

“Writing as Design” with WordPress

Webblog: An exercise in “writing as design”

On page 644 of Hocks’ article “Understanding Visual Rhetoric in Digital Writing Environments,” I had an “ah ha!” moment. Hocks begins discussing the pedagogical implications of digital rhetoric by saying, “When we bring an understanding of digital rhetoric to our electronic classrooms, we need to expand our approach not only to rhetorical criticism but also to text production.” In the margin next to this statement I wrote, “Webblog??”

This “ah ha!” moment triggered a series of additional realizations.  First, I realized I haven’t even considered that the audience for my blog posts could potentially be readers outside of our History of Rhetoric class. But reading Hocks’ article made me realize that unlike our online classroom discussion forums, this blog is “out there” on the web, for anyone to access. Second, Hocks’ article made me realize that the overall objective for this assignment is much greater than showing an engagement with our reading assignments. I’m embarrassed to admit that I have not been consciously considering the rhetorical nature of my blog posts. All of a sudden, the emphasis on including images, videos, etc. seems to be a response to Hocks’ call to engage students in “new kinds of multimodal compositional processes that ask students to envision and create something that perhaps does not yet exist” (645).

So with these newfound insights in mind, I would like to use this post as an opportunity to explore how WordPress supports “writing as design” (632) by considering the audience stance, transparency, and hybridity capabilities of WordPress blog posts. I am going to focus on blog posts rather than pages because I am contributing posts to an established page and am therefore only working in the world of the individual blog post. I am hoping that this exploration may not only be pertinent to our studies in History of Rhetoric, but may also be informative to anyone who is interested in using an online blogging tool to “write as design.”

Audience Stance

The first aspect of digital rhetoric I will explore is that of audience stance, and in particular “the ways in which the audience is invited to participate in online documents” (632). In terms of creating a sense of agency for an audience of a WordPress blog post, it seems there are limits to the amount of interactive involvement the audience can have. One way to create a sense of agency for the audience is to include links and embedded videos within a blog post that the reader can decide to click on or not. Another option would be to include a poll.

Finally, similar to most blog sites, readers are welcome to leave comments on the blog.

Where WordPress blogs seem to be lacking in terms of audience agency is in the navigation of a blog post. Hocks says of Wysocki’s web essay “Monitoring Order,” that “Readers are offered the pleasure of consciously “monitoring order” themselves by clicking on tiles and pursuing different orders as they read or re-read the essay.” Hocks also notes that Boese’s “The Ballad of the Internet Nutball,” offers “complex and multifaceted” kinds of agency “allowing many choices for interaction, including several ways to read the document” (639). Compared to the sites that Hock’s details, the readers of Wordpress blog posts have essentially one way to navigate the post, one order to read its content – top to bottom. This seems to be a common characteristic of blogs in general. However, one way a blogger can try to increase the audience’s agency is through using headings and subheadings within longer blog posts. Headings and subheadings would allow the reader to skip sections or read sections of the blog out-of-order.

Transparency

The second aspect of digital rhetoric I will explore in relation to blog posts created through WordPress is that of transparency. According to Hocks transparency is the “ways in which online documents relate to established conventions like those of print, graphic design, film and Web pages” (632). WordPress blog posts are fairly transparent as they adhere to many established conventions.

Similar to print conventions, WordPress blog posts begin with a title, can include headings and subheadings and, as previously mentioned, the text of a blog post is read left to right and top to bottom (unless a reader decides to skip to sections). The Learn WordPress.com site says the following about blog posts, “Posts are what make your blog a blog — they’re servings of content, similar to journal entries, listed in reverse chronological order. Posts can be as short or as long as you like; some are as brief as Twitter updates, while others are the length of essays.”

In this brief explanation of what a blog is, WordPress aligns itself with the established conventions of journals and essays (print) and of Twitter (web). And in the directions for beginning a blog post the site recommends,

“First, write a title for the post in the space at the top. Think of your post title as a headline for a news article — the more detailed and captivating it is, the more readers it’s going to attract . . . Below the title you’ll see the visual editor, which allows you to easily create, edit, and format the content of your post, similar to the way you would with a word processor.”

Once again, the blog post is relaying on established conventions: this time of a newspaper and word processing.

Just as Wysocki’s page “Monitoring Order” “uses forms, color, and a familiar page layout to create a fairly transparent interface that quickly teaches a novice reader how to navigate it” (Hocks 636), writers of WordPress blog posts can use forms, color, and familiar layouts to make their posts transparent. Conversely, if writers wish to create less transparent blog posts, they might try breaking from established conventions by departing from a linear academic argument or essay and using links and multimedia in unconventional ways. Boese’s “The Ballad of the Internet Nutball” offers an example of a less transparent digital text; however, Wordpress may not offer a writer some of the features used in Boese’s site. (Disclaimer: It is possible Wordpress does offer these features, but I am using the free version and am not the savviest of users. However, the options featured in the Learn WordPress.com site are the basics – embed videos, pictures, etc.)

Hybridity

The final aspect of digital rhetoric I will explore in relation to WordPress blog posts is hybridity, or “the ways in which online documents combine and construct visual and verbal designs” (Hocks 632). As I have mostly touched on the verbal design features of WordPress, I will now address the visual design features provided to writers. Concerning text, the free version of WordPress offers a writer nine options relating to text size, font, and formatting (Paragraph, Address, Preformatted, Headings 1-6). The writer also has the option of bold, italics, underline, and strikethrough, as well as a pallet of colors to chose from. A writer may use bullets for an unordered list and numbers for an ordered list and may set off a block quotation as shown above, but beyond that visual options for the text itself are limited. In addition, the formatting of text is not preserved when copy and pasting from Microsoft Word, so using design features from other programs and inserting them into WordPress is not an option for dressing up your blog post text.

Other visual features available through WordPress include embedding images, videos, audio, polls, other media and custom forms. Concerning the incorporation of these media, Hocks says that hybridity is the “interplay between the visual and verbal in one constructed, heterogeneous semiotic space” (637) and she comments on the hybridity of Wysocki’s site which includes combining texts and images in unconventional ways and unconventional margins. Boese’s site swaps out different kinds of media in and out of various screens and pop up windows. The “constructed, heterogeneous semiotic space” that these writers achieved is unfortunately not as easily achieved in a WordPress blog post.

Take this image for example. I inserted this image once only to have it disappear mysteriously while I was editing text that was near it. Now, I have inserted the image, and according to the “Get Flashy” section of Learn WordPress.com, I should be able to “move images around by dragging and dropping them in different parts of your post.” However, when I try over and over again to drag and drop this image it moves nowhere. Also, I should be able to edit the image and at least center it or align it to the right, but currently when I click on the “edit image” symbol, my cursor jumps up to the beginning of my post and no “edit image” screen is displayed. At this point, I’m scared to try too many trouble shooting tricks in fear that my image will just disappear again. Whether these are WordPress issues or issues due to operator error, I’m not definitively sure, but I’m left with an image here whether this is where I really want it or not.

Established Twitter Conventions in Print

Final Thoughts

After thinking about the capabilities of WordPress blog posts in relation to the aspects of digital rhetoric identified by Hocks, I’ve come to the conclusion that while this site will help me personally as a writer “engage in multimodal composition processes,” I doubt it will allow writers to “create something that perhaps does not yet exist” (Hocks 645). WordPress blog posts offer little in terms of audience interaction, relay heavily on established conventions, and make the use of visual features possible but not cutting edge. But I wonder if that isn’t what makes a blog post a blog post.

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Sarah Palin as Victim of “Gotcha” Journalism.

On page 161 Crowley identifies features of fundamentalist arguments. These features include judging the efficacy of an argument based on the rhetor’s status as saved/unsaved, but also include strategies used specifically to address dissent: stereotyping, scapegoating, demonizing, and self-victimization. Crowley says self-victimization “enhances the group’s political and rhetorical power by generating sympathy for supposedly embattled Christians. This tactic conjectures public discursive venues as spaces in which Christians are being hunted down and persecuted (like witches?) by angry and venal secularists.” It seems that recently, self-victimization has been on the rise in the form of “gotcha” journalism.

According to Wikipedia, “Gotcha journalism” showed up in print in 1987 and then again in 1994, but it wasn’t until the 2004 U.S. Presidential election that the term really started to take off. “Wall Street Journal columnist Gordon Crovitz suggested that the term ‘gotcha journalism’ was used heavily by Republican campaign managers to diminish the credibility of journalists interviewing about the Iraq war.” Now, the term is usually used by Republicans to cover for any gaffes made in public. This from Urban Dictionary.com “simple, straight-forward questions that cannot be answered by inept politicians.” This term is most directly associated with Sarah Palin. Take this example of from a 2008 stop at a cheese steak shop in Philadelphia.

This is one of many examples of Palin being taken advantage of by “gotcha journalism.” Typically, as Crowley notes, these “attacks” happen in public discursive venues like restaurants. These public venues are the spaces in which secularists hunt down fundamentalists. In this case, Palin presents herself as the victim of an inquirer who was deliberately setting her up to fail. The attacker is Michael Rovito, a Temple graduate student who is also (and most importantly) an Obama supporter. Despite Rovito’s claims to the contrary, this question is presented by Palin as an instance of persecution. In the interview with Katie Couric, Palin says people were “hollering” at her and that Rovito said, “What are you going to do about Pakistan? You better have an answer to Pakistan!” as if this last statement was a threat. Rovito says he would have asked the same question (which was actually, “What should we do? like cross the border from Afghanistan to Pakistan, you think?) no matter which candidate had shown up at Tony Luke’s, and he claims that as a tax-paying citizen, he was merely taking advantage of an opportunity to ask a question. Rovito believes citizens should be allowed to ask questions without then becoming objects of scorn.

This example shows how two of the argumentation strategies identified by Crowley entwine to combat dissent.  Sarah Palin uses self-victimization to cover for a statement she made that seems to agree with the enemy (in this case Barack Obama). There can’t be a victim without a perpetrator, and in this case, Rovito, Couric, and anyone else who questions her about her gaffe is demonized for taking her statement “out of context” or for expecting her to answer questions correctly under “duress.” Rovito says he has been the object of scorn for asking Palin a “gotcha” question.

The cheese steak gaffe is especially interesting because in this case, Palin is the dissenter. Her comment seemed to agree with Obama, rather than her running mate McCain. The position of McCain (and supposedly of Palin depending on whether you believe her first response or her recantation to be her actual position) seems at odds with the typical stance of conservatives. I cannot claim that either McCain or Palin are apocalyptic, but I think as conservatives they embody the idealogic that patriots are pro-war, and therefore, I would assume Palin and McCain would be all for going into Pakistan, especially if they are trying to hasten the second coming of Christ by making the events in Revelation come to fruition. Crowely says “apocalypticism and exceptionalism warrants an aggressively nationalistic foreign policy,” so, why wouldn’t they take the position that American should go across the border into Pakistan? Is opposing the enemy more important that being patriotic, or even fulfilling their holy calling?

Palin is a great source for examples of self-victimization, but there is another reason why I think she would make a perfect case study for Crowley investigation. Take this next clip.

This past summer, Sarah Palin was running around the country publicizing “Americana” and “our foundation” and “how important it is that we learn about our past and our challenges and victories.” But during that bus tour, she offered an interesting rendition of Paul Revere’s ride possibly indicating she needs to do some learning of her own. She may be inept, or she may be some kind of genius, I just don’t know. She certainly seems to be the spokeswoman for the Christian Right. Her definition of “Americana” and “our foundation” echo those of the Christian Right Crowley identifies. While Palin doesn’t erase history, she does rewrite it to suit the Christian Right. Much like conspiracy theorists, Palin brings up facts (that Revere was a courier, that the British had been “in that area” for 7 years) and then puts forth her interpretation of those events that support second amendment rights. She denies that she was in error at all, but just in case she also mentions that it was “a shout out ‘gotcha’ type of question” (of course). She also comments on the “Very heady days, rough waters ahead of us” that Americans will be facing, which to me, sounds like an apocalyptic warning.

Overall, I would be interested in reading an updated version of Crowley’s Towards a Civil Discourse that addresses the state of civil discourse in 2011. I wonder if she would have any examples of progress made in this arena that can be attributed to rhetoric, or if she would only have more examples of apocalyptics being apocalyptics and of liberals being liberals.

Honoring the child, dishonoring the mother, reinforcing patriarchy: Observations made walking to my car.

Tags

abortion, patriarchy, pro-life

I walk past this memorial almost every day, but it wasn’t until we started
reading Crowley that I started to actually notice it. I’m sorry if the pictures
aren’t super, I took them on my phone while dodging the sprinklers.

I guess what makes me stop and pause at this memorial now is wondering whether it
is liberal ideologic that suggests to me that this memorial is
“pro-life” and therefore, “anti-abortion.” Is the rhetoric
of this memorial actually arguing the “pro-life” standpoint, or am I
forcing that interpretation?

The inscription above the Bible verse reads, “This memorial is dedicated in
prayerful memory to the unborn children and in respect for life and
motherhood.” I find the use of the article the to be an interesting choice. To me, this
article singles out one specific group of unborn children — the unborn
children who were aborted, as opposed to those who were stillborn, miscarried,
etc. If the inscription were to read, “to unborn children” then it
would be inclusive. But that’s not what it says. The unborn children suggests to me that they were fit to be born and then weren’t. The article coupled with the second part of the dedication “in respect for life and motherhood” further
suggests the “pro-life” and “anti-abortion” message. I
doubt that someone who is “pro-life” would consider miscarriage or
stillbirth to be disrespectful to life or motherhood; however, abortion would
certainly be considered disrespectful to life and motherhood.

The second half of the inscription on the memorial is of a Bible verse. Here is a link
to the verse in the greater context of (at least) the chapter it is pulled
from. This chapter of Isaiah is addressing the people of Israel. This verse
falls under the subheading “Restoration of Israel,” and as the
subheading suggests, this section is about God restoring the nation of Israel
to its former and future greatness. Verse 14, which immediately precedes the
verse on the memorial, is “But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, the
Lord has forgotten me.” And the inscribed verse, verse 15, is the response to
this exclamation from Zion, ““Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I
will not forget you!” Verse 16 follows saying “See, I have engraved
you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me,” which is
probably at least partly the inspiration for the sculpture on the memorial.

In this context, this verse is an analogy for God’s relationship to the people of Israel.
Out of that context, the memorial uses this verse to chastise mothers who have
had abortions. The verse villainizes mothers who have “forgotten”
their babies and who “have no compassion” for the child they aborted.
It also contrasts these evil mothers with God’s eternal love and compassion.

I feel like the idea of the memorial is undermined by this message that presents
the child as victim and mother as villain. From dictionary.com, a memorial is
1. Something, such as a monument or holiday, intended to celebrate or honor the
memory of a person or an event. I feel like the idea of honoring the lives of
any unborn children (or more accurately, honoring the potential lives?) should
stand on its own, and that the implicit message of this memorial detracts from
that honor. This makes me wonder, can a message be pro-life without also being
anti-abortion? Or, does any and every pro-life message carry with it an implied
anti-abortion message that will surface with a little teasing? I know there is
probably a lot more I could say about this memorial, but at this point I feel
like I should make a Crowley connection.

Crowely uses the topic of abortion in her book as an example of how apocalyptics and liberals can’t engage in civil discourse. On page 95 she discusses the use of
sensational photographs by pro-life protestors and says, “such images
remind protestors that reproductive freedom for women weakens the hold of
patriarchy, hence threatening the ideologic of male supremacy and perhaps their
personal desire for power over women as well.” I would argue that this
memorial uses the statue of a small infant (or well developed fetus) cupped in a
male hand, the inscription, and the Bible verse to deemphasize (putting it
nicely) the issue of women’s productive rights, and to emphasize God’s (God in
masculine form) power/rule over humanity.

And finally….

Noticing this memorial also gave me an idea for an activity for our Comp students. I
think I might have students go around campus and take pictures of different
signs, statues, etc on/around campus. Then, I would like to have students post
their pictures to D2L or some other website so that we could use them in class
to practice doing rhetorical analysis. 🙂

Facts, Evidence, and Proof: Epistemological Disagreements within the Field

In class on Friday, we identified standards as a point of
contention amongst the Octalog scholars. Micah’s post addresses the issue of
how facts are established but primarily through Perelman’s point of view.  I particularly like how Micah said, “Still, the one premise that seems to work
in our existence is that TRUTH is something we AGREE upon … and by extension we
must include REALITY, FACT, KNOWLEDGE. If we accept this one universal premise,
then we must accept the premise that argumentation (rhetoric) plays a VERY
significant role in epistemology.” However, I wish Micah would have developed
the final idea of that statement more – the role that rhetoric plays in
epistemology and vice-versa.

As I read through
the Octalog discussion, I was particularly interested in how each of the
scholars addressed the ideas of facts, validity, proof and evidence. My
interest in these concepts is also tied to an interest in how rhetoric has been
ignored (shunned? excluded?) in certain disciplines and even how rhetoric has fared
within English departments. After re-highlighting all of the passages in the
Octalog that address facts, proof, evidence, etc., I realize it’s too much to
take up in this one blog post. So, I’ve tried to pick out a few especially poignant
comments.

Susan Jarratt,
fairly early in the conversation, says, “we sort of fall in a range on a
spectrum of the degree to which we’re interested in facts” (22) and later, in
his reflection on the conversation, Robert Conners comments, “most of us seem
to be acting out a kind of intellectual multiple-personality disorder. On the
one hand, no one, not even Rich Enos down at the right-hand side of the table,
seemed willing to make the direct claim that they wrote the truth when they
wrote history . . . Then nearly all of us go on to talk about how we write to
convince, to persuade, to recover this or that figure or idea or tradition.
How, in other words, we all take certain stands and write as if we knew the truth and wanted only to share and
promulgate it” (36).

Even those
scholars who would claim a greater interest in facts are still hesitant to
claim that facts are representative of the truth. However, the rhetoric used to
represent both facts and, for those less interested in facts, their story of
history presents a version of truth that can/should be willingly accepted as
the truth. Nan Johnson comments, “My role as a narrator does not prevent me
from intending my tale to be accepted as a “true story” in the sense that, as
an act of rhetoric, my history imposes formal shape on the probable, or on the
relative truth, while simultaneously seeking acceptance as a logical
explanation of reality” (18). So, it would seem that these scholars in the same
field can’t agree on the truth of facts. This disagreement, as I understand it,
is an epistemological one.

Linda Flower
asks, “Is there evidence that that’s [that it’s important to avoid closure and
that history is more story than fact] true? And if it’s just possible that that
strong version isn’t beneficial, and
that systematically avoiding closure is not
the best thing to do, how would we ever get evidence that that is perhaps
not as valid as the claims being made for it” (32). To which Victor Vitanza
replies, “Is there any evidence for evidence? Is there any proof for proof?” (43).

Not only can
scholars in the field of rhetoric not agree on the truth of facts, they also
struggle with agreeing on the proof of truth. At what point are proof and evidence
true? I can’t help but think of Kuhn and his study of scientific revolutions at
this point. Even in empirical fields like chemistry and physics, proof and
evidence have time and time again been disproven. (If I can find my copy of
Kuhn I’ll try and add some specific examples here).

And my final
couple of quotes:

From Nan Johnson,
“In likening historical research to archaeology, I am upholding in part the
traditional, and I would say common-sensical, bias that historical investigation
can unearth material evidence” (17) And from James Berlin, “And I realize that
material goods are themselves constructions; they’re empirical, but we can
never see them. The thing in itself will always evoke this conception framework”
(25).

Scholars in the
field of rhetoric can’t even agree to the truth/factuality of material
evidence. These disagreements within the field are all epistemological. I think
this is incredibly interesting considering Micah’s statement that rhetoric
plays a role in epistemology, because here I see epistemology playing a role in
approaches to rhetoric. Like many concepts in academia, I feel like I’ve
stumbled into a chicken-egg situation. Has rhetoric shaped each scholars
epistemology and in turn shaped their rhetoric and shaped their epistemology,
and their rhetoric, etc. etc. etc.

In Intro to Grad
Studies, I felt like I was presented with an either/or situation concerning
epistemological stands. You either believe the world is a lab and knowledge is
out there to be discovered through scientific tests, or you believe that the
world is a stage and knowledge is created by the interaction of the players on
that stage. I struggled with this dichotomy and still do. I think after reading
this Octalog, it seems like these historians also struggle with the intricacies
of this dichotomy. Is this why rhetoric has had such a sordid past? Is this why
rhetoric, despite its meta status, has been so rejected by the sciences and so hit
or miss within the field of composition? Is rhetoric a field of fence sitters?

 Or was I presented with a false dichotomy?

p.s. I copy and pasted from Word and the formatting was all funky, so I tried to fix it in the upload/insert window and it didn’t get much better…. so I don’t know how to fix it. Sorry for the weird line breaks.)

Practice Post

This is where I’ll write my post.