Peer Feedback: Assignment #1

All:

I had to revamp my entire assignment. Using the wonderful feedback provided in Monday's chat - and Prof. Rice gently easing me into what's expected - I used an "old friend" to start my project. This may seem odd - and that's the point. Instead of finding an artifact, I went with what I already knew and adapted it for looking forward into the future. You'll likely have to open it somewhere else (I'm not familiar enough with Blogger.com to add a file). Feedback is welcome - I'm sure I need it. I will be adding philosophical citations once I nail this down. This is definitely a work in progress for me.

Blog #5: What is home?

Three of the Ashoka students' blogs held some revelations for me, and I'll try to sum them up here.

First, Ishanika sees home as a base where someone can find his or her identity through introspection of the past, the present, and the future. I've seen home presented as a fixed space, usually metaphorically, for someone to link memory, emotion, and identity. However, it didn't occur to me that it's also a place to look at the future, almost like a new starting point for the old (new?) personality to begin. Gradually, I understood that every future becomes a "present" and "past," like steps in some direction. But wherever the steps may go, there will always be that first step, which is home.

Nainika brought up the TED talk by Zak Ebrahim, whose father was an extremist and part of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Home seems like one permanent thing, but home can always change. She infers that that something, or someone (in this case, parents) define "home" for children and it tends to stay that way until something happens to drastically re-define this space. I think this is germane - in a general sense, we see home as an unchanging place until something forces us to rethink the idea. It could be gradual, such as coming of age and leaving the nest, or in a split second after coming up against something completely opposite of what is "known."(These could be considered "aha" or "uh-oh" moments.)

I enjoyed Priyavrat's philosophical journey into the different elements which blend to develope one's sense of home. I queried which was the strongest pull for him - I personally believe we all have the one thing, such as memory, or emotion, and the others (physicality, location, art) complement the strongest tie in some way. For instance, a vinyl-covered couch (physicality) may remind someone of grandma's living room. I like how he wanted to investigate all these inputs and discover their interactions.

Blog #4: My philosophical theory on rhetoric

As a product of my last full-time occupation, my focus is on clarity. Merriam Webster defines clarity as:

: the quality of being easily understood

: the quality of being expressed, remembered, understood, etc., in a very exact way

While the definition appears to stress accuracy and a lack of any gray areas, I know this is not the case. What may be clear to the writer doesn't always translate when someone else reads, or listens, to the rhetoric. Memes, tropes, slang, and other devices are misunderstood across cultures, even within what may be a homogenized audience. My own personal slant on clarity is cutting through the rhetoric (written, spoken, visual, etc.) and finding the true meaning OR if there is any meaning at all. 

The first steps in clarity is understanding. Do I really understand the topic I'm about to discuss? Am I speaking through a filter based on my conception/preconception of the topic? Does my topic hold any interest with the audience? For example, if I speak on the visual rhetoric of a military uniform, my knowledge of the topic is different, as a retiree, than someone who did one enlistment, or someone who has never served. My filter may see the historical significance and inclusion into a specific area of society, but someone else may see regimentation, a projection of militaristic power, and sublimation of individuality. That lens - how I see it and how others see it - is vital.

My journey for clarity starts with the philosophers of the Enlightenment such as Locke, Vico, and Campbell (B+H). Understanding and using psychology to affect the audience was nothing new, but the Enlightenment rhetors began to dissect the motivations of the audience (though still from a Western viewpoint) as daily life changed as new science and technologies emerged. Today, with political battles played out in social media outlets and allegations of bias against mainstream news, clarity is lost amid six-second soundbites and weekly memes. And how do these snapshots translate to China, or Finland, or Nigeria? A Syrian refugee will have a different opinion of President Obama's speeches of US involvement worldwide than me, or someone in Utah, or someone in Australia. 

Perhaps that's the center of it all; there's really no "exact way" to communicate across cultural boundaries. However, if a rhetor - someone trying to get a point across - *doesn't* look for clarity through multiple lenses, or doesn't recognize his or her own lens and bias, then clarity is merely a buzz word. And that's why my personal philosophy of rhetoric is to first recognize my own lenses, then understand others' views, and finally try to bridge the communication gap.

Blog #3 - the rhetoric of 9/11

This particular blog topic gave me pause. I needed to ruminate a bit and, eventually, separate my military bias from the rhetorical question at hand.

"What rhetoric do you remember being employed during and in the aftermath of 9/11?"

Surely, it's easy to agree that Aristotelian method is heavily employed; the President stood before Congress, and the entire United States, asking for a declaration of war. Pathos was the heaviest lifter in all the speeches, which is no surprise - Americans were reeling with shock and emotion afterward. However, after reading the introduction in B+H, I now believe the rhetoric also took on the characteristics of the Medieval period. To quote the book: "They saw rhetoric as part of the hated Greco-Roman culture, imbued with the hopeless moral corruption of the pagan world. Moreover, rhetorical invention generates probable knowledge through the commonplaces and the enthymeme, but Christian knowledge is absolute" (B+H 8). Our beloved nation built on Christian values must now step up and defeat the Islamic terrorists who hate everything we believe, and we will be victorious. 

Before the President spoke to the Nation, the military knew we were going to war. To many of my "generation" (with time of service just beginning near the end of the Cold War and forward), the events of 9/11 were a culmination of perceived weaknesses in our foreign policy - starting with the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, then the bombing of the USS Cole. (Some of my peers remember Beirut and the La Belle disco in Berlin.) We didn't see this so much as a war against Islamic terrorists as much as a war against terrorism in general - this was the last straw in a long line of ineffective policies and now, we could finally do something about it. If another terrorist organization had perpetrated these actions, the result would have been the same.

The latter makes a more logical enthymeme. The emergence of ISIS(ISIL) and the videos of beheadings, reinforces the premise that belligerent Islamic militants are still dangerous and because of this, despite the toll on the military and the questionable strategies and objectives, the US is still the righteous bearer of the standard of peace.

A little help from the class, please...

Dr. Rice and I are emailing back and forth over my presentation topic. I'm most comfortable (knowledgeable) discussing military rhetoric, but I can't quite narrow down which particular topic. So, at Dr. Rice's advice, I'm posting here to get feedback from my classmates. The one specific we agreed on is the difference between "civilian" and "military" rhetoric on topics of interest, and I intend to take a "boots on the ground" approach to the miltiary side - as opposed to what the service Chiefs of Staff say.

1. Snowden/Manning - are they heroes or traitors, or a little of both?
2. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl - the core value of "never leave someone behind, "he walked away willingly," and the role PTSD may have played in this situation
3. Women in direct line of fire

I'm looking at these current topics, though each has a historical background as well. Participate in your representative democracy and vote!

Blog #2: Non-western rhetoric

What are the most important characteristics of rhetoric, and what have you learned about non-western rhetoric which is new to you? 

I encountered some of Confucianism in philosophy (albeit not the rhetoric theory and practices from Borchers). After a course in Native American literature, I experienced much the rhetoric through fiction and non-fiction authors. Vine Deloria Jr. summed up Borchers with a passage from "Custer Died For Your Sins": "What we need is a cultural leave-us-alone agreement, in spirit and in fact." (p. 27) I had no epistemic knowledge of Afrocentric rhetorical theory; however, Dr. Molefi Asante's explanation made a lot of sense to me, after what little I'd hear  via speeches, movies, or music.

Within or outside a culture, rhetoric needs a common thread. Standing back from the detailed explanations in Borchers, I believe the common thread is understanding first, within the culture, perhaps to the exclusivity of others. For instance, Chinese cultural rhetoric doesn't need to be understood by the world - at least, not at first. What matters most is the rhetor using culturally understood (accepted?) communication. All three non-western traditions speak to galvanizing the people to a common purpose, exclusive of anyone else. The power behind each type of rhetoric relies on what works within the culture, rather than what's generally accepted.

Afrocentricity was my newest rhetorical discovery. Not in and of itself, but the theory and principles. I'm not a big fan of hip-hop or rap, but older gospel music is very reflective of this theory. Admitting a little guilty pleasure, I watch the movie "Sparkle" over and over again, specifically for two specific musical scenes: first, when Whitney Houston sings "His Eye Is On The Sparrow," and second, when Jordin Sparks sings "One Wing." After reading the chapter, both exemplify the components of Afrocentric rhetoric. (I recommend watching the movie, as opposed to hearing the songs via soundtrack or YouTube, to experience the powerful effect.) After reading this chapter, the elements make a lot of sense, and I can see how the interaction of the components complete the communication between "speaker" and "audience." The written word doesn't have the same punch, or rhythm, as either speech or music does, in this genre.