All Aboard the Loss-of-Meaning Train

             I read the Stanley Fish essay referred to in James Sosnoski's "Hyper-Readers and their Reading Engines," and I'm still trying to figure out how it was meant to support Sosnoski's claim about filtering. Sosnoski states, “As inheritors of the work of Fish and other reading theorists, most teachers now readily admit that reading is a highly selective process, one in which the majority of details are forgotten, leaving the reader to be content with plot summaries, thumbnail characterizations, representative scenes, and themes, most of them memorable because they can be assimilated into what Frank Smith taught us to call “cognitive structures”” (Sosnoski 165). The most memorable aspects mentioned here falling into cognitive structures resonates with what Fish says (“students did not proceed from the noting of distinguishing features to the recognition that they were confronted by a poem; rather, it was the act of recognition that came first--they knew in advance that they were dealing with a poem-- and the distinguishing features then followed.”), but Sosnoski gives those words to Smith. The more I think about this, the more convoluted it all becomes and the more I demand a hypertext for sorting this mess out. This essay on hypertext would in fact make for a decent hypertext setting, but then Sosnoski would lose parts of his message, become de-authorizied. And yet I can’t help but think he’s already being de-authorized by citing Fish and Smith. Eva-Maria Jakobs might agree with this notion as she draws parallels between footnotes/references and hypertext (Jakobs 357). I’m straying from the point which is that Fish has more to say about cognitive structures than he does about filtering, and if Sosnoski would go ahead and hypertextualize this essay already, I could follow Frank Smith’s link and better see what the hell is being proposed.

My issue with filtering as it is presented here is that if inherent in reading is this notion that what is read necessarily disintegrates into oblivion, what will happen when even less is read? It seems skimming, pecking, fragmenting all pertain to less being read about a particular subject. I suppose it’s not that the cumulative content being read is lessened, but rather that each piece receives less focus. It allows for extension rather than depth which makes for a vaster overview of a topic. At the same time, though, each piece will undergo this “highly selective process” which will cause most to be forgotten. Don’t the elements matter? Doesn’t it allow for a greater understanding of the whole when one intimately knows the pieces that constitute it?

I’m noticeably expressing my anxiety over hypertext, and it’s a serious anxiety. I’d like to incorporate a link to the chaos that ensues inside my head at the moment, but it seems technology’s reach is not yet capable of the feat. And at the same time, everything I write is a link, a sort of hypertext that allows readers into the recesses of my chaotic mind. I can’t help but wonder if the reading this week was meant to be a manifestation of the idea that “information devours its content (Sosnoski 164), because I’m feeling an information overload in which the content is devoured, and I’m left writing a post bereft of any meaning.

Maybe the loss-of-meaning train will inevitably be boarded (more and more information, and less and less meaning (Sosnoski 164)). Maybe I’m boarding right now.

 

My World Commodified

In Anne Francis Wysocki’s “The Multiple Media of Texts: How Onscreen and Paper Texts Incorporate Words, Images, and Other Media,” she goes beyond merely informing readers of the various media for creating texts and analyzing them and argues that the visual representation of texts through media have a relationship to the values of the society from which they stem. For example, the traditional layout of American books and textbooks are indicative of our proclivity for standardization and order, “for the quick and efficient transmission of information” (Anne Francis Wysocki 125). If this is true, texts are in agreement with the same qualities we have come to expect and admire in economics.

We are a consumer culture and texts do not fall outside the umbrella of economics. We act like knowledge is this one thing and commodities another, but we forget that in order to transmit knowledge we must necessarily commodify it, that is to say mediate it through texts. Texts are more than a simple mediation, though. Texts do not simply arise from commodifying knowledge but rather  are the commodification of knowledge. They are inseparable from the means through which they become disseminated. Knowledge could not be packaged and sold without them.

                 According to the essay “The Database and the Essay: Understanding Composition as Articulation” by Johndan Johnson-Eilola, this is precisely the direction in which texts are going. In fact, intellectual property laws are going so far as to protect texts as a commodity. Johnson-Eilola states, “From the IP perspective… textual content has become commodified, put into motion in the capitalist circulation, forced to earn its keep by moving incessantly” (203). Texts are now fragmented and packaged such that the packaging constitutes the intellectual creativity and not the content. And you might be wondering how this relates to Wysocki’s argument, but this process reveals those values that Wysocki suggests are related to texts’ visual representation. It causes one to wonder about the real relationship between texts’ visual representation and our values.

The argument might proceed such that the texts reflect our values or it might proceed conversely: one might postulate that the visual representation of texts do not reflect our values but rather create them, that they do not reinforce but rather influence. Beyond a certain age, much of what engenders our values emanates from the texts we encounter in college. If these texts have become neatly packaged commodities, the majority of which are mediated through a standardized form, might we then be receiving messages that influence our values. These values are aligned with the economic system and redirected to advocate ideals that promote the growth of corporations through efficiency and standardization, processes that often require eliminating individuality and autonomy from the human equation. Innovation and self-sufficiency are not encouraged, but rather performance of a single, fragmented task. The process of fragmenting, packaging, and selling knowledge begins to look a lot like the industrial machine. And this machine produces the very texts that relate to our values.

And I think this relates to Wysocki’s primary concern about the design of our texts: “But what might be the consequences of design that ask me to use it unquestioningly, to acquire through what I see and do the values of efficiency and transparency?” (158). What does the tendency to accept without questioning say about our value system? If these texts operate as an argument, as persuasion, then what is the effect of the seemingly naturalized text? I stand firm in believing that the most insidious kind of persuasion is the persuasion that operates unseen, the kind of persuasion that makes it appear as if its message arises within ourselves. So the question remains: do our values create texts that imitate them, or do texts create values that we imitate?

Now the question remains whether or not I buy this argument, and it seems all the more pressing and appropriate. The answer can be nothing other than a simple and defeated Yes. I do buy it. I’ve been buying arguments all my life. I just didn’t know it.

-Aaron

 

 

All This Media and I Can't Layer a Message

                In Dennis Barons “From Pencils to Pixels,” I notice a common theme throughout the history of writing technology. It seems at the advent of new technology, the public is initially apprehensive. Whether this is due to the inaccessibility of the new technology or a deeply embedded fear that the technology might radically alter the fabric of their existence is unclear, but the common feature I attribute to the surviving technology is the incorporation of its precursor.

I propose that our most recent writing technology subsumes all the technology that preceded it. So the romance we associate with the rudimentary technology is not lost. It is rather channeled and reconstituted into the new. Therefore, we should not be lamenting a loss, but embracing the myriad possibilities that new technology offers. As writers we are driven to create meaning for our readers, and advancements in technology allow us to do that with various media that we can combine in innovative ways that achieve an effect that was once inconceivable. In “The Multiple Media of Texts, ” Anne Frances Wysocki offers a look at these media we as writers now have at our disposal and the ways in which they can be manipulated to shape transmission and reception of messages.

Each element—words, photo, chart, graph, video, sound, drawing, color—is but a piece referring to a much larger whole. When considering these elements alongside the “web of meaning” created by intertext, we can see the possibility for an infinitely layered visual representation to construct and deconstruct. One can follow one written text which refers to others, which still refers to others, and do this endlessly. And this is only one of the visual elements containing meaning.

Even the visual representation of the written words contains its own meaning independent of the content of the words themselves and yet inextricably linked. The messages of form and content can coincide with one another for emphasis or conflict to call attention to the disconnect, but the main point is that each is a message in and of itself that multiplies meaning through interconnectedness. Now, with the addition of other elements, ways of producing meaning become even more complex. The layers are endless.

With the introduction of these new forms of media, I wonder how they will fit into Johndan Johnson-Eilola’s argument about the trend of intellectual property (IP). As the line between creative works and non-creative becomes more blurred, I wonder where these things will fit. Will these elements too be seen as fragments, as manageable chunks of information suitable for commodification? If we approach these peripheral media (video, sound, drawings, photos) in the same manner as the traditional media (written words), we might conclude that each has an interconnectedness within their own medium analogous to intertext, that they derive meaning from the things to which they are connected. As with traditional media, these too could be fragmented and reconfigured as an “original” work.

This has lead me to conclude that IP laws are destroying the very things they are meant to protect. With our postmodern conception that all works arise in a social context, that these works can then be fragmented and reconfigured into a composite that constitutes originality, I can imagine IP becoming obsolete. This new form of IP is the antithesis to IP, and yet its construction is contingent on the production of actual original thought. Will we eventually cease pursuit of intellectual innovation in exchange for the perpetual breakdown and reconfiguration of the existing IP? Or has this already been going on since the beginning of time?

Intertextuality in the Narrative Paradigm

I feel I haven't given the narrative paradigm its due consideration in my blog. While reading through the text for the second time, I had an epiphany. The narrative paradigm in some ways parallels the discourse community and intertextuality. One can consider the forum for public moral argument as the discourse community. Within that community there are the stories that inform our operation and understanding of narrative probability and narrative fidelity. The storytellers or experts might be the ones considered regulating the discourse or imposing the constraints. It is an interactive process, however, and all members have the opportunity to alter the discourse with their own story (implantation of intertext). This creates a dynamic environment in which each story redefines and alters, if only a trace amount, the entire constitution of the narrative paradigm. The main thing here is that the entire discourse hinges on the interrelated narratives that constitute the community.

The Recursive Structure to Which All Text Is Heir

James E. Porter's "Intertextuality and the Discourse Community" follows a tradition of exegesis that places the worth of a work in the tradition in which the text is steeped. He refers to the text as intertext, and takes the notion so far as to assert that all text is necessarily intertextual. All text is made up of the text that precedes it. In a way, the writer is destined to be constrained by its predecessors. In regard to the rhetorical situation, the rhetor is of even less importance than the situation in which the rhetor exists. The rhetor does not create the situation, but is shaped by it.

The extent to which the rhetor is constrained becomes even more severe when considering his placement in a discourse community. The discourse community is a sort of specialized forum of intertext which presupposes rules and constraints characteristic of the particular community in which a rhetor finds himself. The audience and traditions of the community exercise the most force on the rhetor's textual product. He must conform to the expectations of the community or else find himself alienated.

It seems pretty dreary for the rhetor, but Porter argues that it is within the constraints of intertext and discourse community that a rhetor can find freedom. The content that can be employed by the rhetor is unchanging, but the form in which he can represent it is his own. This hints at an analysis that manipulates the established codes of conduct in new and interesting ways.

This entire concept of the discourse community seems to be echoing the philosophy of compatibilsm ,and intertextuality seems to be echoing T.S. Eliot’s take on the role tradition plays in a work or literature in his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” This is actually quite appropriate considering the subject matter being discussed presupposes the intertexual nature of all text.

Compatibilism asserts that free will and determinism can exist in harmony with one another. While events unravel following a deterministic cause-and-effect relationship, an agent operating within that system can still exercise free will. Here is a video in whose fabric this concept is deeply embedded:

 

Although compatibilism is difficult to substantiate if we take into consideration the myriad factors—social conditioning, biological make up, brain chemistry—that might be operating unseen and determining an agents decisions, this philosophy is still available for intertextual implantation. In the discourse community, the free agent is the rhetor operating in the deterministic system. He is necessarily subject to constraints, but maintains the freedom to alter or redefine the community through the contribution of his work: “Every new text has the potential to alter the Text in some way; in fact every text admitted into a discourse community changes the constitution of the community” (Porter 41). It is here that the echoes of T.S. Eliot can be heard most clearly.

Eliot’s argument deviates from the romantic belief that the worth of a work is measured by the author in favor of measuring a work by the tradition in which it is immersed. The tradition he refers to can be considered as the broadest receptacle of intertextuality, containing the entire literary canon. This constitutes the discourse community which he refers to as the “existing order.” His assertions regarding this order is where Porter’s text and Eliot’s essentially overlap. Eliot states, “The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new” (http://www.bartleby.com/200/sw4.html). Is this not the very essence of what Porter concludes on page 41?

It is fascinating that even in essays, intertextuality is evident. The very nature of Porter’s essay reinforces his argument.

And now I will digress to some philosophical questions pertaining more intimately to the human condition. The implications here about intertextuality cannot be ignored. If each writer is merely a mosaic made from the fragments of the varying texts to which he has been exposed, then what does this say about our make-up as humans? This might presuppose the idea that we are entirely determined. If our expression is the effect of the absorption of knowledge and observation, then we are determined by our multifarious experiences. We operate within a framework that is constantly being dictated by the past while concurrently redefining the past, creating an illusion of free will in the present. There is an ongoing and elusive interplay that cannot be monitored. I’m going far beyond my scope of understanding, so it is here that I stop.   

Character Assassination of Aaron Plowman by the Coward Aaron Plowman

Rhetoric Aimed to Assert the Truth about Rhetoric

In Stanley Fish's "Rhetoric," Fish alludes to an ongoing battle between rhetorical man and serious man. Rhetorical man is said to manipulate reality rather than discover it while serious man is said to know and express the fundamental reality. In other words serious man sees himself as an agent independent of reality while rhetorical man perceives reality as subject to his interpretation. In a way, rhetorical man believes that reality is created by human agents. Between the two, there is an ongoing debate in which it seems neither side could ever be the victor. While rhetorical man accuses serious man of conforming to a fabricated reality of rhetoric, serious man marks the accusation as a rhetorical sleight of hand contrary to common sense. To rhetorical man, "common sense" is just as fabricated as the rest of reality. The debate is ongoing and seemingly never ending, but considering the fact that the argument itself is presented as a form of rhetoric (an essay disseminated to readers), rhetorical man might necessarily prevail.

The very act of me writing this is rhetorical, originating from my interpretation of the text as the reader (audience) and the other constituents--rhetor(s), constraints, and exigence--of a rhetorical situation. In writing his piece, Fish, the rhetor, was forced to adhere to the constraints Keith Grant-Davie describes in "Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents," the most compelling of which I believe to be the "emerging discourse."

In any act of writing as a means of communication, the writer must temper his piece to maintain coherence for the reader. The very nature of coherent writing requires that the piece follows a sort of natural order as it emerges. A writer might have numerous points that he wishes to express all at once, but the nature of transmission and reception prevents it. He must follow the coherent order. Consequently, communication is inevitably rhetorical. Our limited mode of maintaining message fidelity between sender and receiver denies the possibility of a pure message transmission. This notion is expanded upon, not necessarily explicitly but to a greater degree, in Robert Scholes's "Toward a Semiotics of Literature."

In Scholes’s “Toward a Semiotics of Literature,” he argues that “the formal qualities of literature are the result of a process that multiplies or complicates the normal features of human communication (Scholes 119). His argument relies on 3 sets of opposing binaries—absence/presence, semiotic/phenomenal, and abstract/concrete—to determine the extent to which an utterance is literary. Something non-literary would be something that is present, phenomenal, and concrete. This is what I would determine to constitute reality in its purest form. J.L. Austin might refer to this as “constative.” By testing our reality against these binaries, it seems that any act of communication could never assume the constative form in reality. This is due to an issue over presence that is induced by our natural process of recollection.

According to Scholes, when we attempt to recover memory by reconstructing it, it necessarily becomes fictionalized. This is because we are absent from the context of the memory in its present and immediate form. With the unstinting progress of time it seems we could never grasp anything and express it in the presence. Each utterance becomes fictionalized as it is mediated through the human condition. The degree to which we struggle to present the truth is the degree to which it becomes increasingly more fictionalized. We operate within a vehicle in which rhetoric is inevitable.

I’m digressing from the readings, so I will present one final observation. Both Fish’s and Grant-Davie’s pieces mention a universal agent. The former mentions a universal rhetor and the latter a universal audience. Fish mentions the “ideal speech situation” “in which all assertions proceed not from the perspective of individual desires and strategies, but from the perspective of a general rationality upon which all parties are agreed” (137), and Grant-Davies mentions the “universal audience” which is an "audience encompassing all reasonable and competent men” (271).

I mention this because while reading the Geisler essay, I began to think that the internet and the Itext revolution would offer the only forum in which this might be possible. According to both Geisler’s and Grant-Davie’s essays, the audience and the rhetor are interdependent. The relationship is dynamic. While it might be true that “the audience determines the appropriateness and success of communication” (Geisler et al 271), the rhetor is required by the exigence to convey the message. Through the dynamic exchange between agents, they might reach a point in which they necessarily come to reaching universality on both parts. However, this could potentially only occur for an instance in a vacuum in which no historical or political constraints might alter the situation. There is also the issue of digital divide of course and I’m sure many other factors my limited mental faculty is too lazy to grasp.

The complexity of the world and limitations of the human condition might never allow for a situation in which the “truth” is realized. This has all been rhetoric, however, which is cunning and deceit at its core.