I think in this recent reading, the idea that caught me the most was the idea of visual culture. I have done some studies in both the visual arts and visual advertisements, and am certainly not unfamiliar with analyzing them and placing into a cultural or historical context. But the phrase visual culture gives a new meaning to it, even while studying the varied art movements, it never really occurred to me that art is an evolving, changing thing that is affected by various influences. I guess I just thought of art history as unique movements, rather than an interconnected flow.
Visual pieces as well as literature have a certain power to convey powerful messages about society without being blatant yet it still resonates with the viewer. It's what led the Spaniards to burn the Incas' quipus when they realized that they couldn't understand or control them or the information they conveyed, it was too dangerous to leave alone. This was hardly a lone incident, it reminds me about how in most dictatorships I've heard of, the artists and poets face as much danger of persecution as the politicians and intellectuals.
What helps create this power is, as the text borrows from Iris Rogoff, "visual images enable us with a new way of writing in which our objectivity (our knowledge of the world that is exterior to us) and subjectivity (our unconsciousness) intersect" (45-6). What makes visual images different than writing for one thing is how they are read, obviously we don't read an image like we read a book. In a way, visuals connect us, since there are likely some symbols that would be read in similar ways cross-culturally. They also breed potential connections, as the Incas and the Spaniards were able to connect and exchange culture a bit through their visual communications, whether it be letters or image.
However, the language of visual images is hardly universal. What also makes it tricky is that the same symbol can be interpreted differently by members of different cultures. Even colors can be seen differently between cultures. For example, take the symbolic meaning of colors in flags. Let's look at the color red: In the U.S. flag, red represents hardiness and valor. In the Chinese flag, the color red is seen as symbolic of the communist revolution. The red in the Canadian flag is seen as symbolic of sacrifices made during the World Wars. The red and white pattern of the Austrian flag is symbolic of a specific legend of Duke Leopold V. who was covered in blood after battle except for a stripe of white skin under his belt. So if these countries were to try to symbolize the colors of other countries flags in similar ways that the color is used in their own flags, there would be some confusion.
What is nice about visual culture is that they both provide a safe ground for a society to stay in, but are also flexible and changing enough to let other cultures affect it without diminishing it. It also provides a beginning to an "in" for studying a culture, a good introduction while you might still be learning the language and the specific quirks of that society. In any case, visual images, whether it be advertising, serve a specific historical purpose like the quipus, or even are just there to be art, preform vital roles in societies and shouldn't be ignored in rhetorical studies.
Questions:
1. What other forms of art/literature could you see as potentially rhetorical or culturally significant?
2. In terms of art and literature, besides advertising, what do you think has the most potential for rhetorical purposes?
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Monday, April 14, 2014
Objectivity in Research of Foreign Rhetoric
If there's anything I learned from our recent reading assignment, is that rhetoric can be found and determined from anywhere and everywhere. It's a point definitely relevant to previous discussions we've had, from last week's discussion of "you should probably get to know the culture a little bit and step away from your own biases before trying to study someone else's rhetoric" to our questions throughout the semester of what is or isn't rhetoric.
In a way, the way the chapters tell about how rhetoric in foreign cultures can be pieced together reminds me of a detective story. Anything and everything can be suspect (of rhetorical influence) and potentially related (to a single canon/set of canons), and if you can piece together each piece or story, perhaps you might find a pattern. The reading showed how many things can be used to cautiously piece together how rhetoric might work within a specific culture, from pottery, to specific people, to religious texts.
However, it is important to remember to be careful when putting these puzzle pieces together. As we discussed on Thursday, it is extremely important to leave your own biases and assumptions at the door when analyzing foreign rhetorics. Of course, the best way to begin to analysis is to get as close to the source and immerse yourself in the people and culture. The problem is that many of the examples being discussed are extinct cultures, such as the Incas or Native Americans for example, who it would be highly difficult, if not impossible, to find a legitimate representative for.
The problem that I felt existed in the chapters we read is that while the people and items examined by the professors are technically able to lead to legitimate conclusions about how rhetoric might have worked in early cultures, it would also be too easy to place personal biases into that analysis. For example, when looking at the rhetorical figure of a historical figure such as La Malinche, one cannot be too quick to assign motive to her, or even to say the strategies she used would be common canons for her culture. After all, Confucious seemed to have his own ideas of rhetoric that varied a bit from other Chinese rhetoric.
But what can be used to objectively analyze a culture of the past? In one of the articles we read last week, "Reflective Encounters: Illustrating Comparative Rhetoric," Mao talks basically about how reflective encounters may be the best way to objectively analyze a culture's rhetoric and its canons. As far as I can tell, we understood reflective encounters to basically boil down to analyzing rhetoric through a thorough understanding of language and surrounding culture, so that we can understand exactly how rhetoric canons work as if we were in that culture, rather than analyzing through western eyes.
On Thursday we talked a bit about the Sapir-Worf hypothesis, which basically demonstrates how language can show what a culture perceives, values, and how they think. I think this actually relates a bit to what we discussed about reflective encounters, as well as to the current reading. By discovering what words are repeated or less stressed upon in a language we gain insight to how a society might think or value in a relatively objective way.
Of course, all of the puzzle pieces are important. In order to understand and try to present from anyone's perspective we need to gain as thorough of an understanding as we can, whatever form of expression of that culture we might look at -- art, writing, debate, or a personal history. I'm just making the point that in the important quest to remain objective in this research, whatever we can learn of language should likely remain as a starting point.
Questions:
1. When hoping to find rhetorical canons of a foreign and now extinct culture, is there any additional suggestions you would make to look for? (texts, art, etc.)
2. Can you make any connections to the Sapir-Worf hypothesis and what is rhetorically valuable in our society today?
In a way, the way the chapters tell about how rhetoric in foreign cultures can be pieced together reminds me of a detective story. Anything and everything can be suspect (of rhetorical influence) and potentially related (to a single canon/set of canons), and if you can piece together each piece or story, perhaps you might find a pattern. The reading showed how many things can be used to cautiously piece together how rhetoric might work within a specific culture, from pottery, to specific people, to religious texts.
However, it is important to remember to be careful when putting these puzzle pieces together. As we discussed on Thursday, it is extremely important to leave your own biases and assumptions at the door when analyzing foreign rhetorics. Of course, the best way to begin to analysis is to get as close to the source and immerse yourself in the people and culture. The problem is that many of the examples being discussed are extinct cultures, such as the Incas or Native Americans for example, who it would be highly difficult, if not impossible, to find a legitimate representative for.
The problem that I felt existed in the chapters we read is that while the people and items examined by the professors are technically able to lead to legitimate conclusions about how rhetoric might have worked in early cultures, it would also be too easy to place personal biases into that analysis. For example, when looking at the rhetorical figure of a historical figure such as La Malinche, one cannot be too quick to assign motive to her, or even to say the strategies she used would be common canons for her culture. After all, Confucious seemed to have his own ideas of rhetoric that varied a bit from other Chinese rhetoric.
But what can be used to objectively analyze a culture of the past? In one of the articles we read last week, "Reflective Encounters: Illustrating Comparative Rhetoric," Mao talks basically about how reflective encounters may be the best way to objectively analyze a culture's rhetoric and its canons. As far as I can tell, we understood reflective encounters to basically boil down to analyzing rhetoric through a thorough understanding of language and surrounding culture, so that we can understand exactly how rhetoric canons work as if we were in that culture, rather than analyzing through western eyes.
On Thursday we talked a bit about the Sapir-Worf hypothesis, which basically demonstrates how language can show what a culture perceives, values, and how they think. I think this actually relates a bit to what we discussed about reflective encounters, as well as to the current reading. By discovering what words are repeated or less stressed upon in a language we gain insight to how a society might think or value in a relatively objective way.
Of course, all of the puzzle pieces are important. In order to understand and try to present from anyone's perspective we need to gain as thorough of an understanding as we can, whatever form of expression of that culture we might look at -- art, writing, debate, or a personal history. I'm just making the point that in the important quest to remain objective in this research, whatever we can learn of language should likely remain as a starting point.
Questions:
1. When hoping to find rhetorical canons of a foreign and now extinct culture, is there any additional suggestions you would make to look for? (texts, art, etc.)
2. Can you make any connections to the Sapir-Worf hypothesis and what is rhetorically valuable in our society today?
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Comparative Rhetoric and also Confucius
So I ended up reading both articles, because I'm a bit tired and read completely the wrong article first. So I'll try to type up a response to both articles in this post.
First, the article I was actually supposed to read: "Reflecting Encounters: Illustrating Comparative Rhetoric."
I found the evolution of rhetoric throughout history fascinating, from the unabashed "it's not like western rhetoric so they don't have rhetoric" to "let's analyze it by comparing it to western rhetoric" to the current movement of actually trying to study foreign rhetorics within the contexts of their own cultures.
The problem with the early studies of rhetoric is that they were trying to analyze rhetoric as a separate phenomena from the culture, when this was completely the wrong way to go. To use an example of Chinese rhetoric, the other article I read clearly states that, "it is impossible to overstate the danger of examining a work written in ancient China, such as the Analects, as if it were a work independent of its complex historical, cultural, or political backgrounds" (Ding 144). Rhetoric, as pretty much any other aspect of a culture, is an evolution that is affected by many outside influences, and can't be analyzed just in itself.
It is hard to try to completely understand a foreign culture without the bias that is the experiences the viewer has with their own culture. The powerful influence that Western rhetoric still has today still hinders the understanding of foreign forms of rhetoric. We do not necessarily give ancient Chinese rhetoric the same attention that we give ancient Greek rhetoric -- during my searches for non-Western rhetoricians I did not find much information that demonstrated the varieties in Chinese rhetoric, such as the differences between Confucius and the different set of Chinese canons, as we could easily find the differences between Plato and Aristotle. While a massive improvement has seemed to take place from when we first started to seriously analyze non-traditional forms of rhetoric, the fairly recent speech from Malea Powell and even our own class discussions show that the deficiency model is still strong in comparative rhetoric.
In particular, I found the argument against seeking a sort of "universal rhetoric" interesting. It's similar to a conversation we had in my Anthropology class about language, and what we could potentially lose if we should ever develop a universal language -- while we would all be able to communicate and understand each other better, we would also be unintentionally burying the many years of history and culture that helped build up that language, whether that language be literal language or rhetoric. The question becomes what is more important, the roots of our histories, or mass communication.
And since I have no answer for that, I shall take the opportunity to make an uncomfortable segeway into the next article, the one I didn't have to read but accidentally did anyway: "Confucious's Virtue-Centered Rhetoric: A Case Study of Mixed Research Methods in Comparative Rhetoric."
I found it fascinating that Confucious felt that rhetoric should be based barely on words at all, but action. I initially thought the silence canon in Egyptian rhetoric was strange, but this takes the cake -- a rhetoric system that is basically "actions speak louder than words." In a way it makes sense -- the way Confucius thought about rhetoric, rhetoric wasn't for settling small disputes or elections, but establishing a long term rule and trust over people. or in the author's words, "its goal is not just persuasion but willing accommodation, submission, and obedience" (Ding 151). Perhaps it was largely because of the chaotic political period that Confucius lived in, for his ideas seem to settle around that you only get one chance to earn the people's trust, there's no reelections.
Because of Confucius's strict ideas of rhetoric belonging to men of virtue, it seems that it could take literally a lifetime to build up enough character before becoming a man of virtuous enough conduct to earn public trust. Many political systems would be quite different if those who wanted to earn public appointments had to live by that system!
Questions:
1. Do you think trying to establish a universal rhetoric could be problematic to cultural traditions?
2. What would a debate in Confucius style of rhetoric look like?
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Media, Entertainment, and Ancient Egyptian Rhetoric
Egyptian rhetoric is definitely very different from the rhetorics we've studied so far, but certainly sound in its ideas. However, with the way our culture and technology has evolved, it'd be quite difficult to execute in today's culture. I find interesting that the Egyptians see rhetoric as a form of entertainment, for not only does the rhetorical canons of ancient Egyptian rhetoric not fit well with our modern definition of rhetoric, but I would also say that part of why we wouldn't be able to employ Egyptian rhetoric into today's conversations is because of entertainment culture and mediums of today, especially television.
To explain, let's look at the Egyptian canons of silence, good timing, restraint, fluency of expansion, and truthfulness:
Fluency of expansion is likely the trait we'd be most likely to see in today's conversations, even if fluent speech today doesn't remotely resemble fluent speech of Ancient Egypt, which looked and sounded more like poetry than what we would consider speech today. But today's most eloquent speakers do share the trait of fluency, or at least to a certain extent.
Truthfulness is also exists, hopefully regularly, in today's rhetoric, though I found it almost adorably naive the belief that truth is an absolute necessary for good rhetoric. While it's true that a truthteller will always be more ethical, there seems to be a belief that it will be known when someone is lying. The implication in the text seems to be that a liar will give themselves away somehow, be it with their words, manner of speaking, or body language, which is certainly a possibility when someone lies. However, a confident or rehearsed speaker could lie with ease, and I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to find videos of people lying with a straight face.
As for the remaining three canons, these are the ones that I feel that today's communication media and entertainment culture would make it impossible, or at least highly difficult, for them to exist as both debate and entertainment. This is primarily driven by time limits in communication media, primarily television, video, and radio, but there are even limits in text media too.
For examples, one of the remaining canons is the importance of silence and how it can be used as a rhetorical technique to either demonstrate the strength of your own point or the weakness of your opponent's words. While I was initially surprised to read about silence as a rhetorical technique, it now feels like an intuitive thing to do.
However, in today's communication media there are often limits -- in television for example, when debates are televised whether they be on news shows or political debates, there's usually only a limited amount of time set aside for these debates. Therefore, staying still in silence seems like not a wise thing to do when you only have an hour for the debate and you have a list of things you want to say, which is likely primarily why so many televised debates are people trying to shout over each other. Silence is even more pointless in written mediums, for the weight of silence can really only be seen and heard in person, if a debate was portrayed in text, then it would just look like one person was dominating the conversation, rather than the other person deliberately holding their words.
Good timing and restraint also fail for similar reasons, though there is also another aspect that make these canons difficult in today's society. We're a nation that thrives off of sensationalism, even many news shows can't be a neutral presentation of news, and have to include silly gimmicks. While I think our society today appreciates the power of words as the Egyptians did, we are not cautious with this power, but rather take advantage of it to draw attention, whether it be good or bad. A careful, restrained politician rarely draws notice in the news, but on the flipside there's very little consequence for saying something silly and getting talked about for awhile.
Restraint in particular is what drives the biggest distance today between rhetoric and entertainment. I really struggle to think of a show, reality shows in particular, that is careful, thoughtful conversation rather than people saying what appears to be the first things that pop in their heads. Again, in a nation that thrives off of sensationalism, someone who is careful with what they say and when they say it would be the furthest thing from entertaining to us, I think.
I do find it a bit sad that the canons of ancient Egyptian rhetoric are not seen more in our current culture, for I think it would be fascinating to see them executed. However, even if we didn't already have an existing attachment to the Greek canons, the way our culture, communication technologies, and entertainment industry has evolved make it unlikely that these canons will integrate themselves anytime soon.
Questions:
1. The forms of rhetoric we follow in today's society seems to be closer to the Greek forms of rhetoric. Do you think developments in media, technology, and the entertainment industry has affected these Greek canons too? Why or why not?
2. Do you think rhetoric is still considered entertainment in modern day society?
To explain, let's look at the Egyptian canons of silence, good timing, restraint, fluency of expansion, and truthfulness:
Fluency of expansion is likely the trait we'd be most likely to see in today's conversations, even if fluent speech today doesn't remotely resemble fluent speech of Ancient Egypt, which looked and sounded more like poetry than what we would consider speech today. But today's most eloquent speakers do share the trait of fluency, or at least to a certain extent.
Truthfulness is also exists, hopefully regularly, in today's rhetoric, though I found it almost adorably naive the belief that truth is an absolute necessary for good rhetoric. While it's true that a truthteller will always be more ethical, there seems to be a belief that it will be known when someone is lying. The implication in the text seems to be that a liar will give themselves away somehow, be it with their words, manner of speaking, or body language, which is certainly a possibility when someone lies. However, a confident or rehearsed speaker could lie with ease, and I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to find videos of people lying with a straight face.
As for the remaining three canons, these are the ones that I feel that today's communication media and entertainment culture would make it impossible, or at least highly difficult, for them to exist as both debate and entertainment. This is primarily driven by time limits in communication media, primarily television, video, and radio, but there are even limits in text media too.
For examples, one of the remaining canons is the importance of silence and how it can be used as a rhetorical technique to either demonstrate the strength of your own point or the weakness of your opponent's words. While I was initially surprised to read about silence as a rhetorical technique, it now feels like an intuitive thing to do.
However, in today's communication media there are often limits -- in television for example, when debates are televised whether they be on news shows or political debates, there's usually only a limited amount of time set aside for these debates. Therefore, staying still in silence seems like not a wise thing to do when you only have an hour for the debate and you have a list of things you want to say, which is likely primarily why so many televised debates are people trying to shout over each other. Silence is even more pointless in written mediums, for the weight of silence can really only be seen and heard in person, if a debate was portrayed in text, then it would just look like one person was dominating the conversation, rather than the other person deliberately holding their words.
Good timing and restraint also fail for similar reasons, though there is also another aspect that make these canons difficult in today's society. We're a nation that thrives off of sensationalism, even many news shows can't be a neutral presentation of news, and have to include silly gimmicks. While I think our society today appreciates the power of words as the Egyptians did, we are not cautious with this power, but rather take advantage of it to draw attention, whether it be good or bad. A careful, restrained politician rarely draws notice in the news, but on the flipside there's very little consequence for saying something silly and getting talked about for awhile.
Restraint in particular is what drives the biggest distance today between rhetoric and entertainment. I really struggle to think of a show, reality shows in particular, that is careful, thoughtful conversation rather than people saying what appears to be the first things that pop in their heads. Again, in a nation that thrives off of sensationalism, someone who is careful with what they say and when they say it would be the furthest thing from entertaining to us, I think.
I do find it a bit sad that the canons of ancient Egyptian rhetoric are not seen more in our current culture, for I think it would be fascinating to see them executed. However, even if we didn't already have an existing attachment to the Greek canons, the way our culture, communication technologies, and entertainment industry has evolved make it unlikely that these canons will integrate themselves anytime soon.
Questions:
1. The forms of rhetoric we follow in today's society seems to be closer to the Greek forms of rhetoric. Do you think developments in media, technology, and the entertainment industry has affected these Greek canons too? Why or why not?
2. Do you think rhetoric is still considered entertainment in modern day society?
Thursday, April 3, 2014
The Hungry Blob that is the Influence of Western Rhetoric
An interesting theme that existed in both Powell and Villanueva's words was the idea of how the scholars who study the ideas and rhetoricians of Western rhetoric, even though they might have the best of intentions, seem to try to swallow up or ignore non-Western rhetoric/non-White rhetoricians, or, as Powell phrases it, as if they (non-Western rhetoricians) "need to be rescued by the pale extended hand of empire, as if they need our sympathetic civilizing influence" (Powell 402).
When Villanueva referenced the words of Frantz Fanon in a paper, the "resurrection" was seen as questionable by the rejecting editor, though the usage of the far more ancient Aristotle and Cicero went unquestioned (Villanueva 655). And Villanueva's rhetorical example of the credibility of a French philosopher vs. a Mexican philosopher comes to life in one of the stories told during Powell's performance speech, for a student was lectured by a scholar for not referencing the words of a French philosopher and theorist Focault in her studies of Chicana theory, for apparently their words were close enough where it seemed wrong to not cite Focault, even though the student simply didn't see him as relevant, despite the likely coincidental closeness of ideas (Powell 395).
We have all been guilty of this within our class, linking the rhetoric of the Aztecs and the Incas to Aristotle and Plato, even though it is not for sure that there is even any linear link between the two. On one hand it makes sense, since similarities can be easily pointed out, and the Greek rhetoricians form the majority of what we have been studying this semester.
However, the problem with this though is that we are unwittingly, with the best of intentions, contributing to the mindset that Greece and Europe in general is the home of rhetoric, even though there is enough evidence of other cultures forming their own rules of rhetoric with little to no influence from the Greeks. There are specific rules in Aztec, Chinese, and Native American rhetoric, to just take the examples, that have rules and patterns that are built specifically off of their own cultures, and thus can't really be linked to Greece at all. The higher use of poetic and flowery language in Aztec rhetoric, How ranking and hierarchy affects Chinese argumentation, to the use of story in Native American rhetoric, while you can conceivably still make links to the Western rhetoricians we've already discussed, it is clear that these conventions are built from rules and traditions of their own societies.
The problem with questioning these rhetoricians or feeling the necessity to link them back to Western rhetoricians is the implications that these rhetoricians are not strong enough, right enough, credible enough to stand on their own, even though their rhetorical strategies are certainly sound and have a long enough history and backing in their own cultures where you can't dismiss instances of academic argumentation within these cultures as purely accidental. Yet many of these rhetorics haven't received nearly the same amount of study as Western rhetoric.
The reasoning behind the title of this post is we've discussed of hegemony in class and how the greater power tends to swallow up smaller factions, until they are no longer seen as having really any credit or influence. Again, while I doubt scholars are intentionally doing this, by constantly trying to link the rhetoric of non-Western cultures to Western rhetoric, non-Western rhetoric is under risk of being swallowed up by the currently greater influence that is Western rhetoric, rather than the place it deserves alongside it as an equal. Though at least we have scholars such as Villanueva and Powell who are bringing up this topic, and will hopefully help to slowly, carefully, pry away non-White, non-Western rhetoric from the unintentionally consuming blob of Western rhetoric, and give it its own place in academic discussion.
When Villanueva referenced the words of Frantz Fanon in a paper, the "resurrection" was seen as questionable by the rejecting editor, though the usage of the far more ancient Aristotle and Cicero went unquestioned (Villanueva 655). And Villanueva's rhetorical example of the credibility of a French philosopher vs. a Mexican philosopher comes to life in one of the stories told during Powell's performance speech, for a student was lectured by a scholar for not referencing the words of a French philosopher and theorist Focault in her studies of Chicana theory, for apparently their words were close enough where it seemed wrong to not cite Focault, even though the student simply didn't see him as relevant, despite the likely coincidental closeness of ideas (Powell 395).
We have all been guilty of this within our class, linking the rhetoric of the Aztecs and the Incas to Aristotle and Plato, even though it is not for sure that there is even any linear link between the two. On one hand it makes sense, since similarities can be easily pointed out, and the Greek rhetoricians form the majority of what we have been studying this semester.
However, the problem with this though is that we are unwittingly, with the best of intentions, contributing to the mindset that Greece and Europe in general is the home of rhetoric, even though there is enough evidence of other cultures forming their own rules of rhetoric with little to no influence from the Greeks. There are specific rules in Aztec, Chinese, and Native American rhetoric, to just take the examples, that have rules and patterns that are built specifically off of their own cultures, and thus can't really be linked to Greece at all. The higher use of poetic and flowery language in Aztec rhetoric, How ranking and hierarchy affects Chinese argumentation, to the use of story in Native American rhetoric, while you can conceivably still make links to the Western rhetoricians we've already discussed, it is clear that these conventions are built from rules and traditions of their own societies.
The problem with questioning these rhetoricians or feeling the necessity to link them back to Western rhetoricians is the implications that these rhetoricians are not strong enough, right enough, credible enough to stand on their own, even though their rhetorical strategies are certainly sound and have a long enough history and backing in their own cultures where you can't dismiss instances of academic argumentation within these cultures as purely accidental. Yet many of these rhetorics haven't received nearly the same amount of study as Western rhetoric.
The reasoning behind the title of this post is we've discussed of hegemony in class and how the greater power tends to swallow up smaller factions, until they are no longer seen as having really any credit or influence. Again, while I doubt scholars are intentionally doing this, by constantly trying to link the rhetoric of non-Western cultures to Western rhetoric, non-Western rhetoric is under risk of being swallowed up by the currently greater influence that is Western rhetoric, rather than the place it deserves alongside it as an equal. Though at least we have scholars such as Villanueva and Powell who are bringing up this topic, and will hopefully help to slowly, carefully, pry away non-White, non-Western rhetoric from the unintentionally consuming blob of Western rhetoric, and give it its own place in academic discussion.
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