Amplification and Basic Drama

Something random and a little silly, but I thought I'd put the question out there all the same because it peaked my interest.

Longinus defines amplification, as he calls it, as "and aggregation of all the details and topics which constitute a situation strengthening the argument by dwelling on it".  It is also built up, in some situations, "by a build-up of action or emotions" and it differs from sublimity in that sublimity depends on elevation, whereas amplification involves extension; sublimity often exists in a single thought" (354).  So, I suppose in a written work, amplification can exist without sublimity, it would just not be particularly good writing.  Sublimity, however, probably could not exist as easily without amplification.  Even if it can exist in a single moment, all the build up of the amplification may result in making it that much more powerful and atmospheric a moment.

This got me to thinking that, in terms of fiction, drama and classical epics and stories, that amplification may be something similar to the rising action of the basic plot diagram.  You know, the one that starts with the flat horizontal line of exposition, then it shoots up into the rising action, peaks at the climax, and then goes down again in the falling action toward the ending/resolution.  I know that Longinus refers to speeches, rallies, and other written work besides fiction, but when it comes to dramatic fiction is there not an attempt to "wheel up one impressive unit after another to give a series of increasing importance"(354)? And when I mention that amplification can exist without sublimity, I connect that to drama that is either uninteresting but still carries that intensification of plot, or even worse, the kind of bad drama where the build-up is really good but the payoff is terrible (a.k.a a lot of Stephen King's stuff).

But when amplification exists with sublimity, that's the drama that really moves people and transcends them emotionally.  I know it's a bit theatrical, but that was the first thing that popped into my mind when I read about Longinus' amplification.  What do you guys think?  How would you apply amplification to drama and fiction?  Can sublimity exist in fiction without amplification?  Can amplification exist without sublimity?  Where does the term "catharsis" play into this emotional and intellectual transcendence that Longinus says that readers/hearers are meant to have when encountering sublimity play into all of this?

Hitler using signification

It took me a second to see how Burke’s “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s ‘Battle’” fit in with the idea of signification.  The part that threw me off was that “rhetoric” was used in the title.  The way I think of rhetoric connects me to agent/cy.  This in itself is signification.  I see a word and I immediately have an association and a relationship with the word based on a certain teaching.   Burke’s article had to break me of my association, just as Hitler’s battle was to break the masses of their preconceived notion of Jewish people.

One way that Hitler used signification in his rhetoric was to take a word that has a common definition like “devil” and associate it with “Jew” (194).  The “prince of evil” is already a “common enemy”, so “once Hitler has thus essentialized his enemy, all ‘proof’ henceforth is automatic” (193-194).  He makes an abstract idea of the devil become materialized or a reality through the very real Jews.  In a sense Hitler is proving that the devil, which is a common enemy, exists.  He is oversimplifying the Jews to make them seem less human, because humans each have their own set of complications.  If he can generalize the Jewish race then he can create an abstract idea of them just as the devil is abstract. 

Now the way I understand it is that signification is a tool rhetoric uses.  An agent uses rhetoric as a tool to create a certain movement or agency in an audience.

Persepolis

I have never read a book in comic form previous to this; looking back, I think it is because I assumed such reading was childish and not as effective or powerful as non-comic stories.  While reading Persepolis, I was surprised not only to find myself so interested in the story, but also to see that powerful and meaningful passages relied on the pictures, and not just the words.  On page 136, the last tile shows the parents talking to their child but looking at one another--having an unspoken conversation.  While it may just be me looking too much into it, I felt that scene was extremely powerful in showing the parents worry/concern/love for their child/ etc all in one look.  Language could have been able to do that, yes, but I feel that it wouldn't have been as powerful.  On page 31 of McCloud, he writes that, "the ability of cartoons to focus our attention on any idea, is, i think, an important part of their special power, both in comics and in drawing generally".  Take my tile as an example--there is a lot going on in this--yet by focusing the parents eyes on one another, a multitude of ideas are "told" in a more focused way.  I think that this is also done through the ability of a cartoon, as McCloud states, to "de-emphasize the appearance of the physical world in favor of the idea of form" so that the "cartoon places itself in the world of concepts".  Where language has to go on and on to illustrate a concept to readers, comics are able to do faster and more efficiently.

As I tried to understand deconstruction, I was drawn to the following, "One important implication of this insight is that if all things are produced as identities by their differences from other things, then a complete determination of identity would require an endless inventory of relations to other terms in a potentially infinite network of differences.  Truth, as a result, will always be incomplete".  However, I wonder, in comic form, does this still hold true?  Since an idea need not necessarily be explained via lines of text, but rather a picture, would you need the network of differences? or would truth be complete here (or at least more complete than with a textial presentation of an idea).  I can understand the argument about all things being differences from other things, but I'm left to wonder if with comics, you need the differences in order to understand an idea....isn't that the purpose of the "icon" McCloud wrote about?  Or does each icon stand to represent all of the differences that go into making an idea? One of Derrida's central issues was "all thought is necessarily inscribed in language, and that language itself is fraught with intractable paradoxes"--is a comic more efficient than text? Since it invokes both image and word, does it help to fix the paradoxes presented in the language?

Heteroglossia in my Apartment

Personal Anecdote:
My roommate is from Saudi Arabia and his country is a theocracy. He is a lawyer in his country, and I have been learning much about their customs from him. One night while eating Al Kabsah on the floor with our hands, we began to discuss blood.  He has told me that in Saudi Arabia, your bloodline is a significant part of who you are. Members of a tribe share a common ancestor. The tribes function communally, so goods and ‘support’ are exchanged within tribes. At first I was somewhat intrigued by this style of communal living but my roommate, Mohanned, was quick to add that the government has been trying to deconstruct these tribal structures because they often lead to violence. Much to my surprise, Mohanned’s friend asked me if we had anything similar to these tribes in America. The only thing I could think of were the Italian crime families. Mohanned said that he had seen the Godfather over 17 times.

Poem/Explanation:
The different voices of prose come from within
my apartment;
Apparitions of words only serve to "intensify unresolvable dialogues".(Bakhtin 291)
The words eventually disappear and friendship arises from the 'Godfather!'

"Corruptio Optimi Pessima" and why the Best Amendment is #1

A few weeks ago I was strolling through the Union Bookstore to buy highlighters. As I passed the magazine stand, I was struck by a Newsweek magazine titled the “War on Christianity.” Quite naturally, I became concerned at the idea. I thought “How on earth could there be a ‘War against Christianity’? It is never mentioned in the news. We don’t talk about it during class. It is rare that a group that is not a minority in America even makes the news.”  I opened the magazine thinking that the term ‘war’ was being used metonymically, as it so often is these days. Unfortunately, I was dead wrong. The article reported the genocide caused by Islamic tyranny in the Middle East:

“We hear so often about Muslims as victims of abuse in the West and combatants in the Arab Spring’s fight against tyranny. But, in fact, a wholly different kind of war is underway—an unrecognized battle costing thousands of lives. Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm.”

The article also explained why “The War on Christianity” was unknown to me. Islamic Lobbyist groups have suppressed stories referring to the violence of Islam to prevent Muslims in America from having their feelings hurt:

“Over the past decade, these and similar groups have been remarkably successful in persuading leading public figures and journalists in the West to think of each and every example of perceived anti-Muslim discrimination as an expression of a systematic and sinister derangement called “Islamophobia”—a term that is meant to elicit the same moral disapproval as xenophobia or homophobia.”

The article later coins the term ‘Christophobia’ which should elicit moral disapproval to any self-respecting person. It is important for people to realize that the intolerance of Christianity has devastating effects in the world. It is common to hear people advocating for the fair treatment of homosexuals, females, and Muslims in America. This is a fine example of Democracy; however, it should not be forgotten that the damage caused by homophobia and ‘Islamophobia’ is meager in comparison to ‘Christophobia.’

Be forwarned,

This article is full of tragic stories of Islamic violence:

 http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/02/05/ayaan-hirsi-ali-the-global-war-on-christians-in-the-muslim-world.html

 Below are two examples that I find relevant to Burke’s concept of creating a “symbol of the common enemy”:

“When a Christian group is suspected of transgressing the blasphemy laws, the consequences can be brutal. Just ask the members of the Christian aid group World Vision. Its offices were attacked in the spring of 2010 by 10 gunmen armed with grenades, leaving six people dead and four wounded. A militant Muslim group claimed responsibility for the attack on the grounds that World Vision was working to subvert Islam. (In fact, it was helping the survivors of a major earthquake.)

 “The newest such organization is an outfit that calls itself Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sacrilege.” Its aim is to establish Sharia in Nigeria. To this end it has stated that it will kill all Christians in the country.In the month of January 2012 alone, Boko Haram was responsible for 54 deaths. In 2011 its members killed at least 510 people and burned down or destroyed more than 350 churches in 10 northern states. They use guns, gasoline bombs, and even machetes, shouting “Allahu akbar” (“God is great”) while launching attacks on unsuspecting citizens.

In the Boko Haram example, the “symbolic common enemy” of Islamic Jihadists is not limited to Christianity alone; all western thought is villified. While reading about Hitler’s use of Catholicism in conjuring up a Fascist State, I thought of similarities and differences between the Nazi's and the Muslim's tactics of using religion to create a ‘common enemy’. As we can see in Persepolis (and the CIA world fact book), Iran is a theocratic republic. The people are governed by Sharia Law (divine law specified in the Koran.) This is very common in the Middle East.

As we saw in Persepolis, Iran had an authoritarian system of government before it was overthrown to become a theocratic republic. Nazi Germany, inversely, was formerly the Weimar Republic. This was before Hitler changed the country into a dictatorship.  This means that instead of being governed by a dictator’s principle of unification, the people of Iran are ruled by Sharia Law (divine law specified in the Koran). Therefore, according to the structure of a republic, the people are free to elect leaders who operate without complete authority. These new leaders could be sympathetic to genocide, and work to mend the hateful attitudes Islamic fundamentalists perpetuate in their own societies. Why is it then that these countries allow Islamic violence to be glamorized to the point of martyrdom?  A quote from Burke says:   

Hitler appeals by relying upon a bastardization of fundamentally religious patterns of thought. In this, if properly presented, there is no slight to religion. There is nothing in religion proper that requires a fascist state. There is much in religion when misused that does lead to a fascist state (219).

 As Burke clearly acknowledges, Hitler warped Christianity into a corrupt ideology that he used to help control the consciences of people in a fascist Germany. Who is it then,that has corrupted Islam into a religion of intolerance and hate? If countries such as Iran declare themselves to be a republic, why are Christians still being persecuted as though they live in an authoritarian fascist state? I am still researching this question and I think it is important for us all to do the same, especially since Iran is on the verge of possessing nuclear weapons. Here is what I have found from the most rudimentary source at the earliest stage of research. The OED defines:

 Jihad Islam. A religious war of Muslims against unbelievers, inculcated as a duty by the Qur'an and traditions.

 Islamic Jihad  to designate a group of Muslim extremist organizations in the Middle East influenced by the teachings of the Iranian Imam Khomeini.

America’s founding fathers knew that in order to form a truly sovereign Republic; Theology and Government had to be kept separate. That is why in America we have the freedom, given to us by the first amendment, to practice any religion we would like. I have enough faith in my fellow Americans, as well as in our constitution, to doubt that anything minutely close to true fascism could arise in Western civilization ever again. I respect those that do not, because they are practicing their freedom of expression.

Non-Academic Thoughts Concerning Symbols

So what we seem to have been learning lately is that signs and symbols are different from the objects they refer to. Locke has said that "signs have no natural connection with our ideas" (817), and McCloud claims that these...

..."are not people" (26). The mixed modes, which Locke is talking about are undeniably uncertain. But what about something simple like "cow". We could argue over what a cow is, much like we could argue over what liquor or gold is. But once we know what "cow" is, how much space is there between my sign COW and the physical bovine I could go poke back home? Derrida argues that we understand signs based on the network of relationships between that sign and other signs, but that "the signified concept is never present in itself" (285).
This is the part where everyone says "What the [insert word of your choice]? She's talking about that again?" But it happened! In our reading! The Sacred King was totally in Burke's analysis of Mein Kampf. In the bit he quotes from Totem and Taboo, Freud mentions how how "savages... ascribe [their rulers] power over rain and shine, wind and weather, and then dethrone them or kill them because nature has disappointed their expectations of a good hunt or a ripe harvest" (qtd. Burke, 214). The ruler has become a symbol for the land, but to them he is not only a symbol. The secret that King Arthur learned is that the king is the land. He is not just representative of the land, he is connected to it. In using this quotation Burke is demonstrating how Hitler projected an identity onto the Jews, which one could say changed the nature of reality for those who listened to him. Through Hitler's words, the Jews became the enemy. This is an example of Freud's theory of projection, where in the mind of the neurotic the symbol and vessel become intertwined.
Maybe I'm neurotic, but I do believe in the sympathetic affectation of an object through symbols and signs. I think confessional poetry is a good example of this. It tends to be declarative (From Sylvia Plath: "I am your opus,/I am your valuable", "O vase of acid,/It is love you are full of"), naming the speaker and addressee as different things. In this way it changes and defines the nature of reality and creates new truths for naming. I guess whether or not this is true depends on what one thinks of reality, but I think that language is not a series of symbols disparate from their signified objects. I think signs, objects, and concepts are intertwined. The declarative naming of something, as in confessional poetry, changes the reality of that object. I guess this is a really primitive viewpoint, and I know in academic culture realism has been abandoned in favor of nominalism, but maybe I think that it really is a pipe. My explanation would have to be that sign and object share essence and thus may affect each other even over distances of space and time. That really doesn't feel like an ending to anything, but I think for now that's all I have to say about that.

Logocentrism vs. Heteroglossia: A literary kaiju battle

So the question was posed in class about how heteroglossia deconstructs logocentrism, or something to that effect.  I found myself thinking about this a lot, eventually breaking down both terms in my mind.  Breaking these terms down eventually led to me picturing it as something similar to those old movies and television shows with foam suit monsters fighting it out in a model cardboard city, complete with sparklers and tiny explosions going off every which direction as the two monsters destroyed everything around them, and I am fully aware of how strange this idea may be.

I took the definition of logocentric in the vaguest form that the Glossary gives us.  It implies that at the center of a thing is an “ultimate truth”.  In other words, if something is considered logocentric, despite any variations to this thing, the core of it is set in stone, there’s no changing it, it’s something undeniable.  When I think about this I get the possibly clichéd image of a spider’s web.  No matter where you’re at on the web, you’re connected to the center (a spider with fangs that’ll tear you in half, I swear). 

Heteroglossia, however, is the newspaper or flyswatter or shoe that comes in and destroys the web and the spider and saves the world.  Bakhtin and the Glossary show that in the idea of heteroglossia, there is no center, not really.  Every voice from every character (author included) is being expressed, possibly at the same time.  This leads to conflicts with language, honestly I think of it as a literary Large Hadron Collider, with voices and concepts of language being accelerated at each other until colliding at massive speeds.  And much like experiments done at the LHC, these heteroglossic collisions lead to new ideas or interpretations in the language, basically throwing conventions to the wind.  Simply put it seems as if the very core of heteroglossia is change, the exact opposite of the idea of a logocentric language.

So really, I’m still not convinced which one deconstructs the other.  Surely, logocentricism could be seen as deconstructing heteroglossia just as easily as heteroglossia doing the deconstruction can be.  I guess in the end, much like the old kaiju programs (think big, foam-suited monsters), I’m content to just watch the two duke it out. It’s entertaining and fun to think about the conflict no matter which one emerges victorious

PETA

(backtracking)
Personally, the role of agency in Barton's piece/PETA case was very reminiscent of the Asch article.  I mean this in the fact that I argue the animals and crippled people are both without agency, instead giving it to the "writer" of the piece,  or in this case, human activists.  Both groups are stripped of their true identity, instead recreated under direction of the writer/ activist in order to appear weaker than they are.  This evocation of pity helps to dehumanize the groups by "continuing pernicious stereotypes" (Barton 195).  While I understand that animals cannot be "dehumanized" as they are not human, such advertisements removes the agency of the animals to make them even more helpless, if not uncomfortable being in their situation.  No advertisement is going to highlight on the positive care received by the animals, it will instead focus on only the final stages of care or other extreme cases of explicit animal abuse.  However, unlike the United Way, which Barton classified as an "American Business" (188), PETA and other groups remain "group" status.  While they may fully well function as businesses, the majority of the public will continue to see them as a bunch of extremists who are together in an organization.  In this sense, I think PETA has as little agency as the animals they represent, as both are considered a product of how the people view them. 

One particularly interesting point of Barton's was her ideas of the "Supercrip".  She states that "presenting disability in the figure of a supercrip reinforces the stereotype of disability as adversity requiring transcendence" (195).  However, in the slideshow presented, I fail to see any examples of the Supercrip animal.  PETA's method of attack instead chooses to focus on the other tactic Barton outlines, "reducing disability to the figure of the child...to...reinforce the stereotype of disability as lifelong dependence" (195).  PETA, and other animal activist groups, use the idea of "lifelong dependece" to evoke empathy in order to call others to action.  Reducing the animals to nothing more than this "Other" Barton addresses, a group relient on others to survive.  However, whereas Barton's example of the United Way was able to provide many benefits to the Other who act as recipients, I think the case of PETA will be a bit more difficult.  People will continue to eat meat, and since our society shifted argricultural techniques to that of a indsutrialized system, it seems more cost efficient to store and kill animals as we have been for years.  True, it is not the cleanest, but this is where individual choice (not necessarily codependent on active PETA status) enables one to choose whether or not they eat the meat.

Fascism? In America?

Ok, so we didn't get to the controversial quote on the board today which I was dying to talk about. It was:

"Our job... is to find all available ways of making the Hitlerite distortions of religion apparent, in order that politicians of his kind in America be unable to perform a similar swindle" (Burke 219).

The other day I watched this really interesting video which actually talk about this subject. The interview is with Chris Hedges about his book "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America". I know, I know, reeeeally controversial title, but the guy has credentials. He has a doctorate in theology, a Pulitzer prize, and he's a former New York Times Middle East bureau chief. So he's not just talking out of his... behind.

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/2/19/chris_hedges_on_american_fascists_the

He also mentions interesting concepts that resonate with Burke, such as "the cult of personality", vilifying the other (homosexuals, "abortionists", etc.), promoting one message while actually undermining or destroying it (family, as Hedges talks about), a period of instability as a catalyst to Fascism, and so on. Seriously, if this interests you at all, you should watch it. It's a bit long, but definitely worth it.

(And as a note, I'm not saying I'm agreeing or disagreeing with him. It was just way too pertinent not to share.)

Differance and Unity

Differance is not a word, not a concept (although it is the possibility of conceptuality), not an operation, does not exist, is not present (not present in itself but may be present because of what is surrounding it), and it's not an essence. What is this riddle?

Reading Derrida was so frustrating to me.  I think it was because I was trying to figure out what differance is, but all he said was what it is not.  It took me a while to get this.  I feel like I've been focusing on picking apart different aspects of writing, and differenace reminded me that it all works together, and there is a bigger picture.

Differance is a bigger idea than can even really be imagined.  It incapsulates so many variables, because in order to realize differance you have to realize that one thing can't exist without another or that one thing exists because of another thing.  Differance really has no meaning on its own.  It is defined by its surroundings and the existance of other things.

I think this is similar to the way Bakhtin looks at a novel.  All the different parts of a novel work together to create meaning.  Context is as important as the words chosen.  The intention of the author is as important as the interpretation of the reader.  And, there is movement in all of it, as there is movement of time and space and activity and passivity with Derrida. 

Through all of this it seems that differance is how we may find a unity in literature and communication.

Burke (again)

As I first read this selection, I found myself wondering why exactly I was reading it.  Having spent so much time looking at the world of diffe[a]rence a letter makes, it seemed odd to read something about the oral rhetoric and not the written.  I think it can go without saying that Hitler was one of the most persuasive orators, for though some brute force was used, most of it appears to have come from his skill, alone.  Also, as I read Burke's piece, I found myself attempting to draw parallels between this and other pieces we have previously read.

When Burke states that "each man may get there in his own way, but it must be the one unifying center of reference for all" (192), I was reminded of Locke's argument on the imperfection of words.  The problem and discrepancies of language stem from the fact that not everyone has the same associations for a word or phrase, often leading to communicative problems or problems in understanding or creating a universal meaning.  To me, this also is indicative to the problems with mass political movements.  Hitler's "unifying center" may have been his hatred of the Jew (or what he labeled the Jew's inferiority), however, there must have been some people who went along with it out of fear.  These individuals never really held the same unifying center, but rather, their own subculture, one that would act as a fray after Hitler's death and lead to the breakdown of the larger fascist movement.  I think language/perfection vs. imperfection of words acts in much the same fashion.  People who hold a word to mean a certain thing and associate it with a certain amount of "baggage" have one unifying center of the word, etc.  However, the problem with language is that every person has different environmental/social influences that also attribute to their understanding of a word, so that no group is every large enough to create a persuasive unifying center.  The government, on the other hand, is the only collective large enough to implement a "standard" in language, and certain words do hold the same meaning for a large majority of the people because of its implementation by the government; we all are told to associate a word with a certain list of characteristics/meanings. 

To me, that's where the problem of any movement or language truly lies--in the individual.  Burke mentions that "the Strong Man's 'aloneness' is presented as a public attribute, in terms of tactics for the struggle against the Party's dismemberment" (210).  However, this idea is a facade, enabling the individual to feeling powerful when in reality they are apart of the herd mentality that is necessary to have a following as large as the fascist movement, or the acceptance of a definition of a word.  This may be critical, but I think every writer/reader/analyzer can be made to feel powerful or "alone" in their way of thinking, yet this only creates a larger public following, one that is as much a collective as it claims not to be.  The imperfection of language arises from the internal struggle of the reader to be both an individual with his/her own word associations and also a part of the collective readership that finds meaning in certain words/passages.  I am not certain if there really is a happy medium or if the reader must merely subconsciously surrender to one side.

Deconstrutionalism and Structuralism Trace

In the post, I'd like to trace Burke's implicit use of structuralism and deconstructionalism.

Structuralists maintained that a set of conventions govern language. These conventions are determined by binaries and the difference between  them. Bedford uses the example of a stoplight.  If a stoplight is assigned the color "red" as a symbol, then its opposite, in this case green, takes on the opposing meaning. Green's relation to red determines its meaning. In this sense, green's meaning is derived from red's assigned meaning.

Burke explains how Hitler symbolizes the Aryan and Jewish peoples into such binaries, giving the process the name the "projection device": "The 'curative' process that comes with the ability to hand over one's ills to a scapegoat, thereby getting purification by dissociation....if one can hand over his infirmities to a vessel, or 'cause', outside the self, one can battle an external enemy instead of battling en enemy within" (202). According to Richards and Ogden, a symbol causes a thought or reference to manifest in a person's mind. The Jewish people became the symbol which called to reference the ills suffered by the Germanic people. The Aryan people were too symbolized in a similar fashion, except they came to symbolize superiority. Burke explains that Hitler accomplishes this symbolization by claiming the Aryan blood has certain natural, inherent qualities that predisposes the Aryan race to survive more successfully than others. Hitler uses a kind of "supreme truth" (nature) to support his symbol. This follows structuralism in that a "supreme truth" gives way to the Aryan race's supposed superiority and the Aryan race gives way to the Jewish people's supposed inferiority. His symbolization creates a hierarchical relationship.

This hierarchical structure, too, tells a reader how to read Hitler's Mein Kampf. To view the Jewish people as Hitler views them, they must first be convinced that the Aryan race is superior to all races. Therefore, this idea must be introduced first in Hitler's text, and ideas on inferiority must follow sequentially.  Structuralism governs both the conceptions behind and framing of Hitler's text. Burke shows how this hierarchical relationship works in his critique through the example of  a "son" figure who confers "omnipotence" onto his father. The "son" holds the "father" responsible for all good or for all bad. If the "good" father makes an error, however, his omnipotence deconstructs. If the "bad"father performs a good act, his "badness" deconstructs.

Burke shows that when Hitler's binaries of the "superior" race and "inferior" race are pitted against each other, they deconstruct: "It is not hard to see how,as  his enmity becomes implemented by the backing of an organization, the role of "persecutor" is transformed into the role of persecuted, as he sets out with his like-minded band to 'destroy the destroyer'"   (215). Hitler's claims of persecution lead him to persecute the Jews and transform them into the persecuted. The roles shift in a cyclical fashion. After the war is ended, the Germanic people could perhaps claim to be the "persecuted" once again. This demonstrates deconstructionism in that no role is stable. There is no set definition from which all roles derive. No natural order truly claims that one is forever persecuted  while the other is forever the persecutor. As a result, these binaries cannot maintain the principles of structuralism. Depending on the frame, the persecuted becomes the persecutor or vice versa. Burke thus demonstrates how Hitler uses deconstructionism to employ his ideas ("destroy the destroyer") but does so within the frame of structuralism.

Back to Locke, Dictionaries, and Languages

     I want to look back at Locke's very clear explanation of the imperfection of words We've talked about it to death but Locke says that words don't work well for communication "when any word does not excite in the hearer the same idea which it stands for in the mind of the speaker" (817). He also says that language is perfect for managing one's own thoughts as long as that person is consistent in their use of words (817). I just want to think about these two ideas from a couple different angles.
      First let's think about dictionaries. I think dictionaries pretty clearly illustrate the way in which language is imperfect. If you want to know what a word means that you don't understand you can look it up in a dictionary. There you will see the word defined with a series of other words that together make up the whole of that word. So to truly understand the word you will need to look up all the words that make up the definition. You can keep looking up each word you encounter forever. A big problem with words becomes obvious; In language there is no fundamental unit. Sure there are letters but they carry no meaning. There is no fundamental set of ideas that you can mix and match to create the meaning of all words. Let's contrast this with something like geometry. Geometry has a fundamental unit: the point. With points you can create and learn anything in geometry.Two points make a line; a series of lines connected at their ends will create a polygon; a series of infinitely short lines will create curve; and so on. No such progression and complex combination of fundamental units exists in language.

    Next, I'm very curious about how a specific language effects languages imperfection. I'm talking about Spanish vs German vs Japanese vs Greek vs English. I'm no accomplished polyglot but I know some people who study other languages extensively tend to say English is an ineffective language. I don't really believe them but it got me thinking about the ability for other languages to communicate in general. I know in Spanish it is grammatically correct to say something like "No tengo ninguno" which if translated word for word means "I don't have none." So that's weird. In German you get words like "hoechsgeschwindigkeitsbegrenzung" which means speed limit. These discrepancies have to mean that some languages are more or less effective than others right? Are there languages that make it difficult for someone to organize their own thoughts? I imagine that calling up a long word like hoechsgeschwindigkeitsbegrenzung to trigger a thought might take a bit longer and be more confusing than "speed limit." But I'm not sure and I know nothing about more different languages like Mandarine Chinese that would probably complicate the idea of the imperfection of language even more. 

Burke's Analysis of National Hate and The Civil Rights Movement

 Burke open's his discussion of Hitler's hate discourse in Mien Kampf, by presenting this analysis as a necessary process in order to prevent a "sinister and unifying" disease of anger against a particular people from taking root in America, as it did in anti-Semitic germany during WWII. Burke says in his opening statements that America is somewhat protected of this occurrence because of our deep rooted democracy, "Our vices cannot get together in a grand united front of prejudices; and the result of this frustration, if or until they succeed in surmounting it, speaks, as the bible might say, ' in the name of' democracy" (Burke 192). Oh sweet Burke, I wish you weren't naive enough to say that. Or perhaps you are just inextricably brilliant and understand that nothing gets across to Americans unless you stroke their ego a little first, because evident in the racial discourse that opposed the Civil Rights Movement and upheld segregation politics, America is plainly capable or unified prejudice.

In fact I think that perhaps we can internalize much of Burke's analysis of Hitler's hateful discourse by contrasting Hitler's anti-semitic discourse with the racial discourse of the segregation movement.

Burke discusses Hitler's powerful hate-filled rhetoric in terms of how it served as a social elixir for the ailments present around the time of his rise politically. First he provided a unity for western europeans against a common enemy, "men who can unite against nothing else can unite on the basis of a foe shared by all" (Burke 193). Although I think we can agree that not every white person living in America between 1950-1968 fell victim to racists discourse, those who spoke in opposition to the Civil Rights Movement, like Hitler, focused on building unity in the white community in terms of Us vs. Them discourses. They, like Hitler were able to gain support by instilling fear in the economic market of the time period (Burke 195-6). Whites feared an economic market where their jobs would be challenged, maybe even controlled by, the increasingly more powerful black community. But perhaps the strongest connection between these Hateful discourses is their reliance on what Burke calls "Inborn Dignity." Which is a theory born from religious and Humanistic discourse and focuses on self-righteous
living, but was twisted by Hitler and the racial discourse of the 1950's in America. Hitler discussed his racial theory in terms of pure blood, elevating Aryans above Jews (Burke 202). This same argument was the force behind racial discourse that sought to rationalize segregation. The whites were seen as inherently born with aa a more pure race, and therefore it was the moral duty of politicians to separate them from their "less pure" counterparts.

Because of the ease with which we can draw lines between these hateful discourses we are demanded by Burke to reflect on the powerful unification these discourses provide. Does hateful discourse always follow this schema? If we understand how this argument is structured, can we provent it from ever happening again?

Poetry and Bakhtin

In class on Friday we all seemed to agree that Bakhtin's main argument was a need to regard novels, and the discourse (language) within them as a map which displayed for us the sociological phenomenon's of an authors time period, "In any given historical moment of verbal-ideological life, each generation at each social level has its own language" (Bahktin 290). He breaks this argument down further by demonstrating how very unique language can be; as it serves a particular community (using his example high school students), by means of a specified vocabulary (dude, bro, hangin', chillaxin' etc.), which correspond to a very unique time frame (middle to late 2000s). His final discussion of the function of language in "Discourse in the Novel" is how it works as a heteroglot, "Thus at any given moment of historical existence, language is heteroglot from top to bottom: it represents the co-existence of socio-ideological contradictions between the present and the past" (Bahktin 291). Bahktin goes on to suggest that an author may intentionally juxtapose these various languages which are working together to map the heteroglossia of a particular time period, in order to "express his intentions and values" (Bahktin 292).

Poetry for me, services Bahktin's argument about how language services discourse more neatly than his example provided in novels. This is in part due to poetry's obsessive nature with language. The compact properties of poetry express the poet's direct attentiveness to language more visibly than novelists are able to. More over poet's are constantly working through Bakhtin's theory of language juxtaposition in order to  talk very loudly about the sociological happenings of a time period.

disclaimer: I do not work for Amazon, but you really must read/ buy Nikki Finney's book Head of & Split ( winner of this years National Book Award). 

Here is her poem "Left" a sociological critique of the horrors that were Katrina spun through Finney's careful juxtaposition of the varied languages ever-present during this catastrophe. Please Read and let's talk about how this is an awesome example of Bahktin's argument.

Left
by Nikky Finney
Eenee Menee Mainee Mo!        —Rudyard Kipling, "A Counting-Out Song," in Land and Sea Tales for Scouts and Guides, 1923            The woman with cheerleading legs has been left for dead. She hot paces a roof, four days, three nights, her leaping fingers, helium arms rise & fall, pulling at the week- old baby in the bassinet, pointing to the eighty- two-year-old grandmother, fanning & raspy in the New Orleans Saints folding chair.                       Eenee Menee Mainee Mo!            Three times a day the helicopter flies by in a low crawl. The grandmother insists on not being helpless, so she waves a white hand- kerchief that she puts on and takes off her head toward the cameraman and the pilot who remembers well the art of his mirrored-eyed posture in his low-flying helicopter: Bong Son, Dong Ha, Pleiku, Chu Lai. He makes a slow Vietcong dip & dive, a move known in Rescue as the Observation Pass.            The roof is surrounded by broken-levee water. The people are dark but not broken. Starv- ing, abandoned, dehydrated, brown & cumulous, but not broken. The four-hundred-year-old anniversary of observation begins, again—                       Eenee Menee Mainee Mo!                       Catch a— The woman with pom-pom legs waves her uneven homemade sign:                       Pleas Help   &hbsp;  Pleas and even if the e has been left off the Pleas e do you know simply by looking at her that it has been left off because she can't spell (and therefore is not worth saving) or was it because the water was rising so fast there wasn't time?                       Eenee Menee Mainee Mo!                       Catch a— a—            The low-flying helicopter does not know the answer. It catches all this on patriotic tape, but does not land, and does not drop dictionary, or ladder.            Regulations require an e be at the end of any Pleas e before any national response can be taken.            Therefore, it takes four days before the national council of observers will consider dropping one bottle of water, or one case of dehydrated baby formula, on the roof where the e has rolled off into the flood,                       (but obviously not splashed loud enough) where four days later not the mother, not the baby girl, but the determined hanky waver, whom they were both named for, (and after) has now been covered up with a green plastic window awning, pushed over to the side right where the missing e was last seen.                       My mother said to pick                       The very best one! What else would you call it, Mr. Every-Child-Left-Behind. Anyone you know ever left off or put on an e by mistake? Potato Po tato e            In the future observation helicopters will leave the well-observed South and fly in Kanye-West-Was-Finally-Right formation. They will arrive over burning San Diego.            The fires there will be put out so well. The people there will wait in a civilized manner. And they will receive foie gras and free massage for all their trouble, while there houses don't flood, but instead burn calmly to the ground. The grandmothers were right about everything.            People who outlived bullwhips & Bull Connor, historically afraid of water and routinely fed to crocodiles, left in the sun on the sticky tar- heat of roofs to roast like pigs, surrounded by forty feet of churning water, in the summer of 2005, while the richest country in the world played the old observation game, studied the situation: wondered by committee what to do; counted, in private, by long historical division; speculated whether or not some people are surely born ready, accustomed to flood, famine, fear.                       My mother said to pick                       The very best one                       And you are not it!            After all, it was only po' New Orleans, old bastard city of funny spellers. Nonswimmers with squeeze-box accordion accents. Who would be left alive to care?

Locke and Bakhtin

"These languages live a real life, they struggle and evolve in an environment of social heteroglossia." This line stood out in Bakhtin's "Discourse in the Novel." It is profound to think of language as living a life, and I can clearly understand this assertion. In its interaction with people, language goes through stages and changes. This is the idea of heteroglossia. I think that Bakhtin's piece works well to answer some of the questions that arose from Locke's "From An Essay Concerning Human Understanding." We asked, "Does language have agency apart from a speaker or interpreter?" My initial reaction given Bakhtin's "living language idea" is that language does have agency. It is alive and active, however, I still feel that it is alive and changing in the hands of its users. Language needs to be used in order to evolve.

Bakhtin and Locke also agree that language has imperfections. Locke explains that “the imperfection of words is the doubtfulness or ambiguity of their significations, which is caused by the sort of ideas they stand for” (Locke 817). This is seen when a word “does not excite in the hearer the same idea which it stands for in the mind of the speaker” (817). This seems related to Bakhtin's idea of stratification. Bakhtin explains that in a particular shared language, there is specific content and concrete value judgment. Shared languages are “directly intentional—they denote and express directly and fully… but for those not participating in the given purview, these languages may be treated as objects, as typifactions, as local color… things, limited in their meaning and expression” (289). According to Baktin, some of the limitations of language can be attributed to stratification. People who belong to the same shared language group probably have a better chance of understanding each other and the nuances in their language.

While Bakhtin seems to be criticizing literary analysis, he also has some things to say about language itself, and those ideas coincide with those presented by Locke.

Putting a discarded roll-up classroom map on your wall and Bakhtin

First, I am not incriminating myself of ever having stolen a discarded political map of South America from Woodburn Hall earlier this week.  I am simply using that hypothetical situation to grapple with Bakhtin's idea of heteroglossia, performance, and whatever else I come up with.

Let's pretend that I stole a roll-down classroom map from WH which was in pretty rough shape.  The thing won't roll up very easily, it's ripped and creased in multiple places, it's old, and it's in Spanish.  I considered cutting the important map section from the rest of the apparatus so that I would then have a sweet colorful canvas poster to put on my wall.

I decided not to do this, however, because I read Bakhtin who spoke to me about the map as if it were a novel.  He said, "This map is beautiful and valuable in its entirety.  Some may want you to look at it as a map of Brasil, others as a map of the oceans because the map is mostly oceans, and still others will tell you that this most certainly is a map of the correlation between the continental watershed and the development of the populations in South America.  But it is much more."

He told me that this map must be studied by cartographers (I'm correlating the study of English with cartography) so that the entire map is appreciated not only in the accuracy, the color choices, and the information provided, but in its entirety--including the apparatus by which it hangs. The map, like a novel, is a complex symbol composed of the maker's choices of information by his own hand but done in a way which was reliant on both common knowledge and his understanding of the world in reality.

The map is a sort of manifestation of heteroglossia.  It is layered with many types of communication including the geographical coordinate system, road systems, rivers, cities, and so forth.  Each provide information to contribute to the whole while maintaining a unique perspective, like different languages in a novel.

Language, Symbols, and Power in Politics

Our reading for today is definitely one of my favorites from this semester, hands down. I think partly because it addresses agency as well as the impact of signification; plus I have a special interest in politics and political language. I see these two concepts come together in Burke's analysis of Hitler's symbolism and the techniques he uses to reinforce the dichotomous symbols of the "Aryan" and the "Jew".

Burke early on in his essay points out the difficulty of political unification when he says, "Every movement that would recruit its followers from among many discordant and divergent bands, must have some spot towards which all roads lead" (192). For Germany in first half of the 20th century, this was certainly quite a task to undertake. From Burke's essay though, it seems (to briefly sum up the situation) that this was done by empowering a fractured and disenfranchised people through the symbols of the "common enemy" of the Jew and the heroic figure of the Aryan. These symbols were powerful agents to fuel Hitler's agenda, as it manifested in most of the unification devices that Burke lists (inborn dignity, projection device, and symbolic rebirth)(202-203).

While thinking about this essay in regard to the issue of signification, a question from the other day in class sprung to my mind. It was that of whether language is born from thoughts pre-existing, or are our thoughts formed from language? (Obviously this wasn't the question word for word, but you get my drift.) Immediately I thought of 1984 (which I'm sure most of you have read) and the concept of "newspeak" where the language simply excluded concepts like freedom and rebellion. Therefore, the speaker was limited in his capacity to choose his expressions, and hence Big Brother attempted to influence his thoughts through these limitations. Hitler seems to employ this technique as well in his chapter "The Strong Man is Mightiest Alone". In this part of the book, Hitler also seems to eliminate choice from the audience. As Burke points out, "Hitler's blandishments so integrate leader and people... that the politician does not even present himself as a candidate. Somehow, the battle is over already, the decision has been made" (210). Granted, the audience might be able to realize that this lack of choice is a facade, but it is powerful in its implicit nature.

All in all, reading this essay made me realize more about the play between language, power, and symbolism in politics. I kept thinking of the 2008 election, with the language of "Yes we can" and the empowerment felt by many by these unifying words. Well, even then I thought it sounded too optimistic, a ploy for votes that would lead us right back into business as usual. I think this essay shows to an extent how easy it really is to seduce your audience through the guise of unification. I'll definitely be searching for these elements in the coming election.

Grasping at Performance through Burke

While reading Burke's "Rhetoric of Hitler's 'Battle'", I circled a section and wrote, "Is this performance?" to the side: "And the deployments of politics are, you might say, the charting of Hitler's private mind translated into the vocabulary of the nationalistic events. He says what he thought in terms of what parties did" (210). Instead of qualifying his rhetoric as thoughts, Hitler wrote them as if they were actions already bound to happen. I wish I had some sort of example from Mein Kampf to look at, but none of the excerpts provided appeared to touch on this (at least in a way that was obvious to me). 

I read a few different definitions of J.L. Austin's "performance" online, but an article on Wikipedia put me in mind most succinctly with this paragraph. What stood out to me most in the article was that Austin’s “performance” required causality. In order for a word to be performative, it must imply some sort of effect made possible by its utterance.

The article, too, defines Eve Sedgwick's concepts on "performance": "performative utterances can be 'transformative' performatives, which create an instant change of personal or environmental status, or 'promisory' performatives, which describe the world as it might be in the future." 

Upon its utterance, “I promise” implies some action will be performed in the future. The “I promise” is an action in that it causes an implication to become manifest (the effect), not the promised action. For example, let’s say that I promised to do the dishes. My act of saying “I promise to do the dishes” causes the possibility that I might do the dishes. It does not actually cause me to do the dishes. In other words, the “I promise” creates a space in which action can occur. I think this speaks most closely to Richards and Ogden’s language pyramid. The symbol causes the reference or idea to become present in a person’s mind. “I promise” causes the idea in the listener’s mind that an action could be possible.

Hitler’s Mein Kampf is a promisory action in that it “describes the world as it might be in the future.” Hitler presents a world, his own world, which does not match current society. The presentation of this yet unrealized world as being reality implies that it is possible for reality to become this. The idea of such a world being possible is manifested (effect) by the difference between Hitler’s presented world and actual society (cause). 


Derrida's concept of "differance" helps to make Mein Kampf performative. The text is the space in which Hitler's world exists, where the world of his mind exists. Actual reality is the reality perceived by the readers before reading Mein Kampf. Hitler doesn't acknowledge this perceived reality. He doesn't define his world in terms of something that can become possible in actual reality. His world has already become.  Hitler's ignorance of this perceived reality deconstructs the difference between actual politics of the time and his politics. To him, no difference exists. Thus, his style of writing encourages the reader to do the same as him, disregard the perceived difference. To see the world as he sees it, the reader (of the time) must pretend no such actual reality exists. 

Faulty Equations of Signs

Of all the things I'm still shaky on, I know that Locke and I agree about one thing: "the greatest part about disputes [are] more about the signification of words than a real difference in the conception of things" (Locke 822). In other words, most arguments/disagreements boil down to the arguers not having the same meaning for a word (or words). I desperately want to get to [closer] to the bottom of this.

sign=signifier+signified

The Bedford Glossary breaks 'sign' into two commonly used categories. An icon "signifies what it represents" (475). For example, the letters printed on keyboard keys directly correlate to the letters on the screen that they represent. (Okay, this example is a bit removed since letters in and of themselves are signs. Ignore that for a second.) The other category of sign is 'index' which is "directly and regularly connected, physically or through a cause-effect relationship" (475). A laptop beeping would be an index for a battery about to die. Signs can also appear as symbols which "do not involve natural or inherent relationships to what they suggest, rather, arbitrary socially and culturally determined relationships" (476).  For instance, the concavity of the bottom of a bottle of wine indicates sweetness even though concavity and sweetness aren't directly correlated in any way.

The other side of the equation involves the signification. This involves the signifier conjuring signified. The signifier would be the triangle key on the keyboard and the signified would be the concept of playing/turning on music.

The signifier and the sign are extremely similar. Both can be words, objects, etc. The difference between the two lies in the signified. By this I mean, the signifier is the word is the word 'key' but the sign is the recognition and understanding of 'key'. 'Key' is meaningless without the human element of the signified, or mental image of 'key'. There is no sign 'key' without the comprehension--the performance of the mind.

Locke touches on the human element in proposition nine on page 819 but that's really the only analysis in our main readings of comprehension. The ambiguity left over after signifier+signified lies in neural paths and how an individual has stored and organized information in their brain. Seeing the signifier 'key' sets off the signified concepts of lock and key, key as integral piece, music key, button kind of key, etc. The signifier doesn't even tell me if I'm supposed to be thinking of a tangible object or abstract idea.

Sign has its own subcategories because signifier+signified can't wrap up all the loose ends. Rather than expand the sign-side of the equation, it seems like it would be more efficient to work on the signifier+signified side. I say this because the disputes Locke refers to usually ignite from a mental division at the location of the signified.

Trying to Break Down Differance

I am sure that Derrida's concept of differance did not go over well with everyone. I could see in class that some people were a little peeved, perhaps at Derrida's abstract notions, or maybe it was the ambiguity of his message. But I have to say, I kind of like the guy.

It seems to me that one of the points of irritation was when Derrida said, "Differance is neither a word nor a concept." (Derrida 279) I will admit, when I first read that statement I was perturbed too. But when you think about it, language is such a huge thing. It cannot be confined. And just like language, differance, which is a term that seeks to define elements of language is very large as well. Differance is comprised of so many elements, that to say that it is merely a concept is an understatement.

Another thing that I could see being frustrating for people who read Derrida was his idea that differance relates to both sameness and difference. I think that this can be explained by the idea that in order to understand anything, we have certain associations. These associations are the relationship between that word and many other words. The associations we make with one word can be very similar to other words and very much the opposite of others. I think that this relationship makes a lot of sense actually. There are bound to be differences between even words that mean nearly the same thing.

I really think that it is important to remember when reading Derrida, that sometimes the abstract elements of differance are easy to decipher when you just break them down a bit.

Literature as a Play

So I like the idea that literature performs. It was asked in class if this is true, and I would like to offer an answer to that question. In literature, there are many instances where performance is in play. In that vein, I find it interesting to think of literature as a play, and of the author or narrator as actors.

Several of the authors we have read in class so far have been interested in the role of the audience and the speaker. Aristotle is certainly interested in this relationship. He said, "[There is persuasion] through the hearers when they're led to feel emotion [pathos], by the speech; for we do not give the same judgment when grieving and rejoicing or when being friendly and hostile." (Aristotle 38) Here I find a really fascinating implication of performance. The element of emotion makes me think of watching a play or a movie. The audience of a play or movie is compelled by the performers through their performance of the speech to feel emotion and sometimes even experience persuasion. This same phenomenon also occurs with a reader of literature. The work of literature itself performs what has been created by its author, and the audience is then influenced by the performance. The strength of this performance depends on the kind of audience, author, and literature, as well as the relationship between the three of them.

So I know I went a little far into the past here with Aristotle, but I thought it would be a good example of this performance of literature. Though the performance of every work of literature differs, I think that the main concept of performance and performers remains the same. To answer the question of whether literature performs, I have to say, yes. What does it perform? Well, I think that depends on the author's purpose, as well as his/her effectiveness in writing.

Bakhtin's Heteroglossia and The Evolving Language

I really like what Bakhtin has to say on "Discourse in the Novel," but I particularly like his idea of heteroglots. He describes this as the instance where language undergoes a change based on present conditions, and in the novel, heteroglossia is "another's speech in another's language, serving to express authorial intentions but in a refracted way." (Bakhtin 324) What I find most interesting is the idea of an unstable language. Bakhtin says:

"Thus at any given moment of it's historical existence, language is heteroglot from top to bottom: it represents the co-existence of socio-ideological contradictions between the present and the past, between differing epochs of the past, between different socio-ideological groups in the present, between tendencies, schools, circles and so forth, all given bodily form. These 'languages' of heteroglossia intersect each other in a variety of ways, forming new socially typifying 'languages.'" (291)

So basically, the changing conditions that cause language to change as well can be traced to socio-ideological factors. The social norms are constantly changing, the way a society is expected to speak and behave is always in transition. Therefore, the heteroglots are the marked differences between the current and the former social ideals. I definitely appreciate this notion, because it means that language is not constrained by a definitive definition of a word, or even by a "symbol" as Richards and Ogden would suggest. Language is evolutionary and can, from one symbol, actually diverge to represent another "symbol." I think the idea is that we, as a culture, use culturally relevant things in order to determine just what something means or stands for. A society's unique experiences or encounters with different issues will largely influence their "jargon," as Bakhtin point out (291). I can't help but think of the way the word "gay" has evolved, although maybe it's a poor example. From elation, to derogatory, and then there's still the somewhere in between definition that's not intended to be offensive, but still is a label?? I imagine it would extremely confusing for a 19th century person suddenly coming to life and having to adapt to our strange jargon and cultural dialect, which would use words they might be used to in an entirely different manner. It's worth thinking about, the concept that language is self-evolving, "adapting" to it's environment.

Hitlerism and it's Presence Today

 I just want to start off my blog post by a very interesting remark by Kenneth Burke when he says, "The desire for unity is genuine and admirable.  The desire for national unity, in the present state of the world, is genuine and admirable.  But this unity, if attained on a deceptive basis, by emotional trickeries that shift our criticism from the accurate locus of our trouble, is not unity at all."

The fact that he makes a remark concerning the "present state of the world," is interesting because it shows how directly reliable this article is towards our world today.  This idea of unity that Burke presents is in contrast to "Hitlerism" in the sense that unity achieve on a deceptive basis is working against unity.  For he explains that while it does form a group of people together, it gradually works towards an impending "calamity", as Burke describes.  The laws that Hilter and his members put together is described to be found by his use of rhetoric and how the German were susceptible due to "he was offering a world view to people who had no other to pit against it."  This concept of law is also noteworthy because laws are set in place by people choosing to create a ideal society and shape the personalities and habits of the people.  Hitler, with his use of rhetoric shaped this society and put together these laws according to his personality.  Can this kind of incident happen today?  Directly, no.  Indirectly, definitely yes.  The world of politics is tricky and the different personalities in America today class against each other and have created these various political parties such as the Democratic and Republican party.  As Burke has noted, all nations desire unity for it is a attractive mindset for it denotes brotherhood and a sense of acceptance within a community.  Can America ever be fully united? I don't think so, the various discourses that go in contrast with each other allows for much conflict.  The idealized complete unity, seems to be deceptive, for Hitler only accomplished this through deceptive means and is described not to be unity at all.  In conclusion, a paradox is formed.  In my opinion, complete unity can never be attained.

The Polyglottal Perception Prism Part II - Mortal Immortals

The sphere of discourse is constantly expanding into the present, while each second one sided mirrors are installed, blocking those from the past from viewing the present.  However, that is not exactly how it works because "now" is relative.  The best humans can do is experience the world as it was milliseconds ago.  All we know is the relative "now" or about a couple of milliseconds in the past.  This is where time presents itself as a problem in communication that leads to heteroglossia, or, as one could imagine, individuality.  As members of a collective group, humans generally appreciate our individuality, and to an extent we cultivate it through our interactions in the world.  However, from this individuality arise differences, and where there are differences there is room for misinterpretation.  Behavior is composed of basically two components derived from the same source, genetics and environment.  Genetics being the result of several interactions in the environment, and development occurring within an environment.  The space one occupies is one component of the environment and incoming information is another.  The third portion of environment is "time".  However, "time" does not exist, it is the result of the combination of environmental factors and genetics in relation to an individual, to an individual.  Time, as we perceive it is the state of energy and matter within our perceptive systems currently.  Our perceptions of history and memories are the result of our current state, as a result of the flow of energy.  As beings composed of mass and energy, much as the universe, our state is simply a smaller scale version of the universal state.  However, due to our limited exposure to the flow of the universe, being only exposed to our relative space, our knowledge and understanding can never be complete, and therefore we can never truly "know"or "understand" anything outside of our individual universes.  Heteroglossia is an illusion in this sense.  Heteroglossia is the perception of the collective variances and multiple meanings in a text or discourse, however, because we as individuals can only experience our individual universe, the meanings we observe in texts and discourse are all of our own creation.  "If the art of poetry, as a utopian philosophy of genres, gives rise to the conception of a purely poetic, extrahistorical language, a language far removed from the petty rounds of everyday life, a language of the gods--then it must be said that the art of prose is close to a conception of languages as historically concrete and living things" (Bahktin 331).  I believe the reverse is true.  A utopian language, in which complete meaning is transfered, is soulless.  It is hollow.  There is no individuality to it.  All becomes one entity and becomes true.  On the other end of the spectrum, in chaos where there is no similarity between languages and communication, there is no interaction, so there is false.  This is the paradox of discourse, communication, and indeed the universe.

When communication transfers all information flawlessly, the interpretation of that information is perfect, then individuality is lost.  However, when communication fails completely, and no information is interpreted correctly, there is no understanding.  Hence, we are left in the world of perceptive probabilities.  Human's exist as energy and matter, which the universe is composed of.  From a universal perspective, a human is no different from anything else in the universe.  From a human perspective, every human is a unique individual.  This is the paradox.  We exist as entities of the in-between.  We are both different and the same on relative scales.  The sample size of data is all that determines our distinctions.  Such, is how we perceive the universe and communication.  We will never fully "know" nor fully "forget".  Such is our state as entities, the gods or our own languages, neither powerless nor omnipotent.  Mortal immortals.             

The Polyglottal Perception Prism Part I - An Analogy for the Refractive Qualities of Communication

In Bahktin's "Discourse in the Novel", Bahktin offers up heteroglossia as a quality that defines the refractive quality of the information within novels.  Bahktin's heteroglossia does not only apply to novels, however, it can also be applied to any discourse, in which information passes between two differing perceptive systems.  In computers, misinterpretations between systems result in errors and breakdowns in communication, but in humans misinterpretations are an integral part of our system of communication.  This phenomenon is the result of many influences, but we can identify two main causes and draw a hopefully helpful analogy, with which to approach such a quirky quality.

Bahktin's heteroglossia is the coexistence of multiple meanings embedded in texts and other forms of discourse.  Imagine everyone in the world existing within the same room, and that this room is a rough sphere of mirrors encompassing humanity.  For this example, we will limit our exposure to just human communication.  Every individual possesses a light, with which they can communicate to their fellow humans.  Each person's light is adaptive, meaning that as the individual's thoughts change, so does the intensity or color of their light.  Now, imagine the view of the sphere of mirrors and the light dancing across it as people communicate with one another.  From this examination, we can see that everyone's perspective, and thus interpretation of incoming stimuli is different.  This is because a person can only occupy the space of their body within the sphere, and no two individuals can occupy the same space at the same moment.  "For the novelist, there is no world outside his socio-heteroglot perception--and there is no language outside the heteroglot intentions that stratify that world" (Bahktin 330).  From Bahktin and this example, we can see that every individual has a unique perceptive system composed of their location, their language, and their time.  The location of the individual is subject to change within in the sphere as a result of the individual's perception of processed information.  The individual's language is the result of experienced information, which further differentiates perception.  Finally, there is time.  Within the sphere of discourse, we can examine all of humanity, past and present, our aspirations, our hopes and dreams.  The sphere of discourse is really just a limited version of the universe. (To Be Continued...)       

Literature is Performance

In Sociology there is a theory regarding what is called “front behavior.” In Erving Goffman’s “Regions and Region Behavior,” Goffman explains that people act in different “regions” or spheres of interaction. “The presence of other persons, some aspects of the activity are expressively accentuated and other aspects, which might discredit the fostered impression, are suppressed” (Goffman, 106). The theory as a whole is essentially that people present a “front” in various social situations (what Goffman calls “regions”). This idea makes sense. When you speak to a professor, you usually talk differently than when you talk to someone at a party.

In class on Friday, we raised two related questions: is language performative? And is literature performative in a similar way? I propose that both of these are true, and that literature is especially performative. But first, I will have to explain a little.

In “Discourse in the Novel,” Mikhail Bakhtin expands on the idea of an author “framing” a work. He proposes that various forms of language “involve specific forms for manifesting intentions, forms for making conceptualization and evaluation concrete” (Bakhtin, 289). This suggests that an author has some level of control over what “front” he presents to his readers. Walter Ong would likely agree with this idea. In “The Writer’s Audience is Always a Fiction,” Ong proposes that the writer forms a frame with which to address his/her audience, “the writer must construct in his imagination…audience cast in some sort of role” (Ong, 12). The audience must then accept that frame, “…the audience must correspondingly fictionalize itself” (Ong, 12). This suggests that the writer has some level of performative control.

If a writer forms a frame through which a reader will view a work, what does that mean for signification? Many of the thinkers we have read have expressed concern over the instability of language and symbolic meaning (Locke, Richards and Ogden, Bakhtin, etc.). Bakhtin offers a slightly different approach than Lock and Richards and Ogden. He proposes, or seems to suggest, that language can be controlled to a certain extent by using this concept of framing. When using Charles Dickens as a case study, Bakhtin shows that authors can frame to derive more clearly defined meaning. This meaning is partially achieved through a process that Bakhtin calls unmasking, “ The whole point here is to expose the real basis for such glorification, which is to unmask the chorus’ hypocrisy” (Bakhtin, 304).

In order to use this frame, however, the author must “perform.” Every writer knows that each new piece of literature they work on demands the usage of a certain kind of style, a certain kind of performance. Like Bakhtin says, writers use “double-voiced discourse” meaning they use “the direct intention of the character who is speaking, and the refracted intention of the author” (Bakhtin, 324). This is to say that the author uses frames to convey meaning. These frames function like Goffman’s fronts. They are interpretive lenses. In a way, these frames offer a control similar to that so desired by Richards and Ogden in their piece on the issues of symbolic communication.

In any case, the author may not use their actual voice to communicate their intention. This is for two reasons: A) All people engage in front behavior and if we assume authors are creating an audience, they are also going to perform for that audience. B) The author must utilize frames with which to offer a more exact determination of their meaning and will use whatever tools necessary in order to do this. Bakhtin remarks on this in his article which mentions that comic novels especially are good at "organizing heteroglossia" (Bakhtin, 301). In any case, it is safe to say that literature is performative, given that all writers perform when writing.

Rhetoric, It's a Man's Work?

So yeah, I went ahead and read the "Rhetoric of Hitler's Battle" and decided to post on it because one thing in particular struck me and made me remember one of our previous readings.  Let's see where it goes, shall we?

There was one particular section that stood out very starkly to me, and that was when Burke said that "The sexual symbolism that runs through Hitler's book, lying in wait to draw upon the responses of contemporary sexual values, is easily characterized" and then goes on to say that Hitler shows the confused and dispersed Germany as a sort of castrated male.  The dictator apparently also mentions that the German people as a mass are "feminine" and "as such, they desire to be lead by a dominating male" (195).  When I read this line, my mind immediately when back to Wellings' Ecoporn piece and how it too discussed the dual sexualizing and feminization of the environment and nature, which is rather similar to classifying the public masses of a country in such a way.  I mean, we have the masses of Aryan Germany, the naive and untouched woman-like virigin masses that are under threat from the "seduction" of the "rival male" the the strong leading man, the Jews.  We have the big strong man-leader rescuing the lady-masses from being tainted by the scapegoat Jewish people and systematically breaking "her" in by introducing his own strong leadership.  Like ecoporn, the dictator in this situation feminizes the masses to make Germany look untainted and untouched, but still in danger, whilst ignoring all of the damage that he himself is doing to the scapegoat (the supposed rival) just like ecopornographers do not show all of the "hidden impact".

I just found it very fascinating that the parallels lined up and made so much sense, in different ways of course.  It makes me wonder what the value is in rhetoric that sexualizes and feminizes what the rhetor wishes to gain control over, or how such a way of speaking and referring to things such as nature or the public has lasted so long, the fact that patriarchy is the dominant social reign aside.  What do you guys think of the odd parallel?  Does this rhetoric serve like purposes to gaining control of a people as it does gaining control of people's views of the environment?  Who is exploited?  What might the "hidden impact" be, either in the specific Hilter situation or just politics in general?

I thought it was interesting, so I decided just to throw it out there.  All references came from page 195.

Framing Those Multiple Voices

Hey peoples!  I started something like this in class when I dealt with the term "frame/frame story" and I liked where that was going so I shall continue with it and make you guys suffer through it some more here.  Because I am sinister.  Indeed.

Anyway, from the Bakhtin reading it can be gathered that the general meaning of heteroglossia is the presence of a multiplicity of voices in a written work, or in this case, the novel.  Then there is the idea stated at the near opening of the reading that language is not unitary, and it only comes close to being unitary in a novel because "For the novelist, there is not world outside his socio-heterglot perception... Therefore it is possible to have, even in the novel, that profound but unique unity of a language"(330).  So the unity of language that can appear in the novel can only be unified because it comes from one mind (the author) and is captured in that fictional universe, I suppose, and that could make the statement that the author, the author's mind, and the fictional confines of that multiplicity of voices to the book itself are what the "frame" for heteroglossia consists of.  If the content, style and language are all one in the novel, as Bakhtin said on the first page, then does the frame consist of what I have just listed?  And the big question; does heteroglossia need this "frame", or a frame of some kind, to exist?  If heteroglossia is the existence of a multiplicity of voices in a piece of written work, does it not need those confines, that frame set-up?

When I connect "frame" with the existence of heteroglossia, I immediately think of the multiplicity of voices that the author creates in the novel through the many characters.  Those characters all came from the same mind, the same writer, and yet they all express different opinions and thoughts and social groups.  All of those voice came from that one source, and that authorial source is the "frame".  For instance, Bakhtin says the heteroglossia in the novel is "another's speech in another's language, serving to express authorial intentions but in a refracted way" (324).  By authorial intentions, he means showing opinions, moral values, whatever the author wants to show.  The most basic example I can think of being to show people, indirectly of course if done well, what's good and what's bad, not just in the author's opinion but the opinion of their society at the time (social critique anyone?) and that's where the multiplicity of voices comes in.  But because the author has to use many voices to tell the reader these things (the antagonist, the protagonist, various other characters) is the author's mind not the "frame" of heteroglossia in the novel?

Sorry if I seemed to jump around a bit, but my main question I shall explicitly pose connects the frame the the author to the heteroglossia of the novel.  What is the "frame" of the novel, is it the fact that it came from one mind, or that all the heteroglossia of the novel can only exist specifically in the confines of that fictional world?  Does heteroglossia need a frame to exist?  If it really does refer to the multiplicity of voices in one novel, doesn't that oneness of the novel have to exist for the heteroglossia to be possible?  What frame does it need?  I think it's that all of these voices came from the author's one mind, but what else could it be?

Locke and Agency

Locke asks in his essay, "Who shall determine in this case [that of mixed modes known imperfectly] which are those that are to make up the precise collection that is to be signified by the specific name?" (821). And, speaking of gold (which we all love, don't we?), he wonders "who shall be the judge to determine" the meaning of the word (821). In the case of Locke's mixed modes, because the definition of the word is uncertain and based on collections of concepts, ideas, and archetypes, the meaning of the word is not objective, but subjective based on the perception of the person experiencing the word. Locke defines the "ends of language" as "to make known one man's thoughts or ideas to another" with "as much ease and quickness as possible" (825). But since there is no Language Cabal sitting in a tower being the person who determines the set of ideas and concepts one should hold in their mind while referring to a mixed mode, no one will interact with words the same way, and we can say one can never make one's ideas truly known to another.

I think this fits with our issues of agency. When the idea is being conveyed through words the speaker knows the meaning and thus holds the agency. But, when those words are processed by the listener a new meaning is imposed and the listener becomes the agent. It is much like Foucault's idea of agency being passed from author to reader.

This idea is also present in Derrida. Because words "represent the present in its absence" and "take the place of the present" (284), one could say words are dependent on one's perception of the present. If words are dependent on perception and are intended to replace a person's individual present, then the words are subjective and represent only one individual's reality.

Bahktin's concepts of fluid language which changes depending on society's use of the language shows even more the issues of power and agency in words. Words can become stratified and take on new meaning as they are used, and "there is... always present... a certain degree of social differentiation, a social stratification" in language (Bahktin, 290). In fact, "even particular significant artistic works and individual persons are all capable of stratifying language, in proportion to their social significance" (Bahktin, 290).

I'm glad I put off sharing what I found in Locke about agency, because even though I think I misplaced some important Locke quotes, Bahktin's opinions fit in very well with this and I'm glad I read him before blogging. One reason Bahktin's opinions are so important is because with my argument based on Locke, the agency in language occurred on a purely individual basis. I feel Bahktin opens it up to have a greater social meaning and demonstrate the way agency can be carried through cultures based on language.

Because of all our talking about language, I wanted to share this poem. I'm a sucker for slam poetry, and any poems that use words like this. It makes me think a bit of "Let us go then, you and I,/ When the evening is spread out against the sky/ Like a patient etherized upon a table", but more hardcore. I'd try to explain what I thought about it but I wouldn't make any sense. This is totally where poetry is going, though. :)

Differance, Space, and Time

So the question posed in class was "how can differance be neither a term nor a concept"? My answer to this is that differance is something of a void, or a space between two things. However, void implied emptiness, which makes it an inadequate word because this space is full of ideas and concepts and thoughts.

I think differance is not a term or a concept because it is an absence. I understand it, though, as an absences full of various presences. Derrida says that "signs represent the present in its absence; they take the place of the present", and "when the present does not present itself, then we signify" (284). He explains "differance can no longer be understood according to the concept of 'sign,' which has always been taken to mean the representation of a presence and has been constituted in a system (of thought or language) determined on the basis of and in view of presence" (284-5). If differance is not a sign because signs connote presence, then differance must connote absence.

I feel like Rivkin and Ryan refer best to how I see differance and presence when they say "what is present to the mind in conscious experience is a kind of ghost effect, a flickering of passing moments that are differentially constituted by their relations and their interconnectedness" (258). The presence of anything is spatially and temporally situated, whereas differance is the vortex of interconnectedness between those isolated spatial and temporal instances.

Rivkin and Ryan say "all things bear the 'trace' of something to which they refer in an ongoing network of relays and references" (259), which I interpret as a sort of continuum of existence.
Basically, I see differance as the place where things relate to each other in the crush or contraction of time and space. I myself am a sucker for curved spacetime, and I love identifying instances of it. That's what I see here. Differance is the black hole full of the mass of connectedness and interrelations. While we may see different presences as isolated from each other by the progression of linear spacetime, those presences are understood through the warping of spacetime, through which everything, all spaces and times and presences, are connected. And I think in this case the warping of spacetime and the eternal presence of interconnectedness is represented by differance. It is not a term or a concept, it is just a being.