What I love about Foucault is how contextual he is. In The Order of Discourse, he shows this in his discussion of reason and madness. He talks about how people who are the outcasts (like the insane or the criminals) are not heard (Bizzell & Herzberg, p. 1155). Foucault links this into his past work in asylums and prisons. I have to say that I can really get lost in Foucault’s work…and I mean that in a good way. One semester I got completely involved in reading three of his books during the course of that semester. Other things suffered such as work, home, etc. but my mind was enthralled. With Foucault, I find that I don’t leave feeling satisfied so much with answers as much as new threads to ponder and examples to look for as society and conversation unfolds around me and within me. I suppose, that’s one of the “beginnings” that Foucault discussed (Bizzell & Herzberg, p. 1154).
For this blog, I will discuss the how treatment had moved from an intermingling of criminals, madmen, and the poor during the 18th century to the separation of these peoples to deal more directly with their issues (Bizzell & Herzberg, p. 1156). Being classified with one of these undesirable groups had previously paralleled guilt and unreason, catching the insane in a confinement of all three. By the 19th century, insanity was considered a social failure, but society did not have a system of recourse other than the confinement solution it had used with each of these three groups. And so the process of locking up the insane began to take shape as institutions figured out how to handle and treat such persons (Foucault, 1988, pp. 259-260). As the insane were now being confined separately, three intertwined solutions were being tested: communication, observation, and judgment.
Communication
Communication has seen an interesting pattern between silencing and listening to the insane (Bizzell & Herzberg, p. 1155). During the period of torture for madness, chains and dungeons were employed to silence the madman. During this time and for centuries afterward, the mad were often a spectacle put on show as they clanked in their chains and babbled incessantly (Herrick, p. 251). The paradox here is that the public and the workers were essentially encouraging the insane to make more noise and to talk more while effectively silencing (ignoring) any actual words that came out of their mouths. Those with mental illness were not listened to but rather made as a show in the circus (Herrick, p. 249). Eventually when the treatment of the insane removed the shackles, they were less of a spectacle but more of a sense of observation that encouraged guilt and shame for the “transgression” of being insane (Foucault, 1988, p. 261).
Foucault connects communication and this sense of transgression to the birth of psychoanalysis:
“Language was engaged in things rather than really suppressed. Confinement, prisons, dungeons, even tortures, engaged in a mute dialogue between reason and unreason --- the dialogue of struggle. This dialogue itself was now disengaged; silence was absolute; there was no longer any common language between madness and reason; the language of delirium can be answered only by an absence of language, for delirium is not a fragment of dialogue with reason, it is not language at all; it refers, in an ultimately silent awareness, only to transgression. And it is only at this point that a common language becomes possible again, insofar as it will be one of acknowledged guilt. “Finally, after long hesitations, they saw him come of his own accord to join the society of the other patients…” The absence of language, as a fundamental structure of the asylum, has its correlative in the exposure of confession. When Freud, in psychoanalysis, cautiously reinstitutes exchange, or rather begins once again to listen to this language, henceforth eroded into monologue, should we be astonished that the formulations he hears are always those of transgression? And this inveterate silence, transgression has taken over at the very sources of speech” (1988, p. 262).
There is a process by which language and communication vacillate and eventually come to a dialogue interwoven with religious guilt, another rhetoric (or discourse, as Foucault would put it) we have studied this semester.
Observation
Observation was being used less as a form of spectacle and more as a form of assessment. But it was not assessment as we know it today. It was more as a tactic of external eyes and internal acknowledgment (Herrick, pp. 249-50). By this, the workers at asylums were the observers who encouraged the insane to take a look at themselves. Foucault calls this a recognition by the mirror. By being grouped with other madmen, the insane got a sense of their own character, and sometimes, this encouraged them to want to be more normal (meaning more like the outside world of accepted behavior and less like the insane around them). The idea was if you show the madman others who act like him, he judges for himself that such behavior is madness and chooses to change his language and his actions. Foucault states, “The madman recognizes himself as in a mirror in this madness whose absurd pretensions he has denounced...He is now pitilessly observed by himself. And in the silence of those who represent reason, and who have done nothing but hold up the perilous mirror, he recognizes himself as objectively mad” (1988, p. 264).
So the 18th century was mainly the madman being observed by others; as the 19th century began, institutions were accepting such systems where madmen were observing each other. Foucault explains that madness became a spectacle of itself where mirrors of other madmen created an awareness (linked to shame) that promoted acknowledgment and self-restraint (1988, pp. 264-265). Just imagine if we had spent this entire semester studying the history of the rhetoric of the insane. And wha-laa, read some Foucault. There you have it.
Judgment
This sense of reflection and the mirror incited self-assessment and judgment, as in Foucault’s view many discourses do. Foucault explains how such continual self-observation is rooted in fear and justice leading to self-condemnation as a part of the treatment of insanity (1988, p. 265). The asylum had its own judicial system that “judged immediately, and without appeal” (Foucault, 1988, p. 266). If we follow the progression from dungeons to poor houses to hospitals to asylums, we can see the development of punishment --- both internal and external --- as a therapeutic tool. But this is another topic for another post (just something I am interested in). Basically, the older forms of confinement already had a disconnect from the judicial system of the society. Eventually asylums also created their own judicial languages for punishing untoward behavior. Just one example: A researcher named Pinel took 18th century therapeutic methods and used them as forms of punishment (Foucault, 1988, p. 266). One example that Foucault offers is that of the cold shower as a means of “medicine” for the nervous system. “The happy consequences of the cold shower, the psychological effect of the unpleasant surprise which interrupted the course of ideas and change the nature of sentiments” was used as a means to keep the insane in line both verbally and otherwise physically (1988, pp. 266-267).
Hence, such systems were employed to ensure that the insane man felt the observation and judgment of those around him (Herrick, p. 251). The link between transgression of accepted behavioral norms and the punishment that the person came to accept as just was glaringly evident (Bizzell & Herzberg, p. 1157). One can see how it is difficult to decide whether to call this person in the asylum a patient or an inmate. Madness was subject to the rules of the asylum system and became “a kind of endless trial” where the individual had committed a social crime and had come to a “perpetual recommencement in the internalized form of [silent] remorse” (Foucault, 1988, p. 269; Bizzell & Herzberg, p. 1155; Herrick, p. 250).
While the asylum had not yet reached the status of a medical space where patients were watched for diagnosing and treating, it had developed into “a judicial space where one [was] accused, judged, and condemned, and from which one [was] never released except by the version of this trial in psychological depth --- that is, by remorse” (Foucault, 1988, p. 269). The insane were no longer viewed by society as guilty of a criminal activity, yet they were still punished and disciplined for their abnormal language, mutterings, and behavior. In this context, there is so much to investigate in terms of Foucault’s call for (1) will to truth, (2) discourse, and (3) signifier power (Bizzell & Herzberg, pp. 1157 & 1164).
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Additional reference:
Foucault, Michel. (1988). Madness and civilization: A history of insanity in the age of reason. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Vintage-Random House.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Richards and the Situation
In 20th century rhetoric, the idea that words are symbols that require interpretation is stressed by IA Richards. Richards explains that such interpretation of words must be in context so that the meaning is clear (or at least clearer). Such context relates to Burke’s Dramatism pentad: act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose. Most specifically, Richards and Burke converge with the idea of scene. Richards is particularly concerned with the way symbols, signs, actions, thoughts, and items relate to each other. This relationship-based understanding of the world creates a “behavioristic theory of interpretation-in-context” with an inherent rhetorical meaning (Bizzell & Herzberg, p. 965).
In one experiment, Richards situates contexts solely within the verbal structure of language. By doing this, Richards was able to (or so he claimed) focus on the reader’s experience outside of the history and/or other biases that come with knowing authors, eras, and political situations. Yet, Richards discovers even more so the interdependency of meaning and context. He defines context as a way to name and situate rhetoric in the events that occur together (Bizzell & Herzberg, p. 978).
One concept I found particularly meaningful was Richard’s concept of the metaphor. He has a great appreciation for the metaphor because it conveys information by connecting it to things a person already understands. Furthermore, Richards sees the metaphor as limited (which is good because it keeps the metaphor in check). The two limiting factors, namely the “tenor” and the “vehicle”, work in tension to limit the interpretive range of understanding as applied by a particular metaphor. “We understand the one by the other, taking only certain characteristics of the vehicle (the beauty of the Rose, not the thorns) because of the nature of the tenor (my love)” (Bizzell & Herzberg, p. 966). In other words, it is the words and phrases that surround a concept or a piece of rhetoric that enable us to understand the meaning. Because we make connotations within a particular situation we use context to understand the metaphor.
Because we are operating between both social (outer) and psychological (inner) histories, we apply what we know when we decode symbolism (Bizzell & Herzberg, p. 968). We are decoding and encoding when we listen and speak. Even in one conversation, there can be multiple accurate meanings or a multiplicity of meaning (Bizzell & Herzberg, p. 980). Since, according to Richards, words do not have any inherent goodness or badness, it is through the contextual understanding (both the history and the surrounding words) that we can illustrate points to one another (Bizzell & Herzberg, pp. 983-84, 986).
In one experiment, Richards situates contexts solely within the verbal structure of language. By doing this, Richards was able to (or so he claimed) focus on the reader’s experience outside of the history and/or other biases that come with knowing authors, eras, and political situations. Yet, Richards discovers even more so the interdependency of meaning and context. He defines context as a way to name and situate rhetoric in the events that occur together (Bizzell & Herzberg, p. 978).
One concept I found particularly meaningful was Richard’s concept of the metaphor. He has a great appreciation for the metaphor because it conveys information by connecting it to things a person already understands. Furthermore, Richards sees the metaphor as limited (which is good because it keeps the metaphor in check). The two limiting factors, namely the “tenor” and the “vehicle”, work in tension to limit the interpretive range of understanding as applied by a particular metaphor. “We understand the one by the other, taking only certain characteristics of the vehicle (the beauty of the Rose, not the thorns) because of the nature of the tenor (my love)” (Bizzell & Herzberg, p. 966). In other words, it is the words and phrases that surround a concept or a piece of rhetoric that enable us to understand the meaning. Because we make connotations within a particular situation we use context to understand the metaphor.
Because we are operating between both social (outer) and psychological (inner) histories, we apply what we know when we decode symbolism (Bizzell & Herzberg, p. 968). We are decoding and encoding when we listen and speak. Even in one conversation, there can be multiple accurate meanings or a multiplicity of meaning (Bizzell & Herzberg, p. 980). Since, according to Richards, words do not have any inherent goodness or badness, it is through the contextual understanding (both the history and the surrounding words) that we can illustrate points to one another (Bizzell & Herzberg, pp. 983-84, 986).
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Approaching the Rhetoric of Science
Rhetoric is Widespread and Contextual
We have entered into the age in our reading when the rhetoric of science begins to emerge (Herrick, 2005, p. 209). Herrick talks quite well about how this came to be. As I read through the timeline, complete with specified authors, I was terribly opposed to the some of the assumptions underlying Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s universal audience. Herrick states that these author “seek an imagined audience of reasonable people available at all times, and not subject to the limitations and biases of any particular audience” (Herrick, 2005, p. 202). As Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca explain the self audience, they want rhetors to come up with arguments that are “timeless, thus independent of local concerns” (Herrick, 2005, p. 203). It’s a lovely notion, really, but it is also quite useless because we are never without context. To me, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca try valiantly to avoid what they see as unsolidified truths that are connect to God or revealed in some other manner; however, they only return to the notion of absolute truth. I wanted to ask them, “Why not consider context?” Classmates, you may recall an earlier post where I discussed Nazi Germany. We have situations in life where we must consider context before, during, and after we think, speak, and persuade. I do not believe we are ever free from the situation. Absolutist and atomistic thinking might only work for hermits.
As could logically follow, I did agree with Billig, especially in his notion against absolutism. He believed, as Herrick said, that “the rules of rhetoric must always be provisional, never absolute” (Herrick, 2005, p. 212). As Herrick continued with the development (and critiques) of the rhetoric of science, I thought to ways in which my husband and I both see rhetoric integral with science: grants. There are a number of articles that address the rhetoric of science in grant writing. I am going to draw on one below that really pulls the “approach” piece out when student scientists are seeking money to fund their projects.
Rhetoric of Science: Grants
Students express concern regarding seeking grants because they are unsure on the approach for the proposal. What is appropriate? What is overconfident? What is too timid? Students can confidently learn to intrigue potential paying readers into their area of intellectual subject by suggesting ways that the student is the scholar is best suited for a particular research issue, thereby most suited for grants to pursue this project (Gillis, 2009, p. 4).
Administration and faculty can teach students that preparing the proposal may require speaking to audiences across multiple fields. Hence, jargon is inappropriate and can hinder application acceptance. Speaking to a varied audience does not require “dumbing down” the proposal content. Instead researchers can explain using a tactic that presents “the issues at a level of generality sufficient to making them clear to the general scholarly reader” (Gillis, 2009, p. 2). “This is something of an exercise in translation and, as such, a classical element of proposal writing that transcends the technical nature characteristic of such proposed projects…..avoiding language that seems purposefully to obfuscate or exclude” (Gillis, 2009, p. 2). Going into forming proposal, researchers should have an attitude of being intriguing enough to spark interest and maintain and stretch intelligible thought and problem solving.
In this vein, students can advance their voice confidently. In developing a rhetorical strategy that is not too cocky and not too meek, students can employ “sureness of voice” for their intended audience that clarifies the research focus and develops expectations to be fulfilled (Gillis, 2009, p. 2).
If a student has had a grant proposal rejected in the past, faculty can serve that student well by revisiting the old proposal. By teaching students that it is “not sufficient to identify an important question that has not been asked before or that has been inadequately answered, or to propose a new perspective on an old problem: one must note why the question has been inadequately answered to date, or why a new perspective is needed” (Gillis, 2009, p. 5). In other words, researchers can alter their words and their rhetoric in hopes of persuading funding institutions.
One concern regarding grant writing is the ties that bind a researcher to a project. The strings are certainly attached in grant-receiving. The ethical researcher should utilize the funds appropriate. Still, apply for funding and doing a particular research project “need not wed the applicant to a particular intellectual framework or disciplinary outlook” (Gillis, 2009, p. 4). Researchers can pursue many courses of action. In fact, researchers with such a fearful attitude toward the results of grant receiving may be surprised to see the flexibility in using grant funds. One of the grant proposal’s purposes is for the researcher to demonstrate his or her grasp of the field and confidence in self. This way, grant application readers can also gain confidence that if a research project were to change direction, the researcher would still responsibly use the funds (Gillis, 2009, p. 4).
Concluding Remarks:
The last few paragraphs show how even the values of researching student scientists can be changing. For example, on the one hand, scientists will claim that they are completely nonbiased and nonchanging. But when a new topic or a better way to say something is presented, that same scientist is often willing to use that persuasively. And, that’s okay! Context, persuasion, and being able to express oneself is not only part of science, it’s part of life. I see the words “bias” and “change” are coming to be looked at differently (and not so negatively) in the scientific world.
References Beyond Class Textbooks:
Gillis, C. (2009). Writing proposals for ACLS fellowship competitions. Retrieved 3 November 2010 from http://www.acls.org/uploadedFiles/Publications/Programs/Writing_Fellowship_Proposals.pdf
We have entered into the age in our reading when the rhetoric of science begins to emerge (Herrick, 2005, p. 209). Herrick talks quite well about how this came to be. As I read through the timeline, complete with specified authors, I was terribly opposed to the some of the assumptions underlying Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s universal audience. Herrick states that these author “seek an imagined audience of reasonable people available at all times, and not subject to the limitations and biases of any particular audience” (Herrick, 2005, p. 202). As Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca explain the self audience, they want rhetors to come up with arguments that are “timeless, thus independent of local concerns” (Herrick, 2005, p. 203). It’s a lovely notion, really, but it is also quite useless because we are never without context. To me, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca try valiantly to avoid what they see as unsolidified truths that are connect to God or revealed in some other manner; however, they only return to the notion of absolute truth. I wanted to ask them, “Why not consider context?” Classmates, you may recall an earlier post where I discussed Nazi Germany. We have situations in life where we must consider context before, during, and after we think, speak, and persuade. I do not believe we are ever free from the situation. Absolutist and atomistic thinking might only work for hermits.
As could logically follow, I did agree with Billig, especially in his notion against absolutism. He believed, as Herrick said, that “the rules of rhetoric must always be provisional, never absolute” (Herrick, 2005, p. 212). As Herrick continued with the development (and critiques) of the rhetoric of science, I thought to ways in which my husband and I both see rhetoric integral with science: grants. There are a number of articles that address the rhetoric of science in grant writing. I am going to draw on one below that really pulls the “approach” piece out when student scientists are seeking money to fund their projects.
Rhetoric of Science: Grants
Students express concern regarding seeking grants because they are unsure on the approach for the proposal. What is appropriate? What is overconfident? What is too timid? Students can confidently learn to intrigue potential paying readers into their area of intellectual subject by suggesting ways that the student is the scholar is best suited for a particular research issue, thereby most suited for grants to pursue this project (Gillis, 2009, p. 4).
Administration and faculty can teach students that preparing the proposal may require speaking to audiences across multiple fields. Hence, jargon is inappropriate and can hinder application acceptance. Speaking to a varied audience does not require “dumbing down” the proposal content. Instead researchers can explain using a tactic that presents “the issues at a level of generality sufficient to making them clear to the general scholarly reader” (Gillis, 2009, p. 2). “This is something of an exercise in translation and, as such, a classical element of proposal writing that transcends the technical nature characteristic of such proposed projects…..avoiding language that seems purposefully to obfuscate or exclude” (Gillis, 2009, p. 2). Going into forming proposal, researchers should have an attitude of being intriguing enough to spark interest and maintain and stretch intelligible thought and problem solving.
In this vein, students can advance their voice confidently. In developing a rhetorical strategy that is not too cocky and not too meek, students can employ “sureness of voice” for their intended audience that clarifies the research focus and develops expectations to be fulfilled (Gillis, 2009, p. 2).
If a student has had a grant proposal rejected in the past, faculty can serve that student well by revisiting the old proposal. By teaching students that it is “not sufficient to identify an important question that has not been asked before or that has been inadequately answered, or to propose a new perspective on an old problem: one must note why the question has been inadequately answered to date, or why a new perspective is needed” (Gillis, 2009, p. 5). In other words, researchers can alter their words and their rhetoric in hopes of persuading funding institutions.
One concern regarding grant writing is the ties that bind a researcher to a project. The strings are certainly attached in grant-receiving. The ethical researcher should utilize the funds appropriate. Still, apply for funding and doing a particular research project “need not wed the applicant to a particular intellectual framework or disciplinary outlook” (Gillis, 2009, p. 4). Researchers can pursue many courses of action. In fact, researchers with such a fearful attitude toward the results of grant receiving may be surprised to see the flexibility in using grant funds. One of the grant proposal’s purposes is for the researcher to demonstrate his or her grasp of the field and confidence in self. This way, grant application readers can also gain confidence that if a research project were to change direction, the researcher would still responsibly use the funds (Gillis, 2009, p. 4).
Concluding Remarks:
The last few paragraphs show how even the values of researching student scientists can be changing. For example, on the one hand, scientists will claim that they are completely nonbiased and nonchanging. But when a new topic or a better way to say something is presented, that same scientist is often willing to use that persuasively. And, that’s okay! Context, persuasion, and being able to express oneself is not only part of science, it’s part of life. I see the words “bias” and “change” are coming to be looked at differently (and not so negatively) in the scientific world.
References Beyond Class Textbooks:
Gillis, C. (2009). Writing proposals for ACLS fellowship competitions. Retrieved 3 November 2010 from http://www.acls.org/uploadedFiles/Publications/Programs/Writing_Fellowship_Proposals.pdf
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