Values & Persuasion

Hi Ashton,

“Perelman proves how interconnected rhetoric is with philosophy.”

I disagree. He doesn’t prove anything :). I think he’s just stating his narrative, which is different than our own narratives. And when you said that rhetoric that rhetoric isn’t simple, I agree to a point. I believe that how we define something depends on our lens and the values we harbor within that frame of mind. So even when your friend said that rhetoric is “how you argue,” I don’t think she’s wrong. I think she’s right in her way of thinking. Similar with Perelman, I don’t think he’s wrong either – He’s just stating his point of view.

Before reading the Perelman article I hated Socrates because he was anti-rhetoric, but when I read this I realized that the reason why I didn’t like Socrates was because he was acting out his values and his beliefs. He was stating his argument based on his values, and even when I felt he acted closed minded, he was just clashing against my personal views. The more I thought/realized that everyone’s point of view is fair/legit/correct, the easier it was for me to read and take in what the philosophical people had to say throughout the article.

I definitely thought it was interesting in class today when Kim talked about relating/connecting with other people. I think she said that if people don’t believe in what other people believe, then what would be the point of believing in it.  However, I wonder though, do we have a choice in what we believe? Can we really just throw away our values if they don’t relate with anyone else? And now I have another thought: If experience shapes our values and is influenced by who we interact with, can we really not have people in our lives (or the world even) who does not share our values and beliefs? I suppose we could if we were raised by gorillas on a deserted island, but somewhere there must have been someone who shared the same experience as us or at least a similar value, yes?

Another thing that caught my eye in this reading was how philosophy seemed to base their criteria for truth and how they persuade their audience with the concepts of ethos and logos. I wonder if according to them opinion is driven by pathos. I wonder if they think that rhetoric is driven by pathos and that is why they think it’s biased. I also wondered another thing: How can we pinpoint an ultimate Truth if everyone has different definitions in different situations for what counts as logical and credible in Truth? How can we pinpoint an ultimate Truth if people ultimately have different experiences which shape their values in-which pre-determines what they may be persuaded to believe in as true?   

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I was prepared to list me as next week's blog poster, but.... I guess this is our last required blog post round of the whole semester. I was kind of looking forward to posting to be honest, but oh well :) -- Let's finish strong guys! :)

Rational and Personal

Perelman proves how interconnected rhetoric is with philosophy. I think the relationship between rhetoric and philosophy is one that I would have never guessed exists until I took this course, which often feels like a philosophy class. It was funny, I was working on the synthesis paper a little while ago and a friend asked me to define rhetoric...it took forever because I could never settle on an answer. My friend responded something like, "It's not that hard, it's how you argue." (Before this class I would have said something like that too.) I responded, "It cannot be that simple!!!" I think that the reason that rhetoric is so complex is because it is rooted in our values...which is a very complex system. There is a lot more that goes into our arguments than evidence. Evidence is created, chosen, formulated by our narratives, who we are, and the values that shape our identity (kind of like Ramage claimed in ch. 2). Perelman claims, "The preeminent realm of argumentation, dialectic, and rhetoric is that in which values come into play" (160).

Last week's post I talked about binaries (yay!) in rhetoric being rational and imaginative, like of what Campbell was talking about. Perelman, I noticed, confirms that a large part of rhetoric is gaining both of the binaries, blending them in a way that appeals to an audience while supporting a claim. He claims that how we argue rationally is mathematical. "A hypothesis, to be accepted, must be supported by good reasons, recognized as such by other people, members of the same scientific community. The status of knowledge thus ceases to be impersonal because every scientific thought becomes a human one, i.e., fallible, situated in and subjected to controversy" (159). What I found interesting about his approach to argumentation is that he claims that it is mathematical, we form a hypothesis (we often use "thesis") and wrap evidence around it to persuade our audience, but also personal. Every scientific thought is rooted in our values. This quote shattered my conception of there being a rational binary as well as an personal one. Our rationality is formed by our personality, or values. Rhetoric is personal and rational at the same time. "In identifying this rhetoric with the general theory of persuasive discourse, which seeks to gain both the intellectual and the emotional adherence to any sort of audience, we affirm that every discourse which does not claim an impersonal validity belongs to rhetoric" (161-162).  I never have thought of rhetoric being both a rational and personal way of approaching argumentation.

Relating this back to Ramage's concepts of statsis, toolmin and Burke's Pentad, Perelman could claim that our values form our policies and evidence for our claim (which is a human thought rooted in values). I like thinking of purpose as motives, like Kelly brought up last week. Our motives are formed by our values and our motives guide how we form a claim and our evidence in supporting that claim is chosen by our values.

Ashton and Kelly, I found both of your posts extremely relatable. To begin, I totally agree with your first paragraph Ashton. It seems as if the relationship between an individual identity and a communal identity within discourse communities are inherently intertwined. I do not think the two can ever be fully separated, because, as you said, they have direct effects on each other. One is not possible without the other and vice versa.

As far as the 'identifying with the audience to persuade them section' ... I also belong to the "I don't understand science stuff" discourse community. This semester, I made the mistake of enrolling in a 400 level WGSS class which is heavily tied to psychology. As you can imagine, I have an extremely hard time comprehending the papers we read in that class. And when I say a hard time, I mean a hard time. Like a 'pulling my hair out' type of time. I felt as if the author wasn't even trying to appeal to the reader, but then I checked myself (before I wrecked myself) and remembered that I am not an expert in this discourse community and therefore I do not understand the layout/methods/lexis etc. So of course I don't get it! However, I still believe the authors arguement, because as you pointed out we "can be persuaded by his/her scientific knowledge." I think the knowledge (whether it is actual knowledge or just the readers assumption) of the rhetor seems to be one of the most influential ways in which any author appeals to their audience. We assume that if someone has had their work published in a reliable publication, then their work is true and therefore we can allow them to persuade us that "Ramen isn't good for your health" (...it's a bad example I know, but somehow that's where my mind wandered) because they back up it with 'facts' that they have scientifically proved. And of course, the author writes for who he intends to read it, but alas, a much larger crowd than the intended audience will likely read it. Therefore, we rely on the presumed knowledge and expertise of the author to persuade us. 

 Hmm... Hitler's rhetoric. I guess I have always viewed Hitler as a terrific rhetorician. It feels wrong to type that but after all...he did change the world forever didn't he? To persuade an entire community into believing something so extreme means that either the people are incapable of thought, orrr the more plausible solution: the speaker knows what he is doing. And he's doing it damn well. And of course, we are led to believe that Hitler really thought his actions were right/moral/correct so he did not think he was leading people astray right? I think it is impossible to make the argument that if the rhetor is using rhetoric for bad then it is bad rhetoric. Because bad and good are all relative. Of course, (almost) everyone you meet will believe Hitler's usage of rhetoric was pure evil, but people cannot claim that it is a fact that Hitlers rhetoric was evil. And regardless of the motive behind the rhetoric, at the end of the day his rhetoric was extremely successful because people believed him. Because definitions of bad/good are all relative, it seems impossible that we could ever even begin to attempt to separate rhetoric into two such definitive categories. 

So now that I have rambled on unnecessarily long .. we come to Binaries.. I can see how the rhetoric and logical binaries combine, and how the imagination and intellectual binary seem to as well. As Ashton touched on, I can understand how both binaries work together. Although I too would have assumed just logic was used at first, I now understand how a more creative, artistic role plays into this. But to be completely frank, these binaries are still confusing. Who knows, maybe I'll understand one day or at another time that is not 3 a.m.

Binaries within Binaries

Kelly,
I like how you tied in values and discourse community to persuasion and argumentation. It seem like you connected Ramage's identity chapter, which I believe was chapter 2, to the argument and persuasion chapters really well. When I read your blog, I remembered his concept of having an individual identity and a communal identity (or discourse community identity). The separation between them is a little blurred in that aspects of our individual make us members of certain communities and the communities that we play part in shape our individual identities. The values that shape our identities reflect themselves in the ways that we approach, present, and the evidence that we use persuade our arguments. Also, I really like how you tie motive to purpose to values, that really clicked with me for some reason.

I thought what you said about identifying with audience to persuade them was interesting, "Even if you are not a part of someone's discourse community, you still have to find some way to connect with the person you're writing to otherwise they may not be able to find what you have to say as credible, logical, or emotionally sound." I think, in most cases, yes, especially when you are considering intended audience. Some cases, especially in unintended audiences, I think can still be persuaded by the fact that the author knows a discourse community better than the reader does. For instance, I am a member of the "I don't understand science stuff" discourse community. When I read an article from one a member of the "I do understand science stuff" discourse community, the author doesn't try to relate to my lack of scientific knowledge because since he has an abundance of it, he cannot. I still can be persuaded by his scientific knowledge simply because he understands a discourse community better than I do, which makes me trust what he has to say. I think that we cannot be fully aware of who all partakes in being our actual audience, so we can try identify with who we intend to be our audience to be but our intended audience doesn't always fully include our actual audience. If we didn't intentionally identify with a member of our actual audience, it doesn't mean that the member can't be persuaded by us. If that made any sense.

I also have been interested in what makes rhetoric good or bad and have never saw it the way you have. You base the result of good or bad on values and ethics (Adolf Hitler example) which I've never thought of before. I thought of "good" rhetoric as rhetoric as rhetoric that effectively persuades by giving both sides of an argument and by reflecting one's identity into writing. I'm not really I understand what all partakes in making rhetoric "bad," but it's interesting to wonder if self motives/deceitfulness make "bad" rhetoric. Would it be "bad" rhetorical to write to an intended audience and fake the values that they have in order that they see your point as credible? Or just ethically wrong? Not really sure...that whole idea honestly is so unclear to me because if one is unintentionally be rhetorical, how does one categorize that into being good or bad?

I also wanted to talk a little bit about Campbell because a lot of what he had to say, I never thought of in my previous ideas about rhetoric. In the past, we have discussed the binaries falling into the two categories: logic and rhetoric. Campbell's article presents that within the rhetorical binary, there are two binaries...(I think I'm understanding why I still don't have a solid definition for what rhetoric is). There's the mathematical/intellectual binary and the moral/imaginary/passion binary. The intellectual binary, Campbell claim, "Results entirely from propriety and simplicity of diction, and from accuracy of method, where the mind is regularly, step by step, conducted forwards in the same track, the attention no way diverted, nothing left to be supplied, no one unnecessary word or idea introduced" (750). Awhile ago, when we were in the topics of binaries, I concluded that there is logic in being rhetorical....this intellectual binary seems to me like it consists of the logical part of rhetoric. The imagination binary Campbell describes, "Is addressed by exhibiting to it a lively and beautiful representation of a suitable object" (750). He associates this binary with persuasion...changing our audience's will. Campbell associates the imagination binary to the concept of sublime which raises admiration because we address our passions (If I understood that correctly). It is also associated to sense and expression of our "body and soul." (On a random side note, I thought it was interesting that Campbell gives masculinity to the intellectual binary and refers the imaginary binary as a "she"...just something interesting I noticed.)

Just as the rhetoric/ logical binaries fall into each other, the imagination binary and intellectual binary seem to fall into each other. "It is by the sense that rhetoric holds of logic, and by the expression that she holds of grammar" (753). Campbell claims that rhetoric needs assistance from both binaries but that the imagination binary isn't as included as the intellectual binary. I always have limited rhetoric to only one category (more of the intellectual). For instance, I never thought that their was such a thing as grammatical art or logical art....that always seemed like a paradox to me, yet it makes sense. We artfully frame our arguments, thoughts and reasons within the rules of a particular language. I was always told that if you break a grammatical rule in your writing that you need a rhetorical reason for doing so, and I think that concept is true: we approach grammar as an art, using it to convey the passions that we have in a particular way.

 I never thought of rhetoric having any association to passions but solely thinking about our audience in order that we can artfully persuade them. I'm starting to think that to artfully persuade, we need to express our values that guide our purpose in why we pose the different arguments that we do. The combination (I may have completely understood this incorrectly) of the intellectual binary and the imagination binary achieves eloquence. Campbell defines eloquence as "'That art or talent by which the discourse is adapted to its end'" (749). He also claims that while logic seeks truth and only regards the audience, eloquence considers both the audience and writer. I used to approach rhetoric as if it was focused solely on the audience and that writing rhetorically meant that one needed to write with the sole focus of appealing to audience. I never thought of rhetoric as also the expressing of our passions, values, and purposes in our arguments.

Persuasion & Argument

A lot of this reading reminded me of Discourse and Discourse theory and so I was able to make a lot of connections because of that. For example, Ramage discussed that in order to persuade the audience, the writer has to mediate to their values, beliefs, ways of thinking, ways of doing etc. 

For a quick rundown, Discourse is a particular label that people identify with based on their values. The people who all fit under that label are a part of a discourse community. In order to be a part of a discourse community, they must share ways of thinking/ways of acting/value systems/beliefs/language usages etc depending on who they are and who they are interacting with. For example, I’d say this ENGL 450 class is a Discourse because we all value rhetoric to some degree, use words that have the same meaning to each other and we have a better grasp of what some phrases mean than some people who are not in the class such as “synthesis paper” and “canons of rhetoric.”

So, when I read things like relativism that say that it is impossible to talk to the audience without including some of their values within what we write, all I can see is Discourse Theory.  Pluralism also hinted at Discourse theory because it mentioned identity. One of things I found different in that inclusion of identity is that in order to persuade the audience, you must be able to identify with them first. I didn’t actually think about that before, but I feel like it makes sense. … Even if you are not a part of someone’s discourse community, you still have to find some way to connect with the person you’re writing to otherwise they may not be able to find what you have to say as credible, logical or emotionally sound.

In addition to identity, I also found the differences between propaganda and literature regarding persuasion to be interesting. It mentioned that coercion, which is a part of propaganda, is selfish because the writer attempts to persuades in order to meet their own needs/goals rather than including the audience’s best interests at heart. I didn’t actually think of persuasion in terms of categories. I just assumed that persuasion enticed the audience to act in the way that writer wants them to.

However, now as I think about it more: Can any persuasion not be deceptive? Is any of it straight forward? I guess I was thinking of my analysis endeavors like my capstone project for over this article and how the writers have used credibility in seemingly deceiving ways. Or perhaps that’s just my interpretation because that article was relying heavily on credibility to make their argument.

But in terms of literature, I wonder if straightforward is doing stuff such as including examples that actually relate with their topic instead of using semi-related examples to support their argument. Not only does literature use things like examples to be more credible with their claims, but because they are looking to spread knowledge between themselves and their audience, is that what determines “good?” Is being coercive what “bad rhetoric” looks like?

To be more precise with my previous paragraph, does good & bad rhetoric mean propaganda vs. literature in the rhetorical lens? Would Adolf Hitler be using “bad rhetoric” when he was trying to persuade people with his speech, then?

I still like to connect intention with what determines whether rhetoric is good or bad and so I feel like Hitler’s rhetoric can be good from his perspective, but in terms of the rhetorical lens, I wonder if his rhetorical usage would be an example of “bad rhetoric.”

Lemme just take a detour here and wonder about when a person acts as result of being persuaded: Does each action come as a result of a value/knowledge change? Can we be motivated to act without changing our opinions/views? I was thinking we can because, for example, if we see a poster about a car we really wanted and we go out and buy it, are we being persuaded? If the purpose was the remind us to do something, does that count as an argument and as an act as persuasion?

In terms of argument:

The discussion of premise was familiar to me because of my psychological statics class from a couple semesters ago. However, I had not thought about the stasis approach or defining the problem and determining the ethics behind the problem/reason before, but I found them to be interesting.

In class today I liked how we defined argument as “motive.” By defining it as “motive,” it made me want to connect it to “purpose” in which made me want to connect it to values. To be honest, I previously thought argument was just a statement that came as a product of our goals. However, as I think about it more depth, I think that our argument is constructed on the foundation of our values.

In class, I got a better idea of something: We discussed how an argument made with a “value judgement” wouldn’t win over an audience that that wanted opinions on parking. However, I think what we were getting at is that how we word our argument is dependent on who our audience is. I totally believe that we can’t remove pathos from our argument because then we’d be removing our motivation from constructing the argument to begin with. However, how we form the sentence of our argument is dependent on how our audience will interpret it and whether or not that interpretation will make them happy or sad.

Basically, I think that an argument’s idea not only was brought into existence from our values, but its outer appearance (sentence structure) depends on who our audience is, the situation and what our audience values within that particular situation.

P.S. Fellow group members, I just wanted to reiterate that Ashton has the first blog post for Monday (3/30) by 5 pm this upcoming week. :)

Project Proposal!

As most of you know, I started out with the idea of analyzing how the relationship between the maker and his/her object influences the relationship that the object has on its audience. While I think it's an interesting question that is worth investing research in, my brain hasn't generated a feasible way to approach this....maybe I'll utilize some aspect of that question in analyzing our class readings for the synthesis project. We'll see, but for this project, I have decided to ditch it :/

However! My brain did redeem itself by generating a new idea...one that I haven't really fine tuned the details or even the focus of my question, but I believe I have a solid starting point. My new idea: how does rap and spoken word poetry rhetorically and effectively integrate the balance of the logic and emotional binaries in the creation of their performative art? I know that there has been a preexisting debate on whether rap and spoken word poetry can be considered poetry and I know, at least the last that I've heard, it does. I think that the main difference it has from from written poetry, besides the fact that it is read aloud and presented differently, is that rap and spoken word artists are trying to create a successful relationship between integrating the emotional pull that poetry has and logically structuring it for an audience's engagement. To me, rap and spoken word seem more rhetorical in that they consider their audience more, in their writing processes, than most (not all, of coarse) written poetry. Rap and spoken word focuses more on performance while written poetry focuses on emotional reflection. I realize that other elements contribute to both forms of poetry like sound, tone, presentation, etc. and that these elements differ in rap/spoken word and written poetry and I would like to invest in that more. However, I'm primarily interested in the writing construction and process of these forms of poetry and how writers of both forms play around with the relationship between the binaries that we have thoroughly discussed in class.

I'm interested in this topic because I grew up in a very pious religious community that, to say this nicely, overlooked rap as art. I grew up calling it "rap crap" until I discovered a Christian rap artist (my church would probably consider this as a paradox) named Lecrae. His lyrics and the way that he performed them spoke more to me than any hymn or poem or really any creative genre ever did. I had an epiphany that I enjoy rap crap and that I and many people I know overlook it as art and especially as rhetorical art. For spoken word poems, I think they share a lot of similar features that rap shares in that their construction contains strong performative influences. I like written poems but rap and spoken word poems have always engaged and spoken to me more, yet their genres are overlooked in much of academia (I think it would be so sweet to have a rhetorical rap class....right??...maybe one day). Rap/spoken words are becoming more popular and I think that in analyzing, teaching, and considering them as rhetorical art, it could reshape traditional ideologies of what genres rhetoric can be. Before this class and my Digital Rhetorics class, I limited rhetoric to the academic field and I think that is a lot of people's first impressions of what rhetoric is. By showing that rhetoric also appears in genres that are more prevalent to audiences outside of the academic/writing comp. world, maybe more people would be interested in the topic of rhetoric and try to apply it to other forms of art.

How to approach this? Excellent question. I obviously want to research how much this topic has been discussed and what those discussions are. If I can, I want to interview some spoken word/rap artists about how they compose their poetry and how the fact that they know that they are physically performing it for an audience changes what they write. I also want to know how much of the emotional binary they integrate into their writing. I would also like to analyze poems written as rap/spoken word versus poems that are not and try to find reoccurring themes in their differences and similarities. I'm still trying to fine tune my methodology of this proposal but these are my ideas thus far.  Let me know what you think!

Truths in Narratives

In class we said that experience shapes values, while this book discussed that you can’t run from your identities/values and be truly happy in your choice to do so. I think that coming into contact with other narratives (which includes identities and values) shapes how you perceive the world and what you choose to believe in as a truth.  

In reference to Ashton’s second paragraph where she discussed the quotes briefly, my take on those quotes is that Dorothy had to tell herself the stories in dark situations in order to make herself believe them because those stories were also constructed based on her values to find happiness. By believing in those fictitious stories, she was able to take a lens that contradicted her situation with her father. She was able to believe in the truth that everything in her situation would be okay. And by believing in the truth she constructed, she was able to not crumble, but to find hope and a reason to move forward with her life. In essence, I believe that values that are shaped by our experiences can help to construct our narratives/stories regarding what we see and experience within our lives.   

Because the “truth” is constructed based on our values, narratives and experiences, I believe that it along with “objectivity" are both subjective and it makes me think of a quote my high school teacher told my class many years ago “if something is true to you, then it’s true and that’s all that matters.” This is where I wish to rant about Socrates. Even though he thought he was being logical/rational, he was still very much driven by pathos because he believed so strongly in his point of view. He failed to recognize that the “truth” he held on to so much was constructed based on his narrative’s interaction with other narratives. He failed to understand that his view was subjective because he held so strongly to his values and because he followed those lines of rhetoric like everyone else, he was still doing rhetoric, whether he cared to admit it or not.   

And I think I touched on this in my blog post in Digital Rhetorics with regards to Gorgias, but I did not like how closed-minded and arrogant Socrates came off to me. I disliked that he tried to “prove” he was right without listening/understanding the other side. I felt in that if he tried to understand the rhetorical point of view, he might have been able to bridge the gap a little bit more between him and the non-philosophical people.

Ramage made me see that in order to persuade the audience, you must be willing to befriend the audience and thus earn their trust. I feel like if Socrates or the other group wanted to get their argument across in a moment of persuasion, they needed to try to be open-minded to the other group’s ways of thinking and ways of communicating. If he was able to do that, then maybe he could try to lead them subtly into his way of thinking.

And something else that I also thought about after reading Dorothy’s text is that in order to persuade someone else, you must persuade yourself of the same thing. If you are not passionate or have faith in what you are saying or doing, then how can anyone else feel the same way? Perhaps believing in your own words and actions can give credibility to the audience as well.

I’m too tired in this instance to look for the specific page in Ramage that goes with the motorcycle example you posed, but Jared, I wonder if you felt like Ramage was being too stereotypical. If that’s the case, I respectfully disagree. I feel like he was describing situations in terms of how people see and experience their situations in which end up being dictated by their own values and the values of the people they come in contact with. That contact creates a structurally built in relationship with one another. In other words, the parties in a given situation know what happens and understand the language in those relationships/situations because they personally experience those relationships.

To elaborate further, the given identity that Ramage posed can be where when you’re in a friendship with a friend, you take up roles/actions/beliefs/interpretations that are characteristics of a friendship such as spending time together and doing things that you both enjoy. For the ready-made identity environment, you behave/interpret/think a certain way because of the rules/roles of the environment that you’re in such as a classroom setting because you end up taking up the roles of a student and teacher.

Stereotypes, however, are expectations/judgments people place on the situations that they themselves are not a part of. For example, some people may think that adolescents rebel against their parents at any given instant. However, this is a stereotype because what the outside parties believe do not necessarily align with the values within the parent & adolescent narrative/perspective.

Lastly, I’d like to say that I think it’s interesting how the identities that Ramage poses and the concepts of narratives remind me of values and the characteristics within a given Discourse. I suppose I should try to clear my understanding of how I know it thus far. I believe a Discourse revolves around the interactions & understandings between people in a given situation, identities are who we are in a given situation (and/or Discourse) in which allows us to understand how things are interpreted relative to our situation and lastly, a narrative is the lens we have that is comprised of both identities and Discourses.

... At least that's my interpretation of everything. I do not mean to convey a tone of authority (or a tone that suggests that I know everything). I just wanted to make that clear :).

Project Proposal- Montanan Drag Queens as Rhetoric

With the art of drag being pushed further and further into the mainstream through increased exposure in the media, there are still misconceptions and miscommunications about what drag is and what it aims to communicate. As Montana is still rather conservative, the rhetoric of drag is often misunderstood or altogether dismissed. I aim to bring clarity to an underrepresented community, and analyze the rhetoric of drag and drag performance.

I have a few core research questions in mind, and I expect them to evolve as the project moves forward.
1.What rhetoric is occurring between Montanan drag performers and their audience?
2.What messages are Montanan drag performers trying to send and is that message successful?
3.How does performance fit into rhetorical theory?

As a performer myself, I will be drawing on my own experience as well as interviewing drag queens from across Montana. I am expecting this to be a multi-media project, and the work will ideally take the form of film, photography, and writing. This is contingent on how the photography and film aspects of the project pan out, and on availability of performers to interview.

Truth and Power in narratives, and being a little hateful towards Ramage again. Less hateful, but still hateful.

From the discussion in class today, It sounded like most of us felt the same way about Allison's story. In light of how horrific the events that she went through are, I think we were quick to accept her truth, even though early in her story she says

"You believe me? I'm a storyteller. I'll work to make you believe me. Throw in some real stuff, change a few details, add the certainty of outrage. I know the use of fiction in a world of hard truth, the way fiction can be a harder piece of truth. The story of what happened, or what did not happen but should have-that story can be- come a curtain drawn shut, a piece of insulation, a disguise, a razor, a tool that changes every time it is used and sometimes becomes something other than we intended. The story becomes the thing needed".


So is this a true story? My guess is that it is, well... mostly. It seems like from the beginning she is offering up a disclaimer that things perhaps didn't happen exactly as she says. However, she also goes on about how nobody believed her rape, so maybe rather than writing a disclaimer, she is instead daring us to question her truth. But, I also wonder if perhaps the disclaimer is a way of protecting herself. She's used to people's disbelief, as she says the only person who believed her rape was her own mother. Regardless if her story is completely true, or half true, or altogether false, her story is completely believable. Why is that?

I think a big part of why we accept her truth so easily is the gravity of her story. Rape from an adult man to a child is unthinkable, vile, and horrific. It's a heavy topic. My assumption here is that because this story is so fucked up and sad, that we'd all be more fucked up to disbelieve her. It's a safer bet to believe these kinds of stories, because to deny someone's truth, especially when that truth is so dark, well, we'd be no better than Allison's Aunt who thought a five year old was "mistaken" about her rape. My guess (and I may be going out on a limb here) is that if her story was a positive one, we'd feel immensely more comfortable questioning it.

In you're conclusion Allison, you said something that struck me as odd. You said that "narratives are powerful when the author deeply identifies with his/her personal story". What personal story could an author not identify with? I'm trying to come up with a good example of such a story, but every time I start thinking of story from my past, I can bring myself right back into that memory, and identify with that 13 year old pock-marked face and bad haircut. Personally, I think a powerful narrative doesn't even need to be true, rather, I think it requires emotion and relatability. There are so many books that I have felt deeply affected by, and at least half of them are fictitious. To give the most relatable example, I began reading the Harry Potter series at a point in my childhood where I had no friends, felt disconnected from my family, and was bullied regular at school. Check, check, and check. Harry was just another awkward kid like I was, and his magical world where anything was possible and everyone adored him was greatly appealing. So for me, powerful narratives, can work as fiction and non-fiction.

I also wanted to touch on Ramage in his discussion of identity. I'm surprisingly starting to like him a bit more, but I still have to resist the urge to not nitpick him, because I think he makes ignorant statements sometimes, or maybe it's that he comes off sounding so pretentious, that I constantly want to knock him down a peg or two. His example of having a sex change to alter his identity had me a little peeved for transgendered people everywhere. It was mainly the statement that his "desire to change his sex would be strongly influenced by prevailing readymade models of gender". He's not all wrong, but having several transgendered friends makes me lash out at that statement. I just think it's a bad example for his argument. Transgendered people are influenced by the current social constructs of gender as much as the rest of us, but I don't think that's where the desire comes from. Gender identity is very innate, and trans people typically have felt stuck in the wrong body their entire lives. I guess I felt like he used this example in a mocking and ignorant way. WOW. So much for me not ranting.

Ramage DOES however, have some excellent examples on the subject of identity. My absolute favorite being the middle-aged, upper class, biker guy (I'm sure they're all offended at Ramage like I was about my trans buddies....). His point about those men basically wearing a costume that's influenced by the media and social constructs actually felt spot on for me. I've known many middle aged men that had zero "biker attitude" but still put on the leather and drive around acting "tough". The only critique I have about this example, is he does put bikers into a box, and then explain's how they typically become bikers out of a socially constructed view of masculinity. I've driven motorcycles with my family since I was a kid, and we all just did it for fun. No leather required. He get's a pass on that a bit, because his argument does center around that stereotype, so the result was a bit inevitable.

On the subject of how appearances affect our identity, I've always found a quote by RuPaul to be deeply insightful. He famously says "we're all born naked, and the rest is drag". Now He doesn't mean that everyone is a drag queen, but rather that in a sense, we all wear costumes every day. We communicate something about ourselves with every t-shirt and jeans, or jeggings and tube top we put on. Typically we're saying "This is me. This is what I want to be perceived as today" or on our sweatpants no shower days we may be saying "I can't be bothered to give any fucks today". DRAG is an acronym for dressing resembling a girl, and the point is that we are always dressing to resemble something, or some kind of person, and that image we create out of ourselves, is inherently tied to how we view the identity of each other.

#ENDRAMBLINGRANT

Project Proposal

Research Question:
Are there common sound patterns and arrangements within songs of the 1980s hard rock genre and why do those arrangements strike positive emotions from the target audience?

I feel like this research question will ultimately focus on values the hard rock genre Discourse and what about those arrangements strike positive/happy emotions out of the reader.

(Side note, I'll be using my ears for the analysis -- I won't be reading anything)

Interest:
When I first began this project, I focused primarily on academic and recreational interests. I really enjoy Discourse/discourse and I find the link between values and pathos to be interesting. I suppose in general I’d like to know if there are any commonalities between how the songs of a specific 80s genre are arranged when I hear them. I haven’t given it much thought to be honest – I just listen to the songs that I like, but I wonder if maybe there is a pattern within the songs somewhere. … I think that could be fun and cool to find out.

I suppose it’s a given that the songs within a genre should sound alike in specific ways, but some songs are a combination of different genres (at least Wikipedia says so) and so I think it would be interesting to see if there are common sounds among songs that may or may not be a combination of hard rock and another genre. I feel like maybe I could use those commonalities to piece together what a hard rock genre may sound like.

This may interest my audience because maybe it could help them understand why they listen to the songs that they do. Maybe they’ll realize that there could be patterns and similarities among the songs that they like. Maybe they'll understand more about any potential reasons for why they listen to what they listen.

Plan:
I plan to read up on Discourse Theory, read some articles that focus on values, maybe articles that focus rhetorically on values within music, read articles that focus on the rhetorical composition of music, read background material on my topic and collect/analyze about 40 songs within the 80s hard rock genre. I may read background material and mentoring material before I analyze because what I read could shape my interpretations of what I find, but I'm not sure right now. I feel like this is pretty vague for a plan, but I'm not sure how else to go about it right now -- I apologize.

I don’t know how I’ll present this …. I think it may just be easier to write a paper, but I’m curious about a video too. How long would my video be? Would it be about an hour or two? I really like the idea of a video because I think it could be fun, but I don’t know how to work with windows movie maker. I guess I can explore with it over break. … Maybe I’ll wind up doing a paper. I guess we’ll see. :).