Definitions and Considerations

Prior to reading the texts for our Public Rhetoric & Writing class, I thought that “public” meant the people you’d interact with outside your familial arrangement and/or living space—that is, that location and relational familiarity dictated the bounds of public and private. However, I’ve come to realize that “public” is a much more complex concept.

In his “The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964),” Habermas outlines the/a public as

1. Reasoned and well-informed citizens (50)
2. Who freely gather together, without recrimination from state (49)
3. To discuss matters of general interest (49)
4. Which could potentially challenge the state and determine political policies and decisions (49-50)

The authors of Rhetoric in Civic Life note that essential to Habermas's definition of public sphere is communication; the public sphere isn't defined merely by "a particular group of people, a location, or a set of topics" (238). Because communication intrinsically involves rhetoric, I decided to think about the public sphere in terms of the rhetorical situation model.

*Note: I realize that my graphic violates the “don’t use the word in your definition of the word” taboo; under the “Rhetors/Audience” section I have strong and/or weak public. However, as Nancy Fraser makes clear, a “public” isn’t created in a vacuum; rather, we can observe in democratic societies a multiplicity of publics, many of which are in conversation with the others.

Usually we construct something from the inside to the outside, but think of this graphic as being constructed from the outward-in; the outer parts must be established before the inner parts could become fully realized. Rhetors come up in response to an exigence (Palczewski et al. 261), and at least in the case of publics, the constraints determine who gets to be a rhetor or not.

You’re probably wondering why the word “power” is slapped clear across the graphic. Palczewski et al. sum it up well: “As with all communication, power plays a role” (237). If all (or most of) the power in the government is relinquished to one source, as in a monarchy, then publics (as we think of them) cannot form because people don’t have the freedom to assemble—much less have the authority to do anything about what they discuss or to “make political decisions subject to appeal” (Habermas 55).

“What counts as a general issue can change over time” (Palczewski et al. 240), but who decides what counts as a general issue? Who determines the validity of counterpublics? A public is composed of “informed individuals”—but of course, to the dominant public, the counterpublic may seem unreasonable. The possible answer to these questions: the people with power. But how do these people come to power? I think by discourse; Fraser describes how finding new language gave the women’s rights movement recognition and acceptance in some public spheres (67).

So power plays a role in establishing discourse—but discourse may also play a role in who gains power. Though power is not explicitly mentioned as a factor in Habermas’s definition of the public sphere, I think it is an “invisible” aspect worth further investigation.

A World of Pizzazz

According to Annie Dillard, “the creator loves pizzazz” (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek 139). In context, the phrase refers to whatever deity Dillard imagines created the physical world. But out of context, I think her words can be used to make another significant point: the creators of text should love pizzazz since the audience is drawn to it.

The synonyms of “pizzazz” include style, glamour, zest, flair, interest, and excitement. But really, I think the word “pizzazz” is highly abstract, depending less on actual definition than the sort of reaction experienced by the hearer/reader. When I hear or read “pizzazz,” I think of oil paintings by Leonid Afremov. One of the most noticeable differences between his paintings and others is the presence of such bright colors—but then again, some other painters also use similar vivid hues. Since I don’t know much about art technique, all I can say is that Afremov’s paintings are set apart because of his…pizzazz.

So how does one write with pizzazz if we can’t even fully describe what it means? Dillard, Hancock, Kunzig, and Shreeve all offer us clues. “Landscape consists in the multiple, overlapping intricacies and forms that exist in a given space at a moment in time. Landscape is the texture of intricacy” states Dillard. Similarly, the “landscape” of our writing is composed of all sorts of textures, or intricate details. This type of texture is exactly what Hancock refers to when she advises writers to “put in all your raisins (i.e., fun facts, great quotes, and interesting comparisons)” (97). The raisins are borrowed glimmers of brilliance; “you may not be able to turn a brilliant phrase yourself, but if you can recognize brilliant material when you see it, you can come close to a brilliant effect” (97). These raisins—borrowed, brilliant quotations, facts, and the like—create part of the texture. And according to Hancock, just as you can’t mess up the texture of bread pudding by adding too many raisins, so also you can’t mess up your writing by adding too much “texture.” Perhaps we may then infer that the “texture” of our writing has something to do with “pizzazz.”

According to Shreve, coupling intricate details with narrative structure is “essential” (140). Details are meant to show rather than to tell. For example, Shreve claims that “Gawande’s cool, unadorned style conveys the horror and intensity of the fire that night much better than if he were to start throwing around words like ‘horror’ and ‘intensity’” (141). Suppose I were a medical student writing about my mother, who inspired me to pursue the medical field. Rather than writing something like “My mom was very passionate about her work and enjoyed it immensely,” I would describe “Even after a full day of long hours at the hospital, I could ask my mom about her patients and still her face would light up; all the weariness seemed to fall off her as she talked about her various clients. She was like a little kid bubbling with all the news of the school day and hardly able to express it in an intelligible manner.” Again, details should show rather than tell; what does an exciting, breaking science discovery look like? “It’s a challenge, but you can construct narratives that are based almost entirely on ideas and how they developed” writes Kunzig (129). We have no excuse—we can use detailed, textural, narrative structure in our science writing for that little bit of “pizzazz” that will cause readers to exclaim, “Gee whiz!” (127).

At any rate, these texts definitely got me thinking about the strange, indescribable quality of “pizzazz” and how I might attain it in my own writing. But at least their suggestions seem especially fitted for a science feature. Perhaps the hardest part is simply opening our eyes and seeing the pizzazz already in the world—then we’d have only to transcribe that pizzazz rather than inscribe it. Dillard appropriately says, “This, then, is the extravagant landscape of the world, given, given with pizzazz” (148).

Searching for innocence in color-patches

*Note: Sorry this post is a day late. I was really sick yesterday and was unable to finish it.

“How can an old world be so innocent?” asks Annie Dillard (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek 43). Read out of context, one would have strong grounds to argue with her. “Haven’t you glanced at a newspaper headline or flipped on a news station lately? You don’t have to look far to conclude that the world is very much not an innocent place.” And yet, Dillard asks this question after perusing the newspaper and noting the annual photographs of cute animals, the cliché Valentine or proposal, and child waiting for a push down the hill on a sled. Perhaps Dillard means that the world is not so much “innocent” as that it looks for innocence, or a fresh take and angle on something that would give respite from all the drudgery and gloom.

One of my favorite bands is Switchfoot, and they wrote a song called “The Shadow Proves the Sunshine.” (The chorus is basically the title, ha). But after watching this music video that some of Switchfoot’s fans created, I was reminded of Dillard’s chapter titled “Seeing” and her mention of the experiences of previously-blind people when they gained their sight. If you watch this video, try to watch it in terms of the “color-patches” that Dillard describes. At least for me, the video really did seem to illustrate a confusing mass of color-patches and disorienting lack of spatial reference points—which helped me better sympathize with those people who newly received their sight.

 

I promise I’m not mindlessly rambling; here’s my point: we can interpret Dillard’s story of the “color-patches” and “seeing” as a metaphor for people’s search for innocence. If shadows prove the sunshine, then perhaps we can seek hope behind the seemingly unending scenes of hopelessness. Dillard writes, “But the color-patches of infancy swelled as meaning filled them” (32). We’re so used to encountering articles which are swelled with “meaning”—with agendas of all sorts. What is more agenda-less than a picture of “an utterly bundled child crying piteously on a sled at the top of a snowy hill” and captioned “‘Needs a Push’”? At first glance, maybe not much. But then again, what if the photographer means to spread awareness about parental abandonment or to promote familial values? How might we interpret the photo as a symbol for a political statement or issue? What if the photo implies the changing trends of technology and how most children entertain themselves nowadays?

And so we search for the sunshine casting the shadows, for the color-patches free from agenda, for a reversion back to our nostalgic idea of idyllic, childhood “happiness.”  But “[y]ou have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it—tantalising glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest—if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself—you would know it” (C.S. Lewis The Problem of Pain). We search anyway. I think perhaps this is why science features on animals are so popular. Yes, these animals are fascinating, but the features don’t often have a “so what” in terms of how this information affects people personally. Case in point: when trying to YouTube a video of the “giant water bug” Dillard writes about (8), I discovered a video on the sidebar called “Biggest Snakes in the World! SnakeBytes TV.” Upon finishing that video, I seriously watched probably four or five other videos from the same channel (this is why I typically don’t go on YouTube). The entire time I was thinking, “What am I doing? I am wasting so much time! All these videos are basically about the same thing: showing the viewer different snakes and explaining the genetics behind each. And besides, I’m scared of snakes!” But I kept watching. Why? Well…the snakes were pretty cool-looking. And maybe I was drawn to the color-patches which weren’t really color-patches at all. At any rate, I thought the “search for innocence” might be yet another reason (among the myriads) why people are drawn to science writing.

The Forced Perspective

When I was younger, I loved to swing; when I needed to think about something, I’d head to the swing set in the yard, grab a seat, and pump my legs, gaining momentum, reaching ever higher—soaring. Or at least, pretending to soar. I remember trying to imagine myself doing the same things as characters from books I’ve just read: traveling through time on a bike, hitching a ride on the back of a goose, escaping the bonds of an enemy tribe, or solving crimes with my photographic memory. Sometimes I would face away from the house and look down the hill, across my dad’s fields, to the tiny ribbon of highway seemingly hugging the base of the valley foothills and the sporadic stream of dots driving along that ribbon—and I’d wonder about the “story” behind each of those cars, the reason why and the place where someone would drive at 4:30 pm on a summer afternoon. From my college-student, analytical mindset, I could say that during those times on the swing set, I was running through different perspectives, considering life through the lens of various glasses with all sorts of different prescriptions.

How do peoples’ perspectives change? Well, typically not through swinging. A quick perusal through online sources (not scholarly, mind you) revealed several ideas: asking questions of others who don’t think like you; turning yourself physically upside-down; changing up your daily routine. All these people offered ideas about how to change perspective, but they didn’t offer insight into the actual transition from one perspective to another. For example, ask yourself if any of the readings this week changed your perspective, if even temporarily. How did they do so—or maybe the better question, what did it take to do so? What “clicked” in order to make that transition?

Basically, I’m wondering if the actual, initial transition between perspectives is one of “force” or of “choice.” Take a look at the photographs below.

Every one of these included “forced perspective” in its caption. Did you first see the intended illusion or the actual “reality”? At least for me, I first saw the illusion and then their set-up almost immediately afterwards. But the illusion—the changed perspective—came first, without my choosing it so. Therefore, apply this same concept to the readings: were they “forced” perspectives? (And I’m not saying that the different perspective is an illusion, like in the photos). If they were “forced,” I’m curious to know why. Peter Atkins (Creation Revisited) used definitions and “logical leading” to make his point about change as the result of controlled chaos; J.B.S. Haldane (“On Being the Right Size”) and Martin Rees (Just Six Numbers) used “what-if” scenarios and comparisons to emphasize to emphasize that every organism and the universe (respectively) is exactly the “right size.” (Of course, they all used other rhetorical devices as well, but are patterns I noticed from a broad overview). People may choose to believe and keep a particular, changed perspective, but I’m not so sure if they much choice in the matter of that first glimpse of changed perspective. And I think perhaps this “forced perspective” is the hardest part of the battle for science writers; knowing the how and why behind forced perspective could be the key difference between a compelling, paradigm-shifting article and one that flops.

Caught Unawares

“We are most revealed in what we do not scrutinize” claims Gould (qtd. in Mishra 141). I think this quote could be used to talk about all three texts by Mishra (“The Role of Abstraction in Scientific Illustration: Implications for Pedagogy”), Lakoff and Johnson (Metaphors We Live By—I’m guessing is the book), and Gross (“Rhetorical Analysis”). In other words, we are most revealed by what we assume.

Assumptions mask values—and beyond that, belief systems. Lakoff and Johnson describe metaphorical “concepts we live by,” which are basically “assumptions” we make at a linguistic level. For example, they point out our metaphorical concept that “argument is war” (4-6). Though they explain how we contrive argument as war, they don’t explain why we have arrived at this subtle conceptual metaphor (in contrast, note their explanation for the “time is money” metaphor on pages 8-9). Perhaps we “assume” that argument is war because we (at least Americans) value the idea of “winning” and superiority brought about by hard work and individualistic effort. Of course, even the values underlying this metaphorical concept of “argument is war” are metaphorical in nature, which leads us to question whether our values shape metaphor or metaphor shapes our values (a classic “chicken vs. egg” debate)…

Nonetheless, we might still pursue the idea that values underlie assumptions. Gross points out the common faulty assumption that science is emotionless and passionless: “the general freedom of scientific prose from emotional appeal must be understood not as neutrality but as a deliberate abstinence: the assertion of a value” (574). That value is “objectivity,” an emphasis on reason versus “unreasonable” emotion (an assumption in itself). Mishra’s discussion about a diagram of a heart compared to an actual heart (146-147) on one hand supports the assertion that diagrams are inherently symbolic for the express purpose of better understanding the reality; on the other hand, the “neat arrangements” of the diagrammed heart reveals our value for orderliness (we can control order, not chaos; ultimately, underneath the value of orderliness is the value of power).

We function by making assumptions—otherwise, we’d never be able to do anything. Just think about all the assumptions we make even waking up in the morning: 1) There’s a reality outside of me, and therefore, the alarm I’m hearing is an actual stimulus and not part of my imagination 2) the alarm is ringing, so it must be 6 am 3) I have to wake up because it’s a school day 4) I can’t miss classes because my grades will worsen…etc. etc. That’s a silly example (with a ton of assumptions built into each “assumption” itself), but I hope that it gets my point across: essentially, we are assumption-making beings. Assumptions, after all, aren’t always bad things; they are what make language and communication feasible.

However, assumptions also limit the scope of what we can “see”: “The very systematicity that allows us to comprehend one aspect of a concept in terms of another…will necessarily hide other aspects of the concept” (Lakoff and Johnson 10). Following the same lines, Root-Bernstein says, “Pictures, tables, graphs can be dangerous things. Revealing one point, they hide assumptions, eliminate possibilities, prevent comparisons—silently, unobviously. Thus, a pattern makes sense of data but also limits what sense it can make up” (qtd. in Mishra 154). Throughout many of these blog posts, we’ve examined the uncertain nature of language, knowledge, and truth functioning in science; some of us have even come to the conclusion that “truth” and “knowledge” are both unstable constructs invented by humans. According to certain kinds of theoretical frameworks, these conclusions appear to make sense. However, the frameworks themselves are a sort of assumption which allows us to see certain things while at the same time obscuring others.

In the particular framework we’ve been using, we’ve discounted the existence of absolute, certain truth or knowledge because we assume that we can’t be given them from an outside source; in other words, we write off the possession of absolute truth or knowledge because we disbelieve in supernatural revelation. Underlying this assumption is probably a multitude of different values: the value of independence, freedom from judgment, and control over one’s life, to list a few. And yet, tied to the assumption that a higher power doesn’t exist are other assumptions as well: if a good, all-powerful God were real, pain wouldn’t exist in the world; nothing can exist without a cause; physical bodies couldn’t reside in “heaven”—assumptions and questions Quinn brings up in her article, “Sign Here If You Exist.”

I think it’s interesting that in his syllabus, Doug decided to label the two readings for Thursday as “Choosing truths.” The nuance of the word “choosing” makes me regard it as something done on an arbitrary whim, just as I would happen to “choose” chocolate ice cream over vanilla ice cream. But perhaps this impression is exactly the intent of the phrase. Earlier in the semester, I wrote a blog post about the “Faith of Science,” and both Liam and Doug (in a follow-up email) made excellent counterpoints about the nature of evidence and how we qualify good evidence. Doug wrote, “From the very earliest ages, we find ourselves able to have faith in something because we already have faith in something else.” Basically, we already have faith in the very evidences we use as the basis for faith in something else. It all goes back to assumptions. What if someone asserts, “Reasoning is futile nonsense”? Most of us would disagree with this statement, but we can’t prove it because the only way to argue with this statement would be to reason about it—which is a circular argument. We “know” that reasoning isn’t “futile nonsense” because we take it on faith (J. Budziszewski). 

If most of our knowledge—and reason itself—is taken on faith (which could be thought of as assumptions), then how do we “choose”?

“But which side will you choose? Reason cannot decide for us one war or the other; we are separated by an infinite gulf. A game is on, at the other side of this infinite distance, where either heads or tails may turn up. Which will you wager on?” ~Blaise Pascal

Science Writing and Sensationalism

Now don’t get me wrong: I very much respect doctors and those in the medical field, and I think their life-saving work is noble indeed. However, I long ago gave up the disillusioned idea that doctors “know it all” because medical studies supposedly provide “all the solutions” to health problems we seek. One of my siblings has very severe food and environmental allergies; just her food allergies alone include: dairy products, eggs, gluten, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, beef, pork, mustard, yellow corn, kiwi, and asparagus (as far as I know). And out of the many, many doctors she has seen, very rarely will two agree even on the type of allergy treatment or dietary supplements she should take. And yet, although I don’t believe in the omniscience of doctors, David Freedman’s “Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science” about the credibility—or lack thereof—of medical research still threw me for a loop.

According to Freedman, meta-researcher John Ioannidis has statistically discovered that “much of what biomedical researchers conclude in published studies…is misleading, exaggerated, and often flat-out wrong” (114). On one hand, especially after reading his entire article, one might conclude that Freedman’s statement seems to make sense, especially when reading an article like Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Treatment.” Freedman points out that false publications can result from the researcher’s desire for more funding; thus, we may have reason for suspicion after reading Gladwell’s account of the “miracle-drug” elesclomol discovery which saves Synta Pharmaceuticals in 2006 and provides inquiry for further research (159, 175). Gladwell’s quote from cell biologist/drug researcher Lan Bo Chen, who basically admits that they “are totally shooting in the dark” (173), also does not instill our confidence in the reliability of one of medicine’s supposedly top-notch lines of research: “in some cases you’d have done about as well by throwing darts at a chart of the genome” (Freedman 121).

On the other hand, we could be skeptical even of Freedman’s article itself. After all, Jeanne Fahnestock explains in her paper, “Accommodating Science: The Rhetorical Life of Scientific Facts,” something changes in the translation from original scientific findings to the science news articles that laypeople could understand. That “something” is the shift from uncertainty (or at least heavily-hedged claims) to a low-supported certainty of specific results or hypotheses. To roughly summarize her paper, this shift in apparent confidence of fact occurs because of the journalist’s need to sensationalize the news to capture reader attention. Although The Atlantic, the magazine Freedman writes for, is deemed a high-quality intellectual read, it nonetheless is not specifically a science journal. The very flaws Fahnestock associates with “scientific accommodation” may very well be present in Freedman’s representation of the work of John Ioannidis.

I realize that sensationalism basically refers to something used to excite or thrill the senses. However, I think sensationalism in science writing results from using Fahnestock’s “the wonder” and “the application” appeals (279)—essentially, “how is this interesting” and “why does it matter”—in conjunction with each other. We see this especially in the readings from The Best American Science and Nature Writing this week: for example, in “The Deadliest Virus,” Michael Specter writes, “One of the world’s most persistent horror fantasies, expressed everywhere from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Jurassic Park, had suddenly come to pass: a dangerous form of life, manipulated and enhanced by man, had become lethal” (136). “The wonder” appeal: one of our worst nightmares has scientifically been produced. “The application” appeal: we’re all screwed. Though the problem of a possible pandemic is no doubt real, if we do a little digging, we most likely will discover that Specter’s writing sounds a little over-the-top compared to scientific reports and statements written by the scientists themselves (not the quotes given through phone conversations). Sensationalism in science news writing loses some of the accuracy (though Freedman would oppose this term) found in the original scientific reports, but it also effectively captures the public’s attention and stimulates funding for further research. Which is the higher priority?

  

Thoughts About Writing

1. Before and when first entering college, I thought that writing was bound by a certain set of rules. Of course, I had also often heard the popular cliché, “Learn the rules before you break them.” In my mind, this phrase applied only to a writer’s stylistic choice in “creative writing” such as short stories and memoir. In fact, I thought writing to be so governed by rules that if one only followed the proper “formula” (standard grammar rules), his or her writing will automatically be of good—or at least acceptable—quality.

Now I view “rules” more as guidelines, helpful tools for the writer. After all, “correct” grammar can sometimes serve to make a sentence more clear and concise. But the “rules” of writing extend far beyond grammar. We find certain guidelines that determine differences in genre, tone of voice, delivery of argument, etc. In this way, I don’t associate “rules” more with one kind of writing than another; all forms of writing (a term in itself we use rather loosely) are directed by particular guidelines, which allow us to build genre and rhetorical classifications in the first place. Language itself must adhere to rules or guidelines in order for it to be comprehensible. Ironically, I still think writing is bound by rules, but neither my conception of writing nor of rules is the same as before.

 

2. In the past, I thought personal opinion should be stymied in professional or academic papers. After all, we should strive for objectivity, right? However, throughout college, my views on the role of personal opinion have greatly changed. First, I’ve come to realize that pure objectivity is an ideal that no human could possibly achieve. Although we do, in some types of writing, come close to full objectivity, its realization cannot be met due to our own limited knowledge—as possessors of finite knowledge, our views are inherently subjective. Second, personal opinion may be shaped on a whim or guided by facts and evidence. If by the latter, “personal opinion” might also pose itself as “thesis.” I usually equate “thesis” with “argument,” or that main point around which rhetorical persuasion is centered. Since I believe that all writing is rhetorically motivated, I therefore think “personal opinion” also manifests itself in all types of writing.

Donald Murray states that “all writing is autobiographical.” The very way that someone writes—word choice, line of thinking, sentence structure—reflects the type of person he or she is. I think society expects some kinds of writing to be more “personal” than other kinds: writing in a diary, for instance, versus writing in a car manual. In those instances, the reader would see more of the person of the writer reflected through the diary than through the car manual.

If Doug means “personal opinion” as something entirely unsubstantiated by fact, then yes, I believe there are types of writing where opinion isn’t “allowed.” I want the person writing my car manual to know how the car works, not just think he knows how the car works. I want the journalist covering the news report to actually know the details of the story, not just think she knows what did or did not happen. In this way, “objectivity” would mean something devoid of all personal opinion—all those thoughts not guided by evidence. However, “personal” and “personal opinion” are not synonymous. “Personal” means that something comes from, or is reflective of, a particular person. So even an objective piece of writing is somewhat personal, like I mentioned earlier. I think then, perhaps the question of should it be is irrelevant.

3. Apparently I answered the previous question incorrectly since in this next prompt, we were asked to differentiate between “personal and opinion-based writing” and “objective and impersonal writing.” All right, I’ll go with the framework that there is such a thing as impersonal writing. Under that category of impersonal writing, I would list technical writing and recipe-writing—basically, the “how-to” types of writing. Also, I guess I hadn’t considered public signs (such as “stop,” “yield,” and “Denver 11 miles”) as types of writing—but if they are, they would definitely be objective and impersonal forms of writing. (They’d also disprove my earlier statement that all writing is personal; such an economy of words and tight standard of display allows really for no creative choice of the writer). Whether or not public signs count towards what most people typically think as “writing,” it does bring up a good point: the “creative choice” of the writer. The more flexibility in a piece of writing and the more opportunity for varying styles, the more “personal” and “opinion-based” that piece likely will be. That’s why, though news articles should theoretically be objective and impersonal, I wouldn’t count them as such; they aren’t as “formulaic” as technical writing, for example. Perhaps the “differences in those scenes” all come down to genre—the varying guidelines shaping and guiding a piece.