Economic Crash-and-Burn

How timely that all of this widely varying discourse is taking place about the state of the economy. Because I'm studying rhetoric and learning that it not only describes what's happening, but that it can actually shape outcomes, I'm watching these events from a different perspective than I would have a month ago. It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall in some of the "smoke-filled rooms" where decisions about the government bailout are being made to observe how rhetoric impacts the results.

So, added to our recent concerns about strangelets, vacuum bubbles, magnetic monopoles and microscopic black holes is the escalating anxiety about the financial markets. (Hey, a thought: Could there be a correlation? The money I used to have in my 403(b) has to have gone somewhere, after all.) Everyone I have spoken with about this today are angry about their personal losses, confused about the issues, and frustrated about the lack of consensus on what should be done.

What I'm hearing is that some experts are telling us not to worry because the markets will bounce back like they always do, while others are clearly predicting that things are going to get worse before they get better. Financial planning professionals are advising us to hunker down and leave our retirement savings where it is (as long as it's allocted appropriately) and to eliminate debt. I agree with this advice, in theory, but it won't be all that easy to pay down debt for the millions who are underemployed and living paycheck to paycheck -- not to mention those who have already lost their jobs -- and have no choice but to use credit cards to feed their kids. And many of those whose straits aren't yet quite that dire have already lost so much of their nesteggs that they're tempted to liquidate the rest and stuff it in a mattress before it, too, dwindles away to nothing.

Our esteemed leaders and others in-the-know are saying that we shouldn't agonize over this because most of us have very little or no control over what's going on. Okay, thanks for the tip. I'll try my best to remember that. But what I can't help worrying about is this: As bad as things are now, what if we haven't even come close to hitting bottom yet?

Writing and Jewelry -- Two of My Favorite Pastimes

I got a huge kick out of this week's reading, "The Evolution of Writing" by Alexander Reid. I'm a part-time jewelry designer, which is something I've been doing for the last few years. Since I began I've realized on a personal level that it's a truly intense outlet for self-expression and creativity, but I never thought about it in terms of being one of the original, basic human forms of communication as Reid suggests.

I have been giving more thought to my research study topic, and have considered adding segregation to the list. What I find fascinating about this topic is the fact that the arguments are still raging, even though more than 50 years have passed since the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

Preliminary Ideas about Research Project

Now that I'm starting to get a better idea of what is required for the research project, I have come up with a possible topic: the War in Vietnam. I realize that this is a very broad category, and that it will need considerable sharpening. My initial thoughts are to focus either on student protests -- in particular, the Kent State shootings -- or the My Lai massacre. I started searching the 'net for source materials, and it appears that there's no shortage of information available. This will make it easier to do the research, but on the other hand, I'm hesitant to choose a topic that's been done to death. The jury is still out at this point.

Other ideas I have are something to do with Nixon and Watergate, the JFK assassination, the 1929 stock market crash, and the sinking of the Titanic. All of these topics have been written about exhaustively as well, though, so perhaps I'll do a little more thinking.

Getting a Handle on It

Wow, we're really closing in on the "mystery": how to connect the dots between rhetoric and science / technology. Walzer and Gross' discussion of social constructionism, particularly their assertion that knowledge is a function of time, makes perfect sense. It not only helps to explain historic events in terms of the level of understanding at the time, rather than filtered through the revisionist understanding that we, as creatures of the present moment, cannot help but have.
On a more personal level, this idea helps me to put events in my own life into better perspective. For example, it's easy to look back on egregious mistakes I made in my youth and wonder what the hell I could have been thinking. But if knowledge is a function of time, the wisdom I have gained since those days makes it easy to see today where I went wrong, even though I honestly could not have known any better at the time. Whoever it was who said "we're too soon old and too late smart" really knew what s/he was talking about!

Re: Space Shuttle Challenger, Part 1

After reading three of the four articles for this week, I find that I'm very sympathetic to the difficulties experienced by the engineers who discovered the potential for disaster before the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. As a professional communicator, I have often run into similar political and "turf" issues on the job. Some of the most frustrating problems I have encountered are senior leadership's expectations (1) that I write what I'm asked to write, regardless of whether it represents the facts honestly or needs a certain "spin" put on it (even when doing so goes against my better judgment); and (2) that I will solve whatever problems arise without requiring help or guidance from senior leadership, and thus always be able to tell them what they want to hear.

I believe these are similar to the issues that were faced by the Morton Thiokol engineers when they tried to warn management of the potential danger of launching the shuttle on a cold day. To be fair, I understand the pressure that management was under: Morton Thiokol was a contractor doing their best to meet the expectations of their client with regard to timing and cost, but they allowed their "management hats" to influence their decision to launch, and it turns out that they -- and many others -- paid a great price for it.

After the First Class Readings on Rhetoric

Interesting stuff, this rhetoric. I graduated with a bachelor's degree in English from a nearby *major* midwestern university without ever having touched on the topic. Hmmm....

Anyway, some comments on the texts. First, Wayne Booth's The Rhetoric of RHETORIC. A definition of rhetoric by Andrea Lunsford (1998) appears in chapter 1, page 8, as follows: "Rhetoric is the art, practice, and study of [all] human communication." Of the eight definitions Booth includes, this appears to be the broadest, but what exactly are we to understand from this catch-all description? I agree with Booth as he points out on page 9, "If you expand the term to cover all attempts at effective communication...doesn't it become meaningless, pointless?"

But I thought James Herrick's inclusion of the concept of symbols (The History and Theory of Rhetoric -- An Introduction) was an important point that Booth did not cover. Herrick's statement in chapter 1, page 7 that "The art of rhetoric can render symbol use more persuasive, beautiful, memorable, foreceful, thoughtful, clear, and thus generally more compelling" called to mind a TV commercial for chemical company BASF that declares, "We don't make the ____________, we make it _____________" (implying that they improve whatever product they partner on).

So, like BASF's ability to make consumer goods better, if rhetoric has the ability to improve simple communication by making it richer and "more compelling," let's take the application a step further and apply it to "hard" disciplines such as physics: Rhetoric doesn't make the laws of physics, it makes them more understandable and acceptable.

After doing the readings, I'm beginning to see a line of sight between rhetoric and science on which I was a little fuzzy when I wrote my first post.

My Newbie Post and Thoughts on Gorgias' Encomium

I've heard a lot about Web 2.0 (even went to an IABC luncheon on this topic a few months ago), and have read a lot of other people's blogs, but until today have been able to avoid actually creating one. :-) I think this is going to be kind of cool, though, because like so many writers I usually have a lot of "really important stuff" to say.

I attended my first class at Eastern Michigan University last night, English 505: Rhetoric of Science and Technology. It's been several years since I last took a class, and I forgot how much I enjoy the chance to engage in the kind of conversation an academic setting provides. I think it's going to be a lot of fun, although I'm not yet able to envision the connection between rhetoric and science / technology. Patience is a virtue I'm still trying to learn, so I'll do what's required and see how it all plays out.

I have a comment about Gorgias' Encomium of Helen, which the class discussed last night. I was rather surprised to learn that Gorgias (and, presumably, others of the ancient era) were willing to accept that Helen of Troy may have been blameless in her experience with Paris. I did a Women's Studies minor as an undergrad, and one theme that recurs -- at least throughout the modern era (say, the last 1,500 years) -- is society's castigation of women who lose their virginity without benefit of marriage, regardless of their personal culpability. It was long believed that women were evil, and that they would do anything in their power to tempt men into sin (think: Adam and Eve).

Therefore, I found it particularly remarkable that Gorgias asserts that something other than Helen's own innate female wickedness -- such as fate, the gods, irresistable love, or Paris' treachery (whether he raped her, or if his "speech persuaded her and deceived her soul") -- may have been responsible for Helen's ruination. It makes me wonder if the patriarchy, in which men set the standards and rules for female sexuality, did not yet exist or had not fully developed in Gorgias' time.