Least importantly, I felt that Smith and Hyde's point could have been summed up using much less paper. The whole piece just seemed far too redundant. I often found myself questioning the relevance or the necessity of a lot of the people they referenced. However, altogether, I felt that they did a good job providing an applicable understanding of Aristotle's take on emotions.
I felt that they should have included in their conclusion, when debating potential discussion of their analysis's applicability to a modern crowd, the following point:
They discuss the fragmented media as a potential criticism from McGee and Martin. They quote McGee saying "One clear truth will not change: The publics business is now being done more often via direct mail, television spots, documentaries, mass entertainment, and 'quotable quotes' on the evening news than through the more traditional media (broadsides, pamphlets, books, and public speeches.)" They say "doesn't this phenomenon create grave difficulties for orators seeking to define and sustain audiences with public discourse?" The idea being that their point regarding the importance of emotion becomes less important when people most often receive things in a much hastier, fragmented fashion. They should have pointed out that the fragmented media creates very specific niches that allow people to reinforce, and surround themselves with, things that they are biased toward. While you may not have the opportunity to play with emotion the way Edward's did, due to time and delivery constraints, speakers have the same advantage as Edward's in that they can often know what their audience fancies. Emotion can play just as significant a role, although arguably not the EXACT same role, as it did in Edward's time. The fragmented delivery of media, I would argue, has helped to keep the importance of emotional appeals alive in this rapidly expanding world. The internet allows speakers to reach very specific, and easily categorized, groups of people who migrate towards the things they agree with, like, etc. This isn't necessarily good for the human race as a whole, as it allows people to further narrow the scope of the information they receive, but I do feel that it helps an orator target specific emotional appeals. When so many things are changing so rapidly, and people have access to such a variety of content, it can often be hard to read, or even know anything about, an audience. The world is far different, and more relevant to my point groups of people are far more expansive and diverse, than it/they were when Edward's was speaking to the masses. I would argue that as outlandish as Edward's methods may seem to a college classroom full of rhetoric students, given fragmented methods of media delivery Edward's could very likely find a group of people, in 2011, that would be affected by his sermons emotional appeals.
I agree with Chris's overall observation that a fragmented media(and sub-cultures) doesn't at all contradict the need for emotion in discourse. He talked about the overall effects of this on the human species and the orator. Certainly, it makes the orators job more specialized. A person today isn't just a "speaker", they're a "welfare reform advocate", a "labor organizer" or a "Tea Party enthusiast". Modern, everyday discourse is seldom catered to "the world at large" when we have audiences that are so specifically defined. Perhaps it makes the orators job easier: they know the emotional *buttons* to push because they're very familiar with the audience. He also expressed some reservations about the effect this had on "the human race". I share his concern. People these days are incredibly selective about what they read, watch, and hear. And yes, we like to have our preexisting views validated, so we're not likely to venture into many new realms. Consequently, we tend to know a lot about our *side* of an issue, and be fairly ignorant of the competing views. I think, consequently, that the average liberal and the average conservative know very little of why the other party thinks the way they do. "You just support welfare because you're lazy" is the common assumption, or "You just want laissez faire government because it advances your wealth" would be the counterpart. So instead of looking at the merits of the other side, we tend to just cast them as inferior as a consequence of our self-serving closed-mindedness. It hampers policy judgments and perpetuates ignorance. But can it be changed? As long as humans are inclined to want to hear our pre-existing beliefs validated I have my doubts. And Aristotle noted this propensity in us, so I'm inclined to think it's here to stick.
ReplyDeleteYou guys both made some really excellent points!
ReplyDeleteI agree that we seek out media that affirms our pre-established beliefs. However, I do hope this can be changed-- in even the slightest of ways. To borrow from Robert Jensen, a UT professor in the school of communications: All language is political, and because we use language in media, media is political. However, I believe it need not be AS political as we are currently allowing it to be.
If you watch FOX for an hour, then spend some time listening to NPR, you might feel as though there are two entirely different realities out there. While we may not be able to change the fact that we unintentionally bias our accounts of events with the language we choose to describe them, we can work on the fact that many media outlets INTENTIONALLY do so, or accomplish their political goals by selective coverage of events.
At the very least, media outlets could be honest about the political views they are catering to. It might not be as concerning that someone watches Fox, and that Fox will tell them a very polarized version of a story, if the viewer wasn't simultaneously being told they were being told the "fair and balanced" version.
If we at least made an effort to be honest and aware of the fact that we are absorbing or proliferating information designed to sooth our political egos, maybe we would be more conscious of the fact that there is not one, but many other sides to each story.