Action, Reaction, and Contemplation: What is Action?

Several of the authors we read this past week discussed the ways we read, perceive, act upon, and write about our world and ideas through cognitive, expressionistic, and social-epistemic rhetorics. Kenneth Burke, a social-epistemic rhetorician, might ask us to contemplate Wikipedia entries for their social implications.

Andrew began his presentation by asking "What is Wikipedia?" Although the writers of Wikipedia may try (or not) to present unbiased entries, Wikipedia articles are written by people with a biased perspective. Wikipedia entries are slices of history written by people with unique perspectives at a certain time and place in history. Written by someone else with an agenda, a different belief system, or of a different gender or political affiliation, an article might have a completely different slant. The writing of history is similar. Centuries ago, David Hume understood that history was not static, and he knew history could be rewritten. To revisit the "The Cambridge Companion to Hume," Hume learned that recorded history was also incorrect when he studied ancient civilizations and found that ancient scribes could not have portrayed an accurate representation of society (288). Does Wikipedia portray an accurate representation of society? Does Wikipedia present accurate facts? These questions and the answers to them may depend on how a "symbol-wise" person interprets them.

Jessica Enoch, in "Becoming Symbol-Wise: Kenneth Burke's Pedagogy of Critical Reflection," shares with us Kenneth Burke's beliefs: "Man literally is a symbol-using animal. He really does approach the world symbol-wise and symbol-foolish" (272). Burke believes, "Beginning absolutely, we might define man as the typically language-using, or symbol-using, animal" (279). For Burke, the way for people to make sense of their world is to understand the relationship of language (symbols) in the world. An exercise Burke's students used was to revise the news. Enoch discusses the strategy: "This exercise exposes students to the idea that seemingly 'factual' news stories always produce a pronounced attitude for or against certain positions" (284). Burke's intention is that students examine the language used in news stories, consider different ways stories can be presented, and imagine what might be missing from a story. By examining the terms (symbols) writers use, Burke's exercise introduces students to the idea of "terministic screens." News stories and perhaps all "factual" writing, are what Burke considers a "reflection of reality," and a "selection" and "deflection" of reality. As is evidenced in Wikipedia, in all news stories, and in the writing of history, elements are missing, and authors are biased. Burke's call to us, too, is to critically reflect linguistic symbols and attain an "attitude that necessitates waiting, listening, reflecting, and analyzing before any arguments are made or action is taken" (292).

Burke's rhetoric, as James Berlin expresses, resides within the Social-Epistemic Rhetoric as we read in "Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class" in the Norton anthology. But as Berlin notes, "There are as many conflicts among the members of the group as there are harmonies" (678). Berlin discusses one approach to the "explicit critiques of economic, political, and social arrangements" found in Ira Shor's methods. Shor posits that in order for students to attain power in their lives, they must understand what society has denied them. Shor's students learn how they are "denied opportunities" because of social order in which "they become convinced that change is impossible" (680). The change in social construct begins in the classroom. In Shor's classrooms, students and teachers vary from the traditional approach where teachers are the authoritarians and students are the receptacles of teacher-directed knowledge. Students are equal partners in their education, and together students and teachers select materials and form content of this "liberatory classroom." Students then learn how to use their "awareness of these [social] forces," counter those forces and become agents of social change. Where Burke would have students reflect and question, Shor would see students change "from re-active objects into society-making subjects" (681).

Regardless of the ideological camp in which our rhetorical pedagogy resides, whether it be cognitive, expressionistic, or social-epistemic, we are called to act. If that action or reaction is to be contemplative reflection or if it is to be a physical action in body, voice, or writing, is another matter. What action should not be is to sit idly by and passively accept that anything we read on the internet, or read or hear in the news is the truth. We must question, and if need be, act.