The Start of Things

Alas, the time has come. This blog and the articles herein contain works that I have spent many hours tweaking, refining and perfecting. While some might advise I should spend my time otherwise, this cathartic process many are inclined to call work has shown me how much I can do with just an ounce of creativity and a glass of juice. I have enjoyed myself tremendously, writing for everyone who has chanced upon them, and hopefully some of these pieces have offered you a little glimpse into the window of my thought processes. This blog is like a loyal friend, always there to publish whatever I had to say to it. It does not judge, nor tell me that I did not adhere to the rubric. Rather, it obligingly takes my works and shows it for all the world to see, in hopes that the people who come along their merry way might take away a little something. I have breached the various topics with a multitude of approaches, as it has always been an avenue for me to try the different styles of writing as I, along with all the other bloggers, attempt to develop our own style and carve our niche.

Maybe some already know where we are headed, some of us don’t. But for all of us, the journey is nonetheless a necessary one of self-discovery and realization, that we all have in us the ability to write, if only we would heighten our senses to the world around us and not be afraid of failure. Like Steve Garrison would say, moving from the familiar to the uncomfortable is the only way we grow, both as humans and as writers. As we begin to find ourselves and what we are passionate about, it is only then that we understand that all writing must come from the heart, and that it really is just a conversation between author and audience. This blog was an essential part of the creative energy cycle that feeds itself; reading what others wrote about greased the old memory cogs in the recesses of my mind and inspired me to write. While I may not always agree with my fellow writers, the respect that we had for each other and our individual quirks (and who can forget pet peeves) fostered a community of sorts, with healthy dialogue and comments populating communal discourse.

Like they say, all good things must come to an end. But maybe this is just a beginning for all of us; I know it is for me. I know this blog, and ILS for that matter, has sparked that childlike fascination in me, with the world and its never-ending source of questions the catalyst for endless ideas and topics to write about. Once in a while, someone or something comes along to give us a much needed kick in the behind, to get us off our laurels and out of our comfort zones, to shatter our rose-tinted glasses and push us to do something we never thought we could. For me, ILS and the blog was just that, and it will always be the source of all the good that is to come.

Language and the Enormity of Experience

The question initially provoked a simple response from me. I thought surely language, if wielded by an experienced enough author, could capture and contain the enormity of experience. That is why we have descriptors, tropes and schemes to paint a mental image and inspire the sensations that experience provides. Upon more thoughtful deliberation however, I realized that experience, like the word suggests, requires first-hand contact. On the contrary, language is inherently limited by the cultures, truths and notions held by its creators.

At the risk of sounding cliché, I have decided to resort to the example of love. Maybe it is such a basal emotion that everyone feels, but I am certain that all who have experienced love whether from family or from their partner can attest to the oft indescribable feelings it stirs in them. Language attempts to capture all of it, but often falls short of describing the subtle intricacies that you experience when you are in love. Granted, language can only go so far as to give us a vague idea of what the experience truly is; it is much like a sign post, pointing you in the right direction and clueing you in on what to expect, but never quite completely capturing the experience itself. Being at the scene of it all does not only create a visual or auditory image, it stirs your very soul.

Take skydiving for example. It is not really that hard to imagine how such an event would unfold, given that we have seen much of it on the television. Using language however might bring to mind the whole sensation of free falling, the wind rushing past you as you hurtle toward what would be certain doom, if not for the chute in your backpack. You notice how small everything is from up above, and the fear that might grip you. Stand in the doorway of a plane before taking that first step however, and it will be a totally different thing altogether. Language might try to describe the sensation to you, but you will definitely see skydiving in a whole new light once you experience it yourself. Like many always say, “you have to try it yourself because I cannot even begin to describe it to you.” Our mind and capacity for thought is very much bounded by our experiences; if we never truly experience it, we might fool ourselves into thinking that we understand the sensation, but it never is the case.

As a speaker of English, Mandarin and some Asian dialects, I have discovered how the very nature of language can limit the experiences it can accurately convey. In Mandarin, idioms which consist of 4 characters are commonly used to convey complex ideas quickly and intuitively. However, the English language is unable to replicate such phrases, and must resort to breaking down an idea into its components. On the contrary, there exist words in the English language that Mandarin does not have any characters for, many of which are more complex emotions. Thus, I have come to realized that language can sometimes be intrinsically limited by its origins and may not be able to convey certain ideas, let alone experiences. They are an integral part of life, possessing the ability to change and shake us to our core, whilst language is merely a tool that complements it, priming us on what to expect, but never quite capturing the enormity of it.

Language Limitations

Our lives have been filled with experiences. From the moment our lives began we have been seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, tasting, and doing things. Life is full of experiences; they are never-ending and always happening. Even if you are simply sitting on at a desk bored out of your mind you are living an experience. Everyone’s experiences are different and personal, and it is because of this that language, no matter how sophisticated, will never be able to capture the entire picture of the lives we live.
Think about a time where you had a feeling that you couldn’t put into words. You know what happened and how you felt, but there weren’t words even close enough to describe the event to even yourself. Whether it was a feeling of extreme loss, joy, surprise, or accomplishment you had to “tone down” the experience to fit into a category defined by language. It was only after you put this experience into a category, predetermined by the boundaries of our language, that you could comprehend what happened and transmit that feeling or thought to other people.
Despite the fact that our lives are an amazing composition of events, feelings, and emotions, the capacity of our language defines how we view the world. Take for example the variation between a horrible moment and an exciting, happy moment. When something happens in our life there is a scale between these two feelings, and this scale possesses an infinite number of levels. However, because language limits how we could describe a circumstance, the way we feel about a situation is limited to a relatively small number of increments. You might come home from work and tell your spouse, “I had a bad day at work.” The experiences at work that happened to define it as a “bad day” have a range. Without question, the reasons you had a bad day at work this week are different than the reasons you had a bad day at work last month; however, due to the limitations set upon us by language both days and both experiences were interpreted as bad. We can try to be more descriptive with our words and stories, but the range of feelings associated with experiences, which in theory are infinite, are actually categorized into distinct levels depending on the words we have to describe them.
It is for reasons like this that language will never capture the enormity of experience. Our lives are so diverse and eventful that it would be impossible to invent a language that is able to capture and describe each and every one of our experiences. This language would not be understood by all members of a society; it would only be understood by the individual who lived the life the language is designed for. Language helps us communicate with others, but in reality we are telling them something that is categorized, not specified. When we tell someone “I enjoyed the concert last night”, they adapt that to their own experiences, and truly will never know how you felt about the concert. Language limits our experiences to the boundaries created by it.

Goodbye

I just want to take this time and thank everyone who took the time and interest to follow my personal blog on the Bascom Bloggers. Throughout the duration of the semester, I was instructed to share my personal thoughts and opinions about rhetoric and the use of language. The stages of the rhetorical situation – logos, pathos, and ethos – were the primary focus of this course. I learned how to appeal to the text, the audience and to myself as a writer all through the play of words and language. As the semester comes dwindling to a halt, I want to use this time, this opportune moment, to thank all of my followers for putting up with my thoughts and personal anecdotes. So I say, thank you and goodbye.

Will Words Suffice?

Language thrives throughout varying cultures as the primary form of communication. Not only does language exist in verbal form, but body language and written language flourish. As effective as language is, some instances occur where the use of language cannot capture the enormity of the experience.

No matter how brilliant of a writer a person is, there are some situations where you just have to be there. As a critique, most circumstances can be thoroughly explicated with the use of language, but the extent of some requires personal attendance in order to grasp the entirety of the picture.

From personal experience, I have had difficulty putting certain events into words. On the day of my father’s traumatic accident, I lacked the ability to form words to give that day justice. The feelings, emotions and thoughts running through my head like a rampant disease simply could not be expressed into words. I did not know how to craft my ethos to successfully portray my experience on the day of August 16, 2009. I felt that if I tried to argue my case, I would undermine the severity of the accident, so instead of telling my story, I kept it bottled up inside.

Other instances can be shared through an adequate use of language. Some people make careers out of doing just that. Journalists and novelists get paid to capture the essence of the experience and artistically paint a picture with words. The simultaneous use of logos, pathos and ethos makes for a picture perfect story.

Language has the ability to encapsulate the enormity of experience depending on the level of emotion of the certain experience. Some things, you just have to be there in order to understand it. However, some great writers and speakers have a gift where they can do just this. Their use of word choice and word order, diction and syntax, grasps the situation and clearly and vividly explains it. To truthfully represent an experience, the right person and correct language needs to be utilized to fully capture and narrate the situation.

Stop and Think

Today, public discourse has taken a tone that is by far too pathetic. Historically referred to as the melting pot, America now fails to evenly mix ideas that logically make since. Americans do not take the time or put forth the energy to evaluate news and choices they must make logically. In this modern technological era we try to simplify all life processes. This benefits us in several ways (no longer do we harvest grain by hand or have to start a fire every time we cook dinner), but unfortunately when it comes to public discourse this “ease-of-life” approach doesn’t always produces the most fair, accurate, and principled results.

I personally believe that pathetic fallacies have overtaken our rhetoric. We are continuously confronted with scare tactics, over simplified ultimatums, arguments portraying a slippery slope, band wagon pressure, Red Herring distractions, and sentimental appeals. Instead of putting forth the effort to logically discover a truth or persuade a truth we often find ourselves reacting and communicating on how we feel about an issue. We may not have good reason for that opinion, and if we do we often don’t explain it to others because we are too caught up in simply trying to get them to agree with it by provoking extreme, and often uncalled for, emotional investment into that issue. It amazes me that with the level of education American’s receive we still fail to carefully develop rhetoric. We also do not dissect what we hear and label it as either an acceptable or unacceptable argument.

The largest change to politics and life in general is that, unlike our Founding Fathers, we argue and do not compromise. Compromises laid the foundation for building this great nation. Today, instead of compromising different views we simply argue about them. What happens is that when we argue about an issue we fear that if we look at it logically we might be proven wrong. Perhaps our position on the argument is the correct one for the most part, but the other party’s position has some good qualities as well. People don’t want to argue logically because when it is proven that the other side has some positive input they are in a way proven wrong. Even if for the most part someone’s idea was correct, if they have to change one part of it to incorporate another person’s idea the original person will feel inferior or foolish that they didn’t think of that before. To prevent this type of self humiliation from occurring we choose to argue based solely on emotion. Emotion, unlike logic, cannot be proven wrong.

One example of avoiding logic to make an argument is the actions of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). They are a political activist group not associated with any local animal humane shelter that works to protect animal’s rights by trying to abolish modern agricultural practices. HSUS does have a more logical approach than PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), but they still fall victim to several pathetic fallacies. HSUS members are driven by emotion and few understand or have any logical scientific evidence to support their claims. If they do find research that they agree with it is typically blown out of proportion and not supported by various sources. They believe it is their right to protect animals. They are convinced that traditional methods of food production are much more animal friendly. They fail to acknowledge that in dairy farming, for example, new technologies and building designs that have been developed over the past decade provide more comfortable stalls bedded with over a foot of sand instead of a thin layer of straw, barns now allow the cows to roam freely amongst their pens that are typically over hundreds of feet long instead of being tied in their own stall all day, and that cows receive better health care (vaccinations and treatments for any diseases) than some human beings receive. Because arguments by the HSUS fail to logically recognize the improvements in animal husbandry and they preach using too much emotion, the arguments that do make since and should be addressed by the industry are not taken seriously. Those on the other side of the argument can be blamed for placing too much of an emphasis on emotion as well. When farmers are confronted with propositions by HSUS they don’t stop and think about how these “city slickers” could actually be providing them with useful advice. They immediately jump to the conclusion that any attack on the way their business is run is an attack on themselves, their family, community, and their industry. Some suggestions and movements by HSUS actually would cause more harm than good but some could be incorporated to improve farms. These two sides fail to combine their efforts in a positive way. They don’t compromise because that would cause them to realize they were wrong about some things. Instead of compromising they simply argue and cut down the other side’s intentions.

This is a common scenario in modern-day-America. We rely solely on emotion and ignore logic in our attempt to change the world. I believe it is time to stop, think, and use logic when making decisions.

What is considered too much?

Tiger Woods gets caught. Brittney Spears shaves her head. Lindsay Lohan enters rehab. The goal of today’s media is to reach its audience and evoke emotion. News updates, celebrity lives, sports stories all employ pathetic language. We enjoy listening to caddy drama and intimate details of the lives’ of the famous and journalists, news anchors, media personnel, authors, and politicians know this. Emotion sells.

For any story to be successful, emotion must be present. In order to reach the intended audience, they must be lured in by bait. The bait is emotional language. Most would agree that a mundane news broadcast would be dreadful to watch. As sad as it is, people are drawn to disaster and drama. You rarely hear any positive information on the news today. Everything involves scandal, devastating homicides, and terror. The connection: emotion. Take educational books for example. Why do most students refuse to read them and instead use Sparknotes to quickly finish the assignment? The books are boring. If they involved topics intriguing to that age group, students would have no problem reading the entire book as opposed to the first and last chapters of boring books. Old English communities are the last thing high school students want to read. For my Women’s Gender class, it was mandatory to read a novel about homosexuals. In each book, the main character was a gay woman suffering though some dilemma. In mine, the narrator was a immobile, handicapped feminist lesbian. The whole book detailed her sexual acts and experiences. It succeeded. It withdrew an emotion. Disgust. I was appalled that I had to read a book that went into that much detail. I will forever be scared for life. Another example is a lackluster gossip magazine. That is an oxymoron. The point of the tabloids is to inform people of the exciting, dramatic, scandalous lives of celebrities. People would not buy a magazine if the main article was “David Beckham Goes Shopping.” We want to see action. Him lying on a beach revealing a chiseled six pack would be a more appropriate choice and definitely generate more profit. Point being, people respond to emotion, but it must be an emotion appealing to them. The media understands this thus abusing it and overusing emotional appeal in the headlines.

A direct relationship between language and emotion exist and when combined, equate to communication. Pathetic languages involve language, emotion and communication and when perfectly deployed, create a popular story. Media messages attack this strategy. Sometimes the amount of emotion used is suitable however most times, too much is used. Some things should be kept private. How would you feel if every single aspect of your life was detailed in a newspaper headline? It would be frustrating. Everyone is entitled to a certain amount of privacy. There are even laws involving confidentiality, yet the media still seems to neglect to abide by the laws and reveal every personal story of every celebrity, athlete, politician, and etcetera.

Personally, I enjoy the gossip magazines, I guess making me a hypocrite, but I do sympathize for the persons featured. Today’s world revolves around pathetic language. In some ways, for example communicating with a good friend, a future employer at a job interview, or a loved one, utilizing emotion to reach your audience is a good thing. But when the media intrudes on the personal lives of the famous for our entertainment is crossing the line. Everyone is given the right to privacy, but sometimes that right is taken away and exposed and that is not right. The media overindulges in the use of pathetic language, making public discourse too pathetic in today’s society.