Something we probably all take for granted is our ability to communicate and interact with other persons, animals, and our environment through language (the ability to talk or sign/signal) and write. I know, for one, I am somewhat guilty of this. Wherein I find language – the ability to speak, to be fascinating it still seems more or less ‘natural’ for us humans to have this ability. The Walter J. Ong article did great job bringing to my attention, or my inattention, that writing and organized language, i.e. the alphabet language, is a mechanical and unnatural human creation. I never really thought about it before but writing is a tool we humans have developed to help communicate/interact/instruct what have you with others, and enhance our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
I really liked his exploring of the word ‘nevertheless’ with a literate person’s point of view and a non-literate person’s point of view, someone from a ‘completely oral background.’ Once again I was stopping to think about something I probably never tried to analyse, namely that: “A word is an event, a happening, not a thing, as letters make it appear to be.”
I am curious to explore, either on my own, because language interests me, or in some class what Ong talks about when addresses grapholects. The notion that through writing a culture, or language can increase its vocabulary significantly leaving another strictly oral dialect with few options for growth; remaining stagnant is interesting and also a little hard to understand why that is.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
pontificate, scratcheads
ideas for project
one idea i was considering was analyzing justifications for war. for example, why President Woodrow Wilson would get the U.S. involved in the great war.
another was analyzing the justification for including or excluding animals from the endangered species list.
my last consideration, and one that i might be more interested in, is to do something with deaf people; the deaf community, whatever. i haven't thought this one out much but the idea of some other form of communication that is valid/recognized but isn't 'normal' could be interesting.
j
one idea i was considering was analyzing justifications for war. for example, why President Woodrow Wilson would get the U.S. involved in the great war.
another was analyzing the justification for including or excluding animals from the endangered species list.
my last consideration, and one that i might be more interested in, is to do something with deaf people; the deaf community, whatever. i haven't thought this one out much but the idea of some other form of communication that is valid/recognized but isn't 'normal' could be interesting.
j
Monday, September 22, 2008
chartjunk
the readings did well to recycle a lot of the same information and conclusions. sometimes they approached things from different perspectives, but it still seemed like the same story. and it is an interesting story at that.
with all the different ways we humans can communicate there are equally as many ways to miscommunicate. that might just be life. that might just be nature's way of being nature and all. we suffer for it, but how are we to stop or prevent miscommunication? we can analyse it and come up with theories and explanations but can we definitively say that we can stop or prevent something tragic huge like Three Mile Island or the Challenger explosion from happening again?
i dunno.
what piques my curiosity is the vast craziness of communication that took place in these case studies, especially with the Challenger shuttle. there were many meetings of people and groups, memos, and other documents, charts, etc., etc.; all these smart, smarty pants-ers saying different things or some instances the same thing bt they can't (or won't) say it straight, or correctly, or effectively in general. no one seemed to understand each other and that is a shame.
i want some accountability. i want some heads to roll. the documents do not mention what, if any, consequences there were for all the engineers and managers, etc. in both case studies who were acting like idiots and got people killed-ified. i'm guessing tho that nothing much happened to anyone and that we should all just use this opportunity to learn from both experiences. but i do have a question regarding the Feynman experiment. if it was such an obvious answer to why the o-ring would fail in low temperatures why did he need to do such an experiment at all? and apparently. it was a flawed experiement at that. shouldn't there be eyebrows raised over a significant scientist performing a flawed experiment? like, what else could he be doing wrong? and why are we then so excited about it?
with all the different ways we humans can communicate there are equally as many ways to miscommunicate. that might just be life. that might just be nature's way of being nature and all. we suffer for it, but how are we to stop or prevent miscommunication? we can analyse it and come up with theories and explanations but can we definitively say that we can stop or prevent something tragic huge like Three Mile Island or the Challenger explosion from happening again?
i dunno.
what piques my curiosity is the vast craziness of communication that took place in these case studies, especially with the Challenger shuttle. there were many meetings of people and groups, memos, and other documents, charts, etc., etc.; all these smart, smarty pants-ers saying different things or some instances the same thing bt they can't (or won't) say it straight, or correctly, or effectively in general. no one seemed to understand each other and that is a shame.
i want some accountability. i want some heads to roll. the documents do not mention what, if any, consequences there were for all the engineers and managers, etc. in both case studies who were acting like idiots and got people killed-ified. i'm guessing tho that nothing much happened to anyone and that we should all just use this opportunity to learn from both experiences. but i do have a question regarding the Feynman experiment. if it was such an obvious answer to why the o-ring would fail in low temperatures why did he need to do such an experiment at all? and apparently. it was a flawed experiement at that. shouldn't there be eyebrows raised over a significant scientist performing a flawed experiment? like, what else could he be doing wrong? and why are we then so excited about it?
Thursday, September 18, 2008
eureka, meandering
okay, so after reading all of the assigned texts from last week i began thinking about what i thought rhetoric was and where it belonged in the world. i wasn't able to come up with a definition or anything, but allow me to think aloud here.
in the booth article there was mention of rhetoric being once considered by scholars and teachers to be worthy of being at the top of the arts. ahead even of the "three primary arts: logic, grammar, and dialectic." the notion that rhetoric might rule over all other human arts appeals to me as i begin to theorize in my head what rhetoric is. follow me here. i am thinking that all things, all persons, all decisons, etc. are influenced by the environment. likewise, all these things are able, in turn, to imprint themselves on the environment. a sort of give and take. the inability of scholars and teachers to come up with any uniform definition of what rhetoric is, etc. provides me with some room to think of rhetoric as all the things ascribed to it.
perhaps rhetoric is the facilitator for all study of all things. it is the process in which one goes thru in which they can analyse, create, make, or do. maybe it isn't just 'persuasion' or the other side of the coin where psychology lies, but is more like the natural human way in which we conduct our lives. the basic element that allows us to do all things, and to do all things well.
i am not sure it is an art, science, or academic subject. i am thinking that what people are recognizing as rhetoric is just a thought process; it is just like fire in that what we see as fire, or flame - that red-orange and blue-white colored, moving 'thing' is just a visual of a chemical reaction. fire isn't a 'thing' at all it is a consequence, and in that way, i see rhetoric as a reaction or response to the environment interacting with all things within it, including us and our minds, and our spirits, our entire outer and inner worlds, which can be seen, heard, felt, smelt, in all dimensions, with all senses.
or something like that
in the booth article there was mention of rhetoric being once considered by scholars and teachers to be worthy of being at the top of the arts. ahead even of the "three primary arts: logic, grammar, and dialectic." the notion that rhetoric might rule over all other human arts appeals to me as i begin to theorize in my head what rhetoric is. follow me here. i am thinking that all things, all persons, all decisons, etc. are influenced by the environment. likewise, all these things are able, in turn, to imprint themselves on the environment. a sort of give and take. the inability of scholars and teachers to come up with any uniform definition of what rhetoric is, etc. provides me with some room to think of rhetoric as all the things ascribed to it.
perhaps rhetoric is the facilitator for all study of all things. it is the process in which one goes thru in which they can analyse, create, make, or do. maybe it isn't just 'persuasion' or the other side of the coin where psychology lies, but is more like the natural human way in which we conduct our lives. the basic element that allows us to do all things, and to do all things well.
i am not sure it is an art, science, or academic subject. i am thinking that what people are recognizing as rhetoric is just a thought process; it is just like fire in that what we see as fire, or flame - that red-orange and blue-white colored, moving 'thing' is just a visual of a chemical reaction. fire isn't a 'thing' at all it is a consequence, and in that way, i see rhetoric as a reaction or response to the environment interacting with all things within it, including us and our minds, and our spirits, our entire outer and inner worlds, which can be seen, heard, felt, smelt, in all dimensions, with all senses.
or something like that
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
September 09, 2008
Welcome to the 21st Century readers!
I'm now officially online and blogging
til next time
I'm now officially online and blogging
til next time
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