As I continue to drown in my thesis work (spatiality/architecture/human behavoir), like any other grad student, my mind wanders around. Taking some theory with it to throw at other weird and unrelated life concepts. This week I played around with the concept of non-physical/abstract phenomena becoming Objects depending on their context.

An example of this is Peace or Contentment. We often say that we're looking for it, finding it or approaching it. We emphasize the journey we experience in order to reach Peace or Contentment in a way that physicalizes the properties of which we seek. Peace or Contentment are a location we must reach, and if we fail to reach it, we may be left feeling shame or guilt. Adversely, when we do "find it", the gratification is likely highlighted because you, now have or own the thing. The phrase "happy place", although useful in so many facets of therapy and self affirmation, can be inherently dangerous to the healing process occurring if that place is never quite reached - or is quickly “left" like a vacation spot.

However, rather than ascribing to the notion that Peace can be lost, or happiness is in a person - how can we leverage language to build a framework that encourages graciously accepting the spectrum of experience?

Love is another non-physical / abstract phenomena that typically becomes an object through our perceptions of it. We are always seeking or trying to find it, as if the *it* (Love) is an object one could simply pick up at the store, or stumble upon at the park. We sometimes say "it (Love) hit me like a rock!" or "I didn't expect to find love there".

It's a super strange reality we've inadvertently created for ourselves through our language. It both seems more like a trap than a framework that frees us. If we were to consider framing this emotional phenomena differently - I wonder how language adjustments could make these concepts less objectifiable? 

If we were to consider Love, Peace, or Happiness as resources that we “generate” rather than “find” - would that instill a sense of agency instead of desperate searching?

I further wonder how this phenomena affects our perceptions of all human emotions and relations. They are all abstract, yet we configure them to be more manageable? Emotions are unwieldy as hell, and this is far from a complete thought. But certainly a thoughtful ledger to consider.

Oxford dictionary's word of the year for 2016 was "Post-truth". This year, "Fake News" became a culturally viral phrase. In class, my students fretted about the legitimacy of their sources. It seems the trust in scholarship has declined, but I don't like comparing history to present because the context can be misleading. Misleading juxtapositions, phrasings and presentations can lead to convoluted opinions that can have very real consequences in life. 

Through my work I've come to recognize that through dialogue, we can craft or at least manipulate our reality. Through attempting improved perception, we tend to act differently, perhaps better in many situations. Misleading material can impede this process and make it so easy for our audiences to maintain paranoia, extreme distrust and conspiracy rhetoric on their own corners of the internet. 

Prior to 2004 and the launch of Facebook, I would argue that we were mainly consumers of content. Only few of us created and even fewer created material to be consumed by the masses. Today, where there are endless platform options for creation, we have all become media makers. But very few makers create with their audience and after effects in mind. It feels irresponsible to know we can endlessly push content, but take little pride in its audience impact. It has gotten so bad, the culture surrounding content creation is distrustful. There is an entire website dedicated to locating and archiving shitty headlines from all over daily. It's scary to me how misleading we allow our content lure's to become all in hopes of a news rating that's profitable. It makes sense, but it breeds all these other fringe issues that largely affect the whole. 

This is clearly a super large can of worms, one I'll likely visit in a more professional manner. What I'm attempting to guide you towards (my dear few readers), is the idea that as we move forward in our own careers, whether directly involved in profitable or for-fun content creation, we must maintain a responsibility for the things we create. 

I don't mean giving up on being recklessly artistic (go for it, go crazy, get all the bio-degradable glitter out) I just mean, if you're out there as an English or communications major, any journalists or young writers or musicians or artists, whatever it may be: Be Responsible. Think of the impact you have on your audiences. Remind yourself, if you're vegan, vegetarian, a millennial, LGBTQ+ identified, there is something in your heart that burns for something better in this life. You all have an idea of what this ideal society is. Language, our content, all of it, matters to that outcome. Although you may feel small, responsibly creating things that better our lives is a commendable, honorable choice. Make articles that challenge misleading headline culture! Make art that forces people to address themselves! Make music that screams about these issues! Throw shade! And throw it well! 

It's an ongoing joke in several of my core rhetoric classes that everything is a circle. Each time someone asks me a question about this or that, I struggle not answering with, "Well, it's an information system...a circle...again, which means it's both" Every time I bring up the circle we all laugh because it's truthful in part. 

Rhetoric has taught me to see nothing as dichotomous - it's impossible. It is never just one reason or another, its a compilation of problems. A timeline's worth of events that accumulate into tension. A good example are the dichotomous arguments we see regularly in American politics. You either take away the guns, or you amp them up. It's either the democrat's fault, or the republican's. It's either "handouts" or no support for the poor, etc. We know these, we've heard them for decades. 

Dichotomous logic leads audiences into very easy conclusions - it's them, not me. This encouraged Blame Game leads to a lack of critical thinking and a laziness that extends to the masses in which they do not see the value in small actions within their community and lives to affect the whole. By introducing rhetorical thinking, or even just the basic appeals and awareness of context at an earlier age than college, I really think we can move away from that kind of thinking. 

Kids already ask "why? Why? Why?" all the time! We are apt to shut it down most of the time, but don't always indulge their games. I believe - of course I am not the entire authority here being young, still in school and what not - that introducing rhetorical concepts at an early age would bring about an age of root reasoning and expansive perspective exploration. In teaching those concepts, it can be hard to logically move towards a one answer conclusion because one would have all the tools to think about the other factors in play. 

Dialogue can create reality - it can introduce perspective, widen one, and open the eyes to expansive possibilities in situations where it can be so easy to boil everything down. I hope in the future that my colleagues and I will work to create a curriculum that supports that kind of thinking and wonderlust into elementary schools and beyond. Even if it doesn't work in the way I suppose, students would still be learning advanced critical thinking that could lead them to more aware lives. 

Earlier last week I mulled through a fair amount of Heidegger. I'm not fond of his work but the concepts fuel so much of my current research it's necessary to familiarize myself with the material. But in that lies a question, how important is reading the primary source when it's been synthesized better elsewhere?  Most colleagues that I work with will vehemently defend the need to read primary sources, but those same colleagues balk at reading sources from writers that conflict with their own views. 

Martin Heidegger was a Nazi. Worst of all, he was silent about the ungodly things happening aound him and a few bits of his writing even contained explicit anti-semetic language.  Further, he never apologized or rescinded his implied views. Since he joined the Nazi party in 1933 he was subsequently banned from teaching later in life. Although he lightly implied that he regretted his decisions, a man with all that authority and privilege never took a moment to discuss his mistakes. As someone who is toted so worldly and well-knowing, I would expect better. 

Times were different then. But it is 2018 and I don't necessarily agree with having to be forced to read primary material because it's synthesized so many other ways. There are many scholars that have done that work for us, taking something dense and turning it into something applicable. I believe they have more the right to be read than Heidegger. 

The values that the Digital Humanities and the general academic Rhetoric community don't seem to support requiring Heidegger source text. Just in case, my dear, few readers, you are reading this and would like to join the conversation, I've turned the comments on.

I feel so unjust when I read and use Heidegger as a source because I feel I have no excuse to use him when others have done better with his ideas. I also feel so slighted when I am forced to read works of problematic white men simply because other, better hearted people have crafted more sound works. This issue isn't necessarily a huge one for the Digital Humanities but discourse about problems such as these can open some great dialogue about what we can do better. 

Here is an unofficial, official mission statement: 

I am a slacker academic. I love school, but I have not been so eager to apply myself beyond the minimum. I challenge myself this year to write something (loosely) related to rhetorical scholarship each week. This link is a live reading list. If you happen upon this project and have any readings you'd like to share, feel free to add to it.