Term Paper II, Pictures and Audience as Constructors

The room was brightly lit and there were no lighting changes made. The audience was happy and mingling prior to and after the show. There was a feeling of community. Just like the old days with the storyteller in the village. It had a ritualistic feel in that these events occurred on a fairly regular basis. The rituals used for these tellings were especially strong because the tellers were operating from an environment of competition and strict storytelling rules. There was a sense of formality within the community and everyone knew what to do.
One performer presented a challenge to the notion of storytelling orally. He demonstrated how pictures could be used to tell stories. But really the picture does not talk. Instead the audience tells the story in their mind and fills in what is not seen to complete the picture. Particularly the performer showed how pictures could alter the story being told by focusing on one part of the picture at the expense of others, or simply by erasing certain aspects of the picture. In a picture of a lynching, a rhetorician took out the hanging body to draw focus on the mob. This erased the hanging person as a criminal, exposed the mob, and revealed the mob as criminals. If I remember correctly, the performer also said that lynching should not be repeated and racism today is invisible. This made me think. If racism is invisible today maybe lynching is too. If capital punishment is being unfairly applied to black men today, wouldn’t that be an invisible form of lynching? This narrator allowed me to continue developing the story after he stopped telling it.

Even more on Fisher

Fisher makes it out like his paradigm is superior to the rational paradigm in two ways. One is that it just works better. I don’t have an argument to make against that. But he also indicates that narrative is better in an ethical sense; he calls it more democratic (273). The word democratic is loaded though. It is what McGee calls an ideograph (428). A mythic word that symbolizes many values. Democracy stands for a way of governing that is good. Fisher tries to tell us that narrative is more fair because everyone gets to have a say regardless of their education, status etc. But this makes it sound like everyone does not already get to say what they want. Maybe they don’t, but we need to divide this into two issues. One issue involves who is allowed to speak versus who is not. The other issue needs to be decided after we decide who gets to speak. The question then becomes: How should we speak, in narrative or rational? Let’s not get sidetracked with his correct but unhelpful assertion that even rational is narrative. I think Fisher is promoting the use of narratives by individuals when he should stick to the first issue and, like Habermas, focus on trying to bring everyone to the table, even if they have to use narrative when they get there.
I think that the narrative format can be deceptive and used for immoral purposes. In fact I think that more often than not this is the case. Further I think that people who tell stories know they are twisting reality. I also think that rational people, while they may be incorrect in their reasoning and even unintentionally unethical, are being sincere in their attempt to be rational. So in summary I think and feel that rational people are being genuine more often than narrative people. I have no scientific evidence to back this up nor do I think we can really determine the truth of it either way. But if I am wrong about this I do not want to stay wrong. I just need to be convinced that either I am wrong, or at least that voicing my opinion could cause more harm than good. I am open to discussion about this.
But I think that Fisher and the rest of us should be focusing on trying to get people to use their narratives in ways that are beneficial and genuine and helpful to others, not themselves. Therapy, as we have discussed, is an ideal place for this. More and more I see the use for stories in therapy. My therapy instructor used stories to teach class and showed us how important they are to doing therapy. But I do not like the idealization of narratives and the demonization of rational thinking procedures.

Fisher, Walter R. “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm: The Case of Public Moral Argument.“ Contemporary Rhetorical Theory: A Reader. Ed. John Louis Lucaites, Celeste Michelle Condit, and Sally Caudill. New York: Guilford Press, 1999. 265-87.

Habermas, Jurgen. “The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964).” New German Critique 3 (1974): 49-55. Trans. Sara Lennox and Frank Lennox.

McGee, Michael Calvin. “The “Ideograph”: A Link Between Rhetoric and Ideology.” Contemporary Rhetorical Theory: A Reader. Ed. John Louis Lucaites, Celeste Michelle Condit, and Sally Caudill. New York: Guilford Press, 1999. 425-40.

Term Paper Part 1

The first story was about an arranged marriage in an Indian culture. The girl to be married was the primary character and narrator. There was also a mom, a dad, and a gay friend. The storyteller gave voices and personalities for each and also used the technique of looking in certain areas for some characters. At first the girl did not want to get married but by the end she changed her attitude. Essentially she rewrote the story about arranged marriages. The traditional view of the arranged marriage is already in the audience’s head, as is the modernist view that resists arranged marriage. In the beginning of the story the narrator voices the modernist view in a humorous way. At the end she justifies the traditional view poignantly by framing arranged marriage as trusting the parents to give the gift of a life decision to their daughter.

Lee's Original Story (rated G)

You don’t know why you’re here. You think you know. But you don’t. I know more than you about why you are here. I don’t know everything, but since I know something and you know nothing, compared to you, I know everything.
In the old days people used to know that they did not know. People got along better. There was less strife. Less inner turmoil. Less greed. In those days people would come here and ask me “what should I do?” Nowadays everyone knows what they should do. A lot of people even know what they should not do.
When people would come and ask me, what should I do.
I would say this.
Go ask him…
So they would.
And he would tell them, “do what makes you happy.”
Many people followed that advise. Some of them came back and said “I did what made me happy from moment to moment and now I am in such a bad way that nothing I can do will bring happiness- except maybe death.”
Then I would say, “perhaps you should talk to her.” They would go speak with her and she would tell the same thing to everyone. “You are correct, death to self is the only happiness, go and serve others.”
A few of the people who heard her advice took it. And even fewer would return here after some time. “I served people,” they would tell me, “I served many people and some of them were following the man’s advice. They were seeking their own happiness and I helped them in their quest. But it has brought them a sadness like it brought me and now they too seem to wait for death. But I have not advised them to seek advice from the woman because her advice has only caused me to aid in the degradation of others. Ultimately I have done no good service to anyone. What should I do?”
Many of these people had loved and served others to such an extent that they had to appear before me naked.
As often as I could, I would give them a cloak and say,
“take this and go your own way”
To those whom I gave this advice, every last one of them took it. And a very small few of those people would come back here, and they always returned the cloak. The cloaks were in different conditions depending on the circumstance. A small number of these people still would ask, “What should I do?”
I would ask them, “What did you do with the cloak?”
They wore it of course. It kept them warm, shaded them from the sun. Kept them hidden from hungry and curious eyes. Inevitably it might get dirty or torn. Dirty cloaks do not keep a person as warm as clean ones, so they would wash it or repair it as long as they could. It would fall into disrepair, and they would fix it until at last it could not hold together any longer or they were able to find other means, or they brought it back to me.
Someone who asks another person, what should I do? Is like a person who when their cloak gets dirty asks another, What should I do with this cloak? “No one else knows of your means or your plans or your history.” Know one else knows what is best for your cloak?” What if they should advise you to give it to themselves?”
When I finished my speech, I would thank them for returning my cloak to me.
Then they would do something astonishing.
They would thank me. Then they would leave.
And now I am alone in my wisdom, because none of them ever return.

Fisher revisited

His apparent thesis describes narrative as a universal and elemental form of human communication. Narratives include any speech or act that has “sequence and meaning” for the speaker/actor or someone who interprets the behavior. To understand the narrative paradigm we will compare it directly to Fisher’s understanding of the rational paradigm.
Fisher lists five competing and correlating suppositions for each paradigm. First, narrative and rational conceptions of the world describe humanity at its core as storytellers and rational beings respectively. The second, third and fourth suppositions all involve the nature of human communication. The second simply calls communication “narrative” or “rational.” The third identifies the rules that govern the communication. The rationalist view operates out of the needs of the situation. The narrative view draws conclusions from descriptive materials like history and biography. The fourth area discusses who is qualified to evaluate communication. For the rationalists, expertise or training is required. In a narrative world each person can determine what is true by considering narrative probability and narrative fidelity. Narrative probability deals with the structure of the story and narrative fidelity considers the seeming genuineness or truth of it. The final supposition defines the world. The narrative world consists of a set of stories and we may choose our own adventure. the logical world is made of complex puzzles for us to solve.
Fisher says that narrative competes with, subsumes, and is in some circumstances superior to rationality. If all of this is true, then what are the other forms of narrative and how are they superior or inferior to rationality? Fisher has created tension in his theory by making the two a simultaneous combination and competition.

Lie Like a Dog Narrative

A few years ago, Brewster, a beautiful Saint Bernard puppy, was dropped off by his owners at a humane society. Brewster was nervous and the agency's receptionist kept him at her desk until one day, when a man entered the Society, he misread Brewster's body language, and was bitten. Normally, this
would be reason to put the dog down ... Only it wasn't Brewster's fault. Where could a humane society possibly turn to save a dog
that it would otherwise be forced to kill?

Sounds so sad doesn't it?
But take another look. It may be sad but it's also biased.

1. Dog gets a proper name and physical description.
2. When the dog is called a dog it is only in the context of being killed. Since the narrator cannot envision any situation in which Brewster could be put to death, the narrator resorts to using the word dog to describe Brewster.
3. No action at all was committed by Brewster, all we know is that he was nervous.
4. The man has no name and no description and no emotions. We are only told what he did, like an official police report.
5. Actually this narrative does not even say directly that Brewster bit the man. It says the man was bitten.
6. Brewster has no action, Man only has action.
7. If it was not Brewster's fault, whose was it?
8. How complicated does a dog's body language have to be in order to be misread?
9. Although the dog was dropped of a few years ago, the only image we are provided of Brewster is that of a puppy.
10. Does it really matter how Brewster ended up at the receptionist's desk?
11. Why are we not given any history on the man?

you probably get the idea by now. I love dogs but this is a great example of one-sided story-telling. Obviously I did not have time to incorporate it into my presentation. And I am sorry about going over time.

Dog Whisperer

Cesar Millan is the star of National Geographic’s TV show, “The Dog Whisperer.” Cesar rehabilitates dogs and trains people. One of the tools he uses to accomplish these tasks is the use of narratives. This presentation seeks to examine some of the narrative elements within the Dog Whisperer in order to see how altering narratives can impact our interactions with dogs and how that can generalize to other people.

Kiesler, Lee and Kramer (2006) researched on factors that effected how people explain animal behavior by They found that close relationships with animals encourages people to give psychological explanations for animal behavior. People make excuses for their own pets more than others. And attribute human qualities and skills to their own pets more. Other factors were affection and ownership, but not the frequency of interaction.

Owner element and dog element.
A segment typically begins by introducing the humans and the dogs. We are shown the dogs bad behavior and the owners relate how the dogs are bad and they are powerless to alter the behavior.

The next part of the show introduces Cesar Millan and facilitates a meeting between animal pets and human owners. During this period, Cesar will get to hear the perspective of the owner and observe the pet. Then Cesar will attempt to tell a different story to the owner so that when Cesar takes action with the pet, the owner has a context to understand Cesar‘s interaction with the dog.
Once Cesar has explained his perspective he will interact with the animals in an attempt to reveal a new model for the owners to envisioning their interactions. By doing this he provides materials for the owners to create a new story.
Third Cesar supervises as owners and pets interact again and enables the owners to experience their own mini success story. This success story will come in handy after Cesar leaves and the owners become frustrated with their dogs they can hearken back to cesar’s visit and draw resources to continue trying.
Finally the owner and the dog create a new narrative of the dog that is markedly different from the first presentation of the dog.

Burke's Pentad

Burke, the author of Definition of Man, uses five terms, called the “dramatistic pentad,” to think about language. Treating language as a vehicle for action rather than information allows him to determine human motivation using the pentad.
The terms correspond to basic interrogatives. Act: what does the person do? To qualify as an act it must have intent behind it. Agent: who performs the act? This can be a larger social group. Agency: how is the act performed? Scene: when and where is the act performed? This also includes circumstances. Purpose: Why was the act committed? This is not the motive that Burke is looking for. Burke also struggled with the concept of attitude and considered using it to form a sixth domain but instead placed it within the scope of the agent.
Burke claims the motive can only be discovered by examining each term and its relationship with the remaining terms. This makes ten possible combinations of terms. Each combination should be viewed as a ratio. The ratio has two possible sequences; for example, act and agency can be thought of as act/agency or as agency/act. The analyst would consider first how act can influence agency. Then the analyst switches the ratio and examines how, for instance, the agency can ifluence the act. This system allows us to consider one rhetorical act from 20 different angles. Analysis may lead to the conclusion that one term disproportionately influences the other terms. Then the interpreter can frame the motivation as being attributed primarily to that term. So we can see how purpose differs from motivation. Although the agent always has a purpose, our analysis may reveal that the act was primarily motivated by the scene, act, agency, or agent.
The pentad is a result of Burke’s thinking about language as being motivated rather than simply animated. To be animated, like animals and clocks, requires motion. Human action also requires motion, but to qualify as action it must also be imbued with purpose. Burke is not comfortable with reducing symbolic action to mere motion and uses the dramatistic pentad to illustrate whatever drives the rhetoric.

Fisher's Narrative Paradigm

Walter Fisher contends that “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm” merits attention because it demonstrates that rhetoric does not have to conform to traditional conceptions of argument developed by those educated in a “rational world paradigm.” For Fisher, narratives include any speech or act that has “sequence and meaning” for the speaker/actor or someone who interprets the behavior. Fisher says that for narrative to be accepted it must compete with rationality. But he also views the rational world paradigm as falling under the domain of narrative paradigm. Here lies the tension within the paper. If rationality is part of narrative then any victory for rationality should be a victory for narrative. Fisher wants to say that all communication is narrative and he also leads the reader to believe that rationality, though perceived as superior is an inferior form of narrative. His research of the nuclear war controversy led him to believe that rationality has failed to resolve the issues but a narrative paradigm could be a solution. However, Fisher does not adequately explain the other forms of narrative that might be superior to rationality. So he attempts to remove rationality, or at least set it back, but he is not advancing anything new to replace it because everything is already narrative. Actually, his failure to provide specific alternatives to rationality is consistent with his view that the narrative paradigm does not require any expertise to recognize or articulate. Fisher, according to Fisher, cannot claim to have expert knowledge beyond the average person. But then we should also ask why Fisher has to write an essay to explain something to us that we already have knowledge of. One possibility is that he is simply reminding us not to try and advance beyond narrative applications of communication. But if rationality was ineffective, would we need people like Fisher to point that out? No it should be obvious that logic is ineffective.

Original Story

I had started my story a couple weeks ago and went to the gym thinking about it. While at the gym I developed and had some good ideas and an outline of how I wanted to do the story. But when I came back from the gym I never wrote down my ideas. So as I sat down to finish my story I could not remember what I wanted to say next although the theme I could remember.
So basically I had to continue the story again and think of how it could go. I finished it and discovered that my theme changed although one illustration remained the same.
Now I just have to practice it and remember it.
Actually, I guess we can have it written down right?
I read it to my girlfriend. My goal is to practice it once a day at least until thursday.

Competing Narratives

Different people attribute different underlying causes to phenomena. Bad things happen to people. Some people will explain this as due to a personal weakness or decision. Others believe it results from not following the will of God.
both explanations involve telling a story about how such a circumstance occured. Both also draw from wider more generic narratives to explain the specific narrative.
I found myself arguing with someone, not for a particular narrative but simply to promote the idea that even though we may not want one explanation to be true and really think that another narrative is more likely correct, neither narrative is wrong when viewed from the perspective that produced it.
When a person always draws from the same major narrative (religion) to explain minor narratives (why bad things happen) I understand that it can get a little tedious.
But I think we should consider that within the belief of the religious narrative it is considered honorable to continuously draw from that narrative. And to ask someone to explain it differently is like asking them to tear out a piece of who they are.
It seems like the very people who want everyone to consider that there are other explanations for phenomena other than religion hold onto their favorite narrative as dogmatically as the religious people. Its probably too much to ask that people consider the chance that the other side may be correct or that no one has sufficient answers. But I do think we should find reasons to give some small credit to other narratives. We should find something honorable within the other narrative. That is not to say that we should not criticize. But if we add some salt to our criticism it will make it more palatable. Salt is the part of it that we can honor. We don't even have to give it the highest honor, just a small pinch could make a world of difference.