Postmodernism’s origins revolved
around the strategic readings of Marx and Freud along with global movements and
events. Bakhtin’s work in ethics and
literary theory and emphasis on moral philosophy were reminiscent of earlier
rhetoricians, such as Plato and Aristotle.
He focused on ethics and aesthetics in regard to the uniqueness of the
self and the inability to remain neutral on immoral or unethical subjects or
matters of work. His three schematic
models of the human psyche were used in order to develop a sense of
identity. His idea that identity is not
something that belongs merely to the individual, and rather belongs to a group
as a whole is very similar to the concept that emotion and personal feeling
should be removed from and argument, as no one person can have property over
that emotion or take personal offense when another disagrees with them because
argument is not personal. Perhaps
identity is not personal either, and if that and the previous of emotions are
meant to be devoid in a person’s argument, statement, or being then how
ethically does that make sense? How does one keep their moral compass aligned
when they cannot possess their own identity and are not mean to feel anything
when they are argued against or proven wrong? We like to think that we can
stand above the emotion and be selfless and emotionless when people refute our
arguments, but is it not human nature to disagree simply for the fact that your
opinion is wrong and someone else’s is right—especially if yours is proven
false, invalid, or lackluster? Identity can be regarded as that which is
socially assigned to each of us, or the hat we choose to wear based on what
society offers us, so if we remove that hat and there’s no sense of identity is
there also no sense of self? And if there is no identity and no self then how
are we meant to take a stance and create and support our own arguments?
When we examine Baktin and how his arguments were related to old rhetorical ways, as well as new ones. In the old ways he focused on ethics as well as polyphony and then he argued that discourse for certain communities are not transitional, that someone that is not within a community can never cross over and truly understand, someone can learn everything and fully emerge themselves but they cannot be fully transformed into a discourse community for which they are not innately integrated because everyone is trapped in their own ideologies. In the 21st century we are perhaps moving away from the memory, and when we think of memoria as a lost canon along with formalism. Baktin was critical of formalism, as western thought has typically withheld and underlying biblical roots, which are founded in the Old Testament and the emphasis on obeying the law and then someone will happen within the person as they conform to a certain set of laws. The New Testament however is quite the opposite because it is more about adopting the inner spirit and not concerning yourself is obeying the laws. The 20th century’s transition form formalism into a more open sense that allowed creativity, when language does not occur the interaction of language can, because we have begun to see each other as texts, or use forms of communication that are not the traditional writing or text. When we think about semiotics is the study of meaning-making, so the theory of sign and symbols—or and understanding of how communication works that might exist. When we think of the rise of linguistics, and the study of language as itself, and then what we do with language is then to speak (parole) and this is truly where rhetoric lies, even though it still persists in the usage (longue). In a sense have to know what kinds of things we have to say and that relates to the Greek notion of kairos. Kairos then is divided into the possible and the momentary, and the Greeks focused on the moment—which we still look at now to theorize what we do.
ReplyDelete