Walter Fisher's article proved a bit of a challenging read. I understood (or at least I think I did) many of his and others' philosophies, but keeping them all in mind as the essay jumped from one to the next was where I had difficulty. That being said, I was interested by a number of the proposed situational concepts. The most logical connections I made were between Fisher's definition of narrative, his idea of the master metaphor, and the discussion of public moral judgement.
I liked how Fisher applied such a literary term as narrative to the events surrounding a day in the life. Our routines, who we approach and how we converse with them, our reactions and subsequent actions are all bits of a continued narrative in a giant web of communication that is our day to day life. This perception seems like an extended version of what many others we have read--in this and most probably other courses--have limited to a discourse. While I understand the importance of discourse within our communities, I feel like its often over emphasized and not well defined. The narrative described throughout the Fisher essay was formulated to include the more organic activities of human beings into the series of events that shapes how we think, feel, and act among others. That may sound a little broad, but I wanted to applaud Fisher for his introduction of this idea to knowledge.
I also enjoyed Fisher's interpretation of the master metaphor in explanation of narrative. From what I understood, the master and auxiliary metaphors shape the events that shape the greater narrative. I like how well this was broken down to explain how communication works within our communities. Every action seems to have some sort of meaning, no matter how minimal. What we do is a reflection of what we have learned and experienced. No action is empty. I think it is at this level where we can start to discuss personal and community motivations, but that is another issue entirely.
Finally, Fisher defines the public moral judgement in all-consuming terms. Because this most commonly deals with matters of life and death, each person is bound to have an opinion on all matters public. I liked this excerpt because Fisher stated quite plainly that these matters are not genre-specific and pay no mind to their boundaries. There are so many things that cannot be separated. I think about personal biases, skewed motivations, even specific debate such as the separation of church and state. This might not be specifically what Fisher was referring to, but he got me to think about this idea of a trans-discourse (so much for overuse) and how people may not even know what is affecting their actions and beliefs. A pretty basic example might be when a jury in a court of law is asked to disregard a statement made by a witness, plaintiff or counsel member. I do not believe this can necessarily be done, though I do believe there are those citizens who can exclude whatever they were asked to ignore from their final verdict.
Fisher has given us a lot to think about and has given us a blank canvas to do so.
hey ok so now that i have gotten to read this in depth finally instead of the summary you gave in class on tuesday and the quick one over, i think you did a pretty good job of "decoding" this text... i think its good that we are in the same group right now since i wrote with primary focus on the Porter piece and you the Fisher piece...This will give us good overall veiws from the different perspectives. I agree that the use of narrative to describe almost mundane human activity was clever. Something Levi and i were talking about today, actually, was the narrative concept and how we then are self-rhetors... Any time someone does something to make muscle memory--i.e. they repeat something 500+ times the same way so that it becomes natural or instinctual as a reaction--they are telling themselves how to do that something the same way (through some narrative, put your foot here; move your hands there) repeatedly. Another example of this is the senario in a movie when the kid is trying to practice telling his parents something and he is pacing back and fourth repeating him/her self, attempting to find the best narrative to break the news of usually something terrible to the parents; or there is the scene where a man is rehearsing aking a father if he can marry his daughter or the proposal itself--both of which are set up in the same frame as the kid pacing. Self-rhetoric can even come down to how we brush our teeth everyday. The more i think about it the more examples i have of it and the more it makes sense... When i parallell park i actually "talk myself " through the process... "pull up and line up the cars, reverse, when the mirror of my car lines up with their bumper turn the wheel...oops the other way...and back...oh, a little futher...ok that should be good!" but that is the only way i can parallell park , and its the narrative--practically--that i learned in drivers ed...Self-rhetor is a concept that we thought of while discussing Fisher and Narrative and i think this concept takes rhetor and narrative a step futher... what do you think?
ReplyDeleteThat is an interesting idea. I never thought of a self-rhetor. Again with the filmic analyses! These help me understand some of the more confusing aspects of rhetoric. I like the muscle memory comparison. I think it ties in really well with the experience aspect of Fisher's article. Yes you can learn things by hearing them and committing them to memory, but actually being there--using your senses and knowing what something is--is so much more effective. I feel like we do not have an appropriate perspective if experience is not somehow involved. So much in school is lost because we are essentially asked to memorize something for the semester, then we move on. Of course certain things we learn stick, otherwise what would be the point of an education, but actually living it does so much more than create the potential for knowledge. I went to England for that Shakespeare trip last semester and had this sort of experience. I had learned about Shakespeare before, never being much of a playgoer, but this trip really embedded it into me. If only every class required travel.
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