Pre-determined Rejection of Truth in Harry Potter

George Kennedy's second thesis, "The receiver's interpretation of a communication is prior to the speaker's intent in determining meaning," was interesting to me because he sets up the theory that it doesn't really matter how persuasive the speaker is because the listener has already decided how they will take the information which will determine if they are persuaded or not. This can also be seen as an audience's bias toward a person or situation; if they don't want to hear or receive something, they won't.

This made me think of this thesis in terms of my final project. I want to focus on truth in the Harry Potter series. In Harry Potter, when Voldemort, the evil wizard who wants to eradicate all except the "pure-blooded" families, comes back to life and is yet again a threat, the Ministry of Magic refuses to admit he's back. Even after Dumbledore, one of the most powerful wizards alive, and Harry Potter, their poster child for all that is good, explain that Voldemort has returned, no one believes them. Newspaper ads are run about how crazy both of them are, and the Minister gives statements denying any presence of evil.

Very few people want to actually hear that Voldemort is back. Their lives have been peaceful since he disappeared, and they don't want to believe he's coming to finish what he started the first time. Because of this, the people Harry and Dumbledore are talking to have already decided to reject their story. No matter what evidence the two present, the majority of people who hear them automatically disregard what they say. In this way, their interpretation is prior to the speaker's intent. The meaning the people give Harry and Dumbledore's words has already been determined.

Of course, once there is no longer a way to deny Voldemort's presence any longer, people start to believe what Harry and Dumbledore have been saying from the beginning, showing the audience must accept the truth they initially rejected.

The Importance of Delivery

In George A. Kennedy’s essay, “A Hoot in the Dark: The Evolution of General Rhetoric,” Kennedy breaks down different forms of animal communication in order to shed light on some general rules, or theses, of human rhetoric. Kennedy discusses what he calls the “traditional parts of rhetoric”: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. According to Kennedy, “… delivery is prior to the others” (12).

Kennedy defines delivery as physical movements that include “facial expression, gesture, and tonal inflection” (12). All of these movements are ingrained in humans from birth. They are natural and subconscious responses to exigencies that occur throughout our lifetimes and, as such, are a type of rhetoric unto themselves. Kennedy points out that the delivery of these actions isn’t restricted to just humans, “Physical motion in response to some exigence occurs in the earliest and most primitive forms of life, as when an amoeba moves toward a food supply or away from some noxious stimulus” (12).

Since delivery is such an innate trait in humans and animals, a realistic delivery is one of the most important qualities of successful rhetoric. An audience won't trust a rhetor who they believe isn't being truthful, and a false delivery is a clear sign that the rhetor is lying. A delivery that looks too rehearsed or unnatural is a sure way to alienate an audience.

To show the importance of delivery in the performance of rhetoric, I chose a scene from the movie Stage Beauty. In this clip, the two actors rehearse the murder scene from Shakespeare’s Othello. I chose this clip because I thought it accurately illustrates the importance of delivery. Here, the two actors already know their lines; they aren’t concerned with the writing. What they are concerned with is how to deliver the lines in a way that grabs the attention of the audience and shocks them. In order to accomplish this, they must deliver lines quickly and realistically. As Kynaston tells Maria, “Don’t act with what isn’t there.”

Rhetorical agency and the Georgia Bulldogs

In light of my last blog post, I am compelled to write about something dear to my heart: the Georgia Bulldogs and specifically, the rhetoric of the Bulldog community. This past Saturday, the Dawgs played for the SEC championship and lost (sadly). As I was reading this articles throughout the weekend, I thought about the hype surrounding the words that often surface during heated college football games. My newsfeed on Facebook has been filled with pride, nostalgia and even outright hostility toward one team or the other. Allegiances are drawn as students, alumni and fans rally together and provide (often unnecessary) commentary over an issue they cannot control. Because of this, I thought to myself: Who has agency in this situation?

From Kennedy, we learn a few things about rhetoric: “rhetoric is a defense mechanism,” “rhetoric is expressive of the integrity of the individual,” and humans “share a ‘deep’ universal rhetoric” with animals (10, 6). Kennedy sees the basic means of rhetoric as a way of survival, which is why people and animals alike have the capacity to communicate (20). I thought this generalizing of rhetoric was interesting to read about especially in lieu of the other articles that talk about humans versus objects/things/technology.

With those ideas in mind, I’d like to focus on the last two articles: Bay/Rickert and Gries. Bay and Rickert discuss Heidegger’s idea of the fourfold-earth, sky, divinities, and mortals and how these entities relate to each other (209). The authors argue for a new way of allowing “things” to have agency—not just humans. They emphasize that “we will remain caught in technology’s sway until such time as we can attune ourselves to how new media, and not solely human being, afford other ways of being-in-the-world” (215). In this sense, humans and things are connected in a way that allows agency to fall on both groups.

They use Facebook as an example to show the technology itself creates “community, competition, affection, sociability, thought…” 232). Humans have now become “co-dwellers” with things, which calls for a shared sense of responsibility for any given rhetorical situation. People feel connected through this force. I witnessed this after the game when my Facebook friends kept re-posting a video that showed students welcoming the Bulldogs back to Athens (currently with 4, 604 shares). A sense of unity and pride formed as phrases such as “Dawg ‘til I die!” and “It will always be great to be a GA Bulldog!” kept showing up with the video.

Link to video  

If rhetorical responsibility should be shared, what will that mean for the future of rhetoric? Laurie Gries asks that same question and pushes for rhetorical actancy. She makes this statement: “Agency is a distributed process that emerges out of fluctuating intra-actions between agents, human or nonhuman” (77). The future of agency will depend on our further understanding of how humans and things weave in and out of each other. Right now, it is clear that we use and depend on technology to connect people and rally them together. That idea was solidified for me after witnessing the way a social network became the perfect rhetorical outlet to express emotion, attempt to persuade (and refute) others, or just say something. In answer to the question I posed, I have no idea. I guess only further research will tell.

Oh yeah, Go Dawgs!

Objects in the Writing Center

In “Losing by Expanding: Corralling the Runaway Object,” author Clay Spinuzzi analyzes how a sample of papers reflects third-generation activity theory (3GAT), which he states identifies “an object, a material or problem that is cyclically transformed by collective activity” (449). This object is the center of the analysis. Spinuzzi provides a few examples of such objects, such as iron for a blacksmith and the field for a farmer (453), which are easily identified because of their direct relationships to these “identifiable people.” However, in a world that is constantly changing and forging connections amongst people whose activities utilize less tangible objects than those previously mentioned, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand exactly what objects with which we are dealing in any given analysis. When reading the sample papers, Spinuzzi found that some authors presented an unclear relationship between their activities and objects, while a few could not even accurately identify the object. Only one found a way to connect the object to the activity. 

This ambiguity helps to show how much the object has expanded over the years. While many were (and some still are) concrete, most are now abstract. Many involve activity networks that share numerous different people, activities, locations and objectives. Activities Spunizzi calls “knowledge work” uses objects that are more abstract and multiperspectival than material (464). I tend to think of knowledge work as the substance of white-collar jobs, such as medical knowledge for a doctor or legal law for a lawyer. In the example of a lawyer, he or she is just one player in the activity network of a legal case. The defendant, plaintiff, judge, jury, other lawyer, and countless others are involved. Some have similar goals, such as winning the case, but people have different reasons for doing so. The lawyer wants to win in order to get more money and a good reputation, while his or her client wants to win because personal matters are at stake. 

Spinuzzi suggests that we analyze more studies based in activity theory so that we may limit the object. His methodological approach includes working to bound the case, identify the text used within the boundaries we have made, identify outcomes, re-bound the case, and then describe the activity. Too often do people try to expand the object. This approach is complicated because too many factors get involved, and the object takes on a mind of its own. If we narrow down the object instead, in a way we are simplifying the process and breaking down all the parts that go along with it.

This article reminded me of my work in the Writing Center. Oftentimes, students come in looking for help organizing their papers and making sure they provide enough support for their arguments. When I ask them what exactly their arguments are, many provide a long verbal explanation that seems pretty complicated, rather than pointing to their thesis. I see the object Spinuzzi talks about as the thesis in a common academic paper. The thesis is the true heart of the matter in the paper, much like how an object is the heart of the activity. When students cannot accurately point out their theses and provide specific arguments, I find that their papers have less direction than those that do have strong arguments. After working with them on narrowing down their subjects they want to write about, they usually have a clearer idea of what their paper is trying to prove.

Velociraptor's Rhetoric

                I found George Kennedy’s article, “A Hoot in the Dark: The Evolution of General Rhetoric” to be thoroughly fascinating. Throughout the article, he tries to pin down certain universal rules for rhetoric since the definition of it has changed quite a lot over the past 2200 years or so. In order to develop these universal rules, he looks at animal communication and rhetoric in order to get at the most basic of definitions. I had never thought of animals having rhetoric before this, but after reading this article I agreed with George Kennedy. Rhetoric is more than spoken communication – there are “some features of communication in common among many species, including human beings, apparently favored by natural selection in evolution from the earliest forms of life.” (20)

                Kennedy first defines rhetoric as a form of energy such as – the energy forcing the speaker to act, the energy to act, the energy level in the message, and the energy for the recipient to understand the message. After making this one declaration, he quickly and concisely goes through eight other theses to sharpen this definition of rhetoric. These theses show how rhetoric has assisted evolution and natural selection. It also reveals that the traditional aspects of rhetoric actually precede the idea of speech.

                Kennedy’s first main thesis, “ Rhetoric is prior to speech,” helps to explain what he means by rhetoric is energy. He states that before speech can take place, there needs to be reason behind the communication – an exigence. But he is quick to say that speech only evolved in humans because rhetoric already existed in nature. Animals experience exigencies and reasons to act and communicate with others all the time. And it is because rhetoric was already a part of nature and the evolutionary chain that humans took the next step with rhetoric and used language and speech to communicate. Nature has favored communication all along because, even though it costs energy, it is far “less costly than physical motion, such as flight or fight.” (4)

                Upon understanding the idea that rhetoric has been a part of nature since before humans, it made me think of the movie “Jurassic Park 3,” specifically the velociraptors. One of the main aspects of the movie are the raptors and how they have complex communicational skills. Many of the theses that Kennedy states can be illustrated with this example.  

                The raptors in the movie have various different “calls” that they use depending on the situation. While the ability to create these different calls are a part of their anatomy, when to use them can be learned and imitated. Kennedy states that by observations, humans and animals can learn to understand features of each other’s rhetoric. In the movie, Grant observes and learns the raptor call for “help.” At the end, he imitates this call (with a raptor skull fossil) in order to confuse the raptors (so they won’t eat them).

                This only works because the meaning for the call was already understood by the raptor before Grant used it. This is also Kennedy’s second thesis – “the receiver’s interpretation of a communication is prior to the speaker’s intent in determining the meaning.” (7) At one point in the movie, the humans try to run into a herd of herbivores to disguise themselves but as soon as the other dinosaurs see the raptors they flee. The raptors use this confusion in order to work together and separate the humans. Actions are interpreted differently by the various animals and do not always match the original being’s intent.

                Kennedy also states that animals have the ability to lie in order to secure their own protection, seek out food, or find a mate. The raptors at one point set up a trap. They injure one of the people and leave him in plain sight of the others. When they go to rescue him, the raptors will then go in for the kill. This not only illustrates the idea that the meaning precedes action (of what to do with a downed comrade) but that rhetoric helps to determine survival of the fittest (thesis four). By being able to trick their food to come to them, they use less energy than they would if they had to chase them down. The velociraptors in the movie are designed to be smarter than primates but I believe that they illustrate aspects of Kennedy’s theses perfectly. Rhetoric is a form of energy that has been present in the world long before not only human speech but humans at all.

Technology Independent

A common theme that has come up in the postmodern rhetoric has been the discussion of technology in regards to agency, intentionality, meaning, and interpretation. Before this point, classic rhetoric was a human  achievement, something that stood out beyond the animal realm or other realms. “have we also initiated a shift in our understanding off the relations among human beings, things, and the world they show up in.”  Kennedy’s discussion of animal rhetoric brings startling realization that beyond our narcissistic view of ourselves, there are other mediums beyond humanity where rhetoric exists. “I suppose rhetoric is not a “substance" in the logical sense, though it does seem to me that there is something found in nature that either resembles rhetoric or possibly constitutes the starting point from which it is culturally evolved.” Each of the readings discussed an alternate form of more modern rhetoric outside the traditional forms of human discourse.

A resonating discussion was the agency of rhetoric beyond the human and the type of fear that spurns from technology connecting the world. One discussion highlights how issues become larger than their original intention through technology. “Runaway object start as small problems or marginal innovations but balloon into objects that are larger than any of the activity systems that are orientated toward them. That is, objects are no longer closely bounded or material, are much bigger than the materials in which they are instantifocated, are multiperspectical…” The traditional rhetoric does not leave room for an agent beyond the human. “Technology itself is not an agent.”  (Bay and Rickert)  Movies such as I, Robot with Will Smith help highlight the human fear that agency will be taken beyond or control by our creations. Bay and Rickert  discussed how technology is always within our control, “Technology and its artifacts appear as our objects, themselves manipulable through technical thinking, and not as object of concern in and of themselves…” Rhetoric has been viewed as something that must be manipulated and interpreted by society. The fear of occurrences like the robotic takeover presented in I Robot represent a fear that the human element will no longer be necessary for rhetoric. If the human element were no longer necessary in the discourse of rhetoric  than the thesis’ of rhetoric would be disproven. “rhetorical invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery are phenomena of nature and prior to speech.”  If technology is able to create intention from its own creation and memory, than humans are not responsible for rhetoric.

Kennedy’s Animal Rhetoric in Children’s Films

In “A Hoot in the Dark: The Evolution of General Rhetoric,” Kennedy provides a detailed background of the evolution of rhetoric and suggests it “is not a ‘substance’ in the logical sense, though it does seem that there is something found in nature that either resembles rhetoric or possibly constitutes the starting point from which it has culturally evolved” (1). He argues that rhetoric is a natural ability that exists prior to speech, and throughout his paper, he identifies “some universal rules of the rhetorical code” by using the animal kingdom as the overarching comparison (3). In this blog post, I will use examples from various children’s movies during which animals demonstrate the actions Kennedy describes in his first thesis.

In this thesis—Rhetoric is prior to speech—Kennedy writes: “Among some species there may be one animal who is on watch. An intruder is noticed and a cry given indicating a possible enemy or possible prey. The other animals receive the message and react in an appropriate way” (4). This is the case in the following example from Disney Pixar’s A Bug’s Life (see 7:50 and on). Hopper and his grasshopper gang are coming to fetch and feast on the crop they demand from the Queen and her village ants each year. Two or three ants fulfill the “on watch” role and signal to the remaining ants that Hopper is near and signal the message to the other ants. 

Kennedy furthers this thesis and writes: “If another animal of the same species is approaching, the leader of the pack will experience this as a threat to his position, perhaps an effort to replace him in his relationship to the females…What then takes place is rarely an immediate fight. There is a more or less extended period of attempts on each side to intimidate the other with growls, physical movements…and other signs of intent” (4). Although this is not a children’s movie, Paramount Picture’s Mean Girls illustrates this concept in the following clip:

In this example, the roles of the sexes are reversed, as Regina George is the leader of the pack. She wants to dangle Aaron Samuels in front of Cady Herron, who also has a crush on him. What Kennedy suggests in his examples occurs in this clip as well; when Cady enters the cafeteria, Regina makes an effort to define the relationships and put every participating party in his/her place. Granted, in this scene, a fight does erupt, but Cady narrates to viewers how the scene would unravel in the animal world as the action takes place. Note the growls, scratches and other animalistic behaviors.

The ritualized socializing that Kennedy mentions, “involves ‘reassuring ‘contact calls’” (5). Whereas Kennedy uses the example of birds gathering on a university campus, another all-encompassing example of this can be found in nearly any Disney film, for example, when animals congregate around a watering hole or monumental landmark. Here are some films that come to mind: The Lion King (Pride Rock), Tarzan, and DreamWorks Madagascar. Here are some snapshots of those locations, compliments of Google Images. 

Before concluding the thesis, Kennedy discusses systems of animal language. He writes: “We can, however, by observation learn to understand animal rhetoric and many animals can understand some features of human rhetoric that they share with us, such as gestures or sounds that express anger or friendliness or commands” (6). This reminded me of Dr. Dolittle (although it is not that applicable), but for your viewing pleasure, check out the trailer.

These are only a select few of the ungodly amount of examples available to us. Pop in any children’s film featuring animals and you will find something applicable to what Kennedy describes in this essay. In all of the examples here, rhetoric is prior to speech. “‘Meaning,’” writes Kennedy, “is the interpretation given to the communication by another animal” (7).

Sources:

“Disney A Bugs Life Part 1.” 26 June 2012. YouTube. Accessed on 1 December 2012. Web.  

“Doctor Dolittle Trailer HD.” 15 August 2009. YouTube. Accessed on 1 December 2012. Web.  

Google Images. Google. Accessed on 1 December 2012. Web.   

Kennedy, George. “A Hoot in the Dark: The Evolution of General Rhetoric.” Philosophy and Rhetoric. 25.1 (1992): 1-7.

“Mean girls animal world.” 15 March 2011. YouTube. Accessed on 1 December 2012. Web.