I wanted to follow and finish the three main points made in class since we were only to go over one of them.
The first was the continuum of emotions and how there's always a middle ground that the person being persuaded is pulled to either side of. The example shown in the reading was fear and confidence and this was the one we talked about in class a lot, which I think we covered pretty well.
The second main point that I analyzed was that every emotion has a limited time frame and a sense of proximity to tell how long and how much of an effect this emotion holds over you. This strategy helps the rhetor determine who he/she needs to persuade the most efficiently and who will be easier to persuade. In SmithHyde reading, they talk about how the longer you let an emotion sit, the greater a chance it has to go away and they return back to a neutral emotional state. I think the best example for this is when we were all rebellious high-schoolers to our parents. When we'd get mad at them for something dumb they would tell us to go to sleep and we'd feel better in the morning. Everytime I woke up I was never mad anymore. I think this works for all emotions; they all spark an intense feeling, but never an ever-lasting feeling.
On the topic of proximity and emotions, HydeSmith uses the analogy of Alcibiades and Callicles. "Proximity in time and space allows the identification to take place" (HydeSmith 453). This is true and they go on to show it through their analogy: "Alcibiades observation of Callicles threatening circumstances forces Alcibiades to share them as being close to his own existence" (HydeSmith 453). They say that as a result, what is brought close to Alcibiades now "gains a dimension of immediacy." "Thus, Alcibiades pity is incited by his fear of certain circumstances that he experiences by identifying with one another. Emotion modifies the lived time and space of our everyday being-with-others" (SmithHyde 452). It's this last line that seems most important to me; I think it's sort of defining the second main point of how emotions have limits and can be modified to due proximity.
Let me know what your alls thoughts are on in this point.
In an earlier post (back when we we're reading "On Rhetoric") I took the position that Aristotle's necessity of temporal and spacial proximity was unfounded. I used the example of Haitian earthquake victims receiving so much aid from developed countries as evidence that we are capable of feeling pity toward those who are nowhere near our time/place/circumstances. Admittedly, people made some strong counterarguments that had good merits, and I started to question my premises.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm starting to come around. I wouldn't say that the temporal/spacial proximity is an absolute requisite for pity (or any other emotions) but it does seem to have strong effects. Perhaps the appropriate means to show this would be to ask why Americans were so giving. We would no doubt find that the Haitian's circumstances had been brought into proximity with the American audience, via vivid images and startling news lines. So, perhaps, proximity is a fundamental component of these feelings. To a speaker, this means bringing the objects of the emotions into close proximity to the audience. But not TOO CLOSE, because that ends in suicide or emotional shell shock, in the cases of Edwards and the Haitian crisis respectively. Nor can it be too slight, or the "neutral emotional state" that Reed identified sets in.
That's a really interesting point, Gordon. I think you're right about the medias ability to bring into our proximity things we'd otherwise be quite disconnected from, and thereby effect change/action.
ReplyDeleteIt's actually a little frightening that they have this power, since which events the media bring into our proximity affects which events we act upon, and we can not say for sure if we are being exposed to the right information or the most important information, and we can say for certain that we are not being exposed to ALL the information.
The ability of a media to "transport" a shocking image from halfway around the globe to being right in front of us as if we could reach out and touch it is an interesting one. The capability of Media to translate, transform and finally transport the messages inherent in the visuals and sounds of a disaster is a curious one, and in a sense we could even say that by interacting with these media we extend our senses through these networks to alter our perceptions, thus creating the proximity that Aristotle demands. To quote Marshall McLuhan's book "Understanding Media", "all technologies are extensions of our physical and nervous systems" and through them we reach out and interact with a world far larger than what we would have originally. To point the finger at the "Media", meaning the established news organizations and the like, is perhaps a bit too hasty. After all, if an amateur set up a webcam of his own and streamed images online of the destruction in Haiti, wouldn't your reaction be almost the same?
ReplyDeleteEmotions are interesting to examine, and I appreciate your points about the continuum and proximity. I've definitely found this to be true in my own life, since I've always been a person who lives in the extremes of emotions (although I've mellowed as I've gotten older, thank goodness!).
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that weirds me out but at the same time fascinates me about the human mind is how many emotions can be happening at once. They don't all happen at the same intensity, but they can all be there. Last night, for example, I was happy for a friend who just had a baby, worried about some friends in danger from the earthquake in Christchurch, NZ, and stressed about an assignment. And that's just the stuff in the forefront; there were even more emotions swirling around behind it all. It was remarkable how I went from happy (I heard about the baby first) to worried in an instant, though, once I heard about the earthquake. So to put that in the context of proximity, the worry "won" because danger is immediate, whereas the baby will be around for a while and I can always come back to happiness/adoration/etc.
It is interesting to see how quick emotions can be sparked up and how fast they can return to a neutral state. A personal experience I have with this is through my job. I am a server at Chili’s and one day at work I became extremely sad when I realized I wouldn’t be able to talk to my boyfriend for a month because he was going to visit his family in Nigeria. Then as I started getting more tables, I got angry and frustrated with my customers demands. This frustration got so intense that I felt I could just break down in the middle of my shift. But then a funny thing happened. An hour later I got done with work and my best friend came to eat lunch with me at Chili’s. I actually ended up having a really good time with her and was laughing and enjoying myself. It was like the emotions experienced earlier that day had never even happened! So I do understand the wide ranges of emotions someone can experience in a short time, and how quickly they can go away.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of proximity to emotions discussed makes me think of Maurice Nicoll's explanation of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff's "The Work." The general idea behind "The Work" is that man is multiple. This essentially means that all too often the individual considers him/herself to be one with their emotions, to actually BE their emotions (i.e. stating "I am happy," or "I am angry") when in fact, according to "The Work," the individual, as we have all experienced, becomes a different person experiencing and perceiving things differently all the time. Incorporating "The Work" into ones daily life, in an attempt to avoid experiencing negative emotions (which Nicoll claims we have a human right to avoid), involves literally creating a proximity from ones own emotions. The process, which I can only describe here briefly, involves stepping outside of one's self and observing one's own experience of any particular emotion as an objective third party. One would attempt to then perceive the situation as "That is a person who is angry, happy, sad, etc." rather than "I am angry, happy, sad, etc." If this can successfully become an individuals habitual method of experiencing emotion Nicoll claims the individual will become happier, generally speaking, and have a much better time interacting with other people. Part of this has to do with the fact that you can avoid others imposing negative emotions on you; you can effectively manage the affect others have on you. There are no claims that any person is capable of completely preventing an emotion from overwhelming them or affecting them negatively, but rather you can attempt avoid experiencing brash negativity to the best of your ability. I felt that this concept of creating "proximity" to allow an emotion to calm down is much more interesting and useful than simply going to sleep. If we all were to implement "The Work," which I recommend you read about yourself (as I am sure I didn't come close do doing an adequate job explaining it), I imagine the world, and more specifically rhetoric, would be a much different game. I think that proximity is a very interesting and important component to emotion, as well as the fleeting nature and intense onset of many of the emotions we experience. I find the notion of manipulating and controlling said proximity (at least to an extent) incredibly interesting.
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