Today’s Plan:
- Attendance
- Workshop Volunteers (the list grows smaller)
- News
- Pathos
- Apology
- Homework
News
Two points here. First, there will be no class on Wednesday November 9th (that’s three Wednesdays away). Second, there will be no more reading in the Duffett, unless you want to compose a final paper about a specific fan community. At this point, there’s so few people studying fan communities, that I think our time will be better spent reading material dedicated to generating a research topic. I will distribute some of this material next week.
There are a few of you who have projects that would benefit from Duffett’s approach, and who might want to spend time focusing on chapters that deal with specific elements/dimensions of fan culture. As we get closer to developing research questions, we’ll discuss this more.
Pathos
Last Monday I spent time discussing logos; this week I want to spend time with one of the other major rhetorical appeals: pathos. Traditionally, philosophers (and a number of rhetoricians) have been skeptical of pathos. They believe(d) emotion gets in the way of logical, factual argument. Ideally, from their perspective, we would learn to leave our emotions and the door and remove emotion from decision-making.
Typically, rhetoricians do not share this ideal; emotion is a key element of our human condition and is often necessary to temper our rational judgements. Furthermore, rhetoric is often concerned with how we move someone from knowledge to action–and this movement often requires emotional encouragement.
As a writer, there’s two primary ways that I want to think about pathos. First, I want to think about how we want our reader to feel when they finish reading our piece. This is the typical way we think about pathos: in terms of a writing producing an emotion in her audience.
However, I also want to frame pathos alongside kairos, which we discussed as the moment in which a piece of writing is encountered. To recall, kairos asks the question “why am I writing this / reading this now? This question is (usually implicitly) answered at the beginning of every speech, as a part of the introduction.
Part of this introductory address involves recognizing and shaping the audience’s preconceptions. That is, rhetoric recognizes that audiences do not come to situations impartial–they bring expectations, attitudes, preconceptions, etc. to the moment. As writers, we need to be able to anticipate and acknowledge audience’s positions from the beginning, if we want to best be able to shape their feelings and behavior in the end.
Let’s look at an example of pathos in action, from President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union.
Apology
I want to think about pathos in terms of a more recognizable genre: the apology. I’d argue that a good apology is difficult to execute for a number of reasons, the most significant being the attempt to argue (to deploy logos) in a rhetorical situation in which the audience expects the performance of pathos.
There’s two things that often mar an apology. The first is more performative–there’s something in the delivery of the apology that marks it as either insincere or overly tugging-on-the-heart strings. The second is more subtle, but almost always damning, and that is shifting from an acknowledgement of wrong-doing to arguing that one hasn’t done anything wrong, or, just as bad, insinuating that there are reasons for why one had to make a transgression.
Another issue is what I like to call ethical distancing. A prime example of this would be Alex Rodriguez’s defense for using PED’s in baseball; Rodriguez apologized for using PED’s but then said that he was just “young and stupid at the time.” This move attempts to create a second, older, “dead” Rodriguez who isn’t the same Rodriguez currently apologizing (and therefore, by logical extension, shouldn’t be punished for his past transgression because, obviously, he knows better.
What we see in these non-apologies is an attempt to take the power to forgive away from the audience–to force their hand. This never works. I would argue that the best apologies do the opposite: they create what philosophers would call an aporia, a kind of empty intellectual space. Take for instance the recent apologies of Hillary Clinton (for her email scandal) and Donald Trump (for his lewd comments) from the recent debates.
COOPER: Thank you, Mr. Trump. The question from Patrice was about are you both modeling positive and appropriate behavior for today’s youth? We received a lot of questions online, Mr. Trump, about the tape that was released on Friday, as you can imagine. You called what you said locker room banter. You described kissing women without consent, grabbing their genitals. That is sexual assault. You bragged that you have sexually assaulted women. Do you understand that?
TRUMP: No, I didn’t say that at all. I don’t think you understood what was — this was locker room talk. I’m not proud of it. I apologize to my family. I apologize to the American people. Certainly I’m not proud of it. But this is locker room talk.
Trump’s was, in a way, a non-apology. While he began by apologizing for the comments he made (sort of?), he then attempt to force a rhetorical frame on them (calling them “locker room talk”) and insinuating that those who would blame him had misunderstood (that the mistake was actually their’s–this is akin to the cardinal sin of apology: “I’m sorry if my words offended you” vs “I didn’t realize how my words would offend other people”). This is similar to A-Rod’s “young and stupid” frame (a bit different). This, in essence, takes away the audience’s ability to hold Trump accountable and is an effort to minimize his fault. Outside of a few circles, Trump got crushed pretty badly for this apology.
Compare this to Hillary Clinton’s apology for emails. Originally, Clinton made a similar move and tried to dismiss the importance of the emails. But, in later interviews and debates she stuck to this approach:
“I have been asked many, many questions in the past year about emails, and what I have learned is that when I try to explain what happened, it can sound like I am trying to excuse what I did,” Clinton said. “And there are no excuses. I want people to know that the decision to have a single account was mine. I take responsibility for it. I apologize for it. I would certainly do differently if I could.”
Notice here two things: first, there is no move to dismiss the importance of the allegations against her. In fact, she acknowledges that this was a bad strategy in the past. Second, notice that she doesn’t distance herself from her transgression (like A-Rod). She owns it.
I also want to call attention to something she doesn’t do: she doesn’t provide or invent a reason for why she made her mistake. As human beings, we are addicted to reasons. We always want to know why. We have to know why. While a risky move, I think the best apologies frustrate this desire for a reason, for a why. We create an empty space. The reason I think this works is because it then moves the audience to start creating reasons why, justifications. Audiences *might* do this if an apology provides them with nothing else to do.
But if an apology has a built in reason, offers its own justification, then audiences are likely to set themselves to work dismantling that justification. Taking it apart piece by piece. The joy of destruction. Especially, as in the Trump case, if they feel as if the justification is being forced on them.
I came up with this theory while researching an article on Michael Vick’s apology for dog-fighting. While Vick originally argued against his guilt and mocked people’s criticism, he emerged a very different person after his conviction. Take a look at his statement. Now whether we think this statement is sincere or strategy is a question. Honestly, I don’t care. I cannot look into Vick’s soul and judge the authenticity (and I would say the same about Clinton). But I can look at his words and recognize the self-control it takes to own a mistake like this one, to stand there and *not* offer justifications even when others already were. What I thought was interesting was that, despite the outrage over Vick’s actions, by and arge the court of public opinion eventually exonerated him. And in many cases, television personalities invented reasons for his transgressions.
Time Permitting: ZeFrank
A few videos on College. Video 1 and Video 2.
Homework
Today I wanted to expose you to a big topic: pathos, and to think about one way to approach that topic via a specific, narrow, genre: the apology. This week I want to you think constructively, even playfully, about how to put this approach into action. I want you to write a post that apologizes to someone, for something. The apology can be sincere. It can be playful. It can be satiric. Over the years I have given this assignment many times, and I am always impressed by the range and depth of the responses it elicits. There are some standard templates for writing apologies, but don’t be trapped by them. Think about the audience you are addressing, and the purpose of your apology.
