Rhetoric and Dialectic

It should come as no surprise to those who know me that the sections defining rhetoric and dialectic on pages 29-31 were among my favorite parts of the book. I’ve been familiar with the “rhetoric is the counter-part of dialectic” line since I first opened Aristotle, but haven’t seen it combined in such a clear way before. I’m somewhat bothered by the term “truth” in the definition (mostly because I unconsciously link it with the term Truth), but I like how engaging in a struggle of understanding and conveying the results of that struggle is at the heart of dialectic and rhetoric.

As these concepts are used in the section titled Exigent Rhetoric in Game Developers’ Discourse (beginning on page 92) we clearly see how a rhetorical analysis reveals important things. As social constructs, issues such as values and power are revealed and negotiated through communication and it was interesting to see this at play in the examples cited. Although McAllister rightly points out that these same issues can be seen in any discourse community, I agree that the computer gaming industry is an interesting place to study it. Though the artifacts were limited to just one of many potential discussion boards, it shows the multiple perspectives, backgrounds, and purposes that go into developing computer games.

When I was masters student at Illinois, I knew someone who worked for a local game development company. He was trying to be successful with his humanities degree from a liberal arts college in a highly technical field. He often spoke about his frustrations in having to consistently prove his worth and the importance of his contributions to the game, specifically in the story, character development, etc. I’m not sure what ended up happening to him, but I don’t think he (or the company) was particularly successful.

Its beyond the scope of the book, but I can’t help but continue to think about how questions of value and power continue to be part of the ongoing discussion about the field of technical communication. Of course the irony is that of all people, technical communicators should be best able to clearly articulate what we do, and to make the case for our value.

Surveillant Assemblage

Haggerty, K. D. & Ericson, R. V. (2000). The surveillant assemblage. British Journal of Sociology, 51(4). 605-622. DOI: 10.1080/00071310020015280

After building a theoretical framework of survelliance based on the notions of the “telescreen” described in Orwell’s 1984 and Foucault’s discussion of the panopticon, the authors connect those thoughts with Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of assemblages to document the attributes of what they call the “surveillant assemblage.”  As an assemblage, contemporary surveillance is made up of a wide variety of technologies and institutions. Surveillance is directed toward a person’s body (itself an assemblage with a variety of “flows”) with the goal of turning it into pure information.  Like rhizomes, the connections of various surveillance tools allow for rapid and non-linear growth. In contrast to the traditional top-down version of surveillance, the contemporary model also illustrates how the general public has been able to monitor the elite. In the end, the new surveillant assemblage has led to the disappearance of disappearance; it is nearly impossible to leave the grid.

This article clearly applies the concepts of the Deleuze and Guattari to a contemporary issue and illustrate how thinking through this lens reveals interesting things that may have been missed before. Written a decade ago, it integrates many of the features of the information age, but as online and virtual presences have been increased in the last few years it only points to the growth of surveillant assemblage.