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Writing Provides a Representation of Ideologies and Identities
Christopher Farris
Introduction
Victor Villanueva’s Section 3.5 of Naming What We Know, “Writing Provides a Representation of Ideologies and Identities” can be synopsized in three statements:
Number 1: Writers (and especially rhetorical writers) foreground their identities, truncating their life experience and adopting a persona, before addressing the page. Rhetoricians first put on a mask that is representative of some feature(s) of their identity and, having established that virtual idea of themselves with the audience, lean on that character to forward their argument. Thus, “As a United States Army Officer…”, or “I have a background in science…” become ideological strawmen on which the audience is able to infer some expectations. Gayatri Spivak defines this as “strategic essentialism,” a reduction of the complex in support of a political statement. This foregrounding can also appear in the language used by the writer. Students writing at a University are likely to unintentionally use the language of discourse that they have learned in their classrooms, thus displaying their “student” persona and the environment in which it was built. (Olinger)
Number 2: Denying the writer’s position in the world, their beliefs, upbringing and experience, whether on the part of the writer (who may attempt to elevate themselves out of their own domain) or the reader is a mistake and perpetuates an untruth. The writer who attempts this form of negating their own ideologies could be accused of denying that there is a reality beyond their comprehension and, indeed, of assuming mastery of world views that he/she does not own or fully understand. Special consideration, Spivak suggests, should be taken when addressing post-colonial, race and gender topics. (T. Sakhkhane) The writer who attempts this is facing a daunting task, as it is nearly impossible to remove their own ideologies from the conversation. Consider the author Tom Wolfe, who wrote about the military pilots who became astronauts in his excellent book, The Right Stuff allows his capitalist ideologies to shine through when discussing the military, a primarily socialist organization. (Wolfe)
Number 3: James Berlin offers three conceptions of writing: A) Objective epistemology, that writing is reflective of an objective reality and, therefore, can be represented outside of the ideologies inherent to the writer or the reader, B) subjective epistemology, that writing is intentional and should be measured only based upon the writer’s original intentions, or C) transactional epistemology, that writing is constructed in a partnership between the writer, the reader and the ideologies in the overarching culture in which the document is to be found. Berlin contends that rhetoric has been consigned to “mere science” versus poetics which allows for emotion. This is a mistaken practice. (“Berlin, James. Rhetoric and Reality”)
Summary
Villanueva suggests that, though writers may intend to elevate themselves out of their ideologies, they are unlikely to, may be writing dishonestly while attempting to do so and should be cognizant that all of us, at one time or another, put on personas when presenting our arguments to the page.
Works Cited
“Berlin, James. Rhetoric and Reality: Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1900-1985. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987 .” Prelims, http://fsuprelims.weebly.com/1/post/2015/08/berlin-james-rhetoric-and-reality-writing-instruction-in-american-colleges-1900-1985-carbondale-southern-illinois-university-press-1987.html. Accessed 1 Dec. 2020.
Olinger, Andrea R. “Constructing Identities through ‘Discourse’: Stance and Interaction in Collaborative College Writing.” Linguistics and Education, vol. 22, no. 3, Sept. 2011, pp. 273–86. ScienceDirect, doi:10.1016/j.linged.2011.04.001.
T. Sakhkhane. Spivak and Postcolonialism : Exploring Allegations of Textuality. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. EBSCOhost, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,sso&db=nlebk&AN=452360&site=ehost-live&scope=site&custid=s8428489.
Wolfe, Tom. The Right Stuff. Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1983.
