Academic Writing
Andreea Mateescu
Professor Mascuch
Rhetoric 129
3 October 2022
Deconstruction and Reconstruction of the Self Through Narrative
In “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality,” Hayden White, an American historian, analyzes three main methods for documenting and recounting history: the annal (a chronological list of events), the chronicle (which seems to wish to tell a story but “fails to achieve narrative closure), and the history proper (of which “the plot of narrative imposes a meaning on the events that comprise its story… by revealing at the end a structure that was immanent in the events all along”) making real life events seem like a story that was being told all along (White, 14 and 23). White’s paper centralizes “narrative,” the formation of a story (with a beginning, middle, and end), and “narrativity,” the act of organizing events so that they tell a story. The discourse of the former two models of history-retelling adopts “a perspective that looks out on the world and reports it,” while the last model’s discourse is characterized as “[making] the world speak itself and speak itself as a story” (White 7).
In his 1975 autobiography, Roland Barthes, the French literary theorist and essayist, Roland Barthes: recalls memories from his life, recounts important parts (people, things, and events) from his existence thus far (nonetheless, cataloged in alphabetical order, so as to give an impression of structure to the narrative he creates), and deconconstructs his identity and reputation in order to then construct a new identity—one that is akin but not identical to the former—an act similar in nature to the moral of the story of Argo. Roland Barthes is an example of Hayden White’s conceptualization of “proper history,” as White defines it in “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality” because Barthes enacts narrativity, telling a story through creating a narrative (with a beginning, middle, and end—a conclusion, narrative closure consisting of the passage from one moral to another), which is a key characteristic of the history proper and one which is not a part of the annal or the chronicle.
In Roland Barthes, Barthes gives structure to his narrative by listing descriptions of his memories (each description is one to three short paragraphs in lengths) in alphabetical order by memory title (for example, “The adjective” or “Paradox”), which allows the reader to focus on interpreting the memories as they are recalled. In other words, the structure of a narrative—similar to a map that guides a reader through the telling of a narrative—confirms the story and what the reader should take away from the story, in the same way in which narrativity (structure/order of events) confirms the narrative (the act of the happening of the events as if they were supposed to happen that way) (White, 15).
When one recalls memories the way that Barthes does in his autobiography, the act of recalling the memory makes up the being of the person as much as the singularity of the act of the event when it originally happened. Therefore, if a persona (in this case, Barthes’ existence) is defined by how the persona spends time, and it spends time thinking and recalling memories, then the order of the thoughts (which often is circular because the same series of thoughts cycle through a person’s mind) does not particularly matter. Rather, it is the act of documenting the thoughts and then creating a structure so that they may be understood clearly that is of the most importance, and doing so in such a way that the story seems to have been there all along—this is what the history proper is, as defined by White. By listing his memories in alphabetical order in Roland Barthes, Barthes gives a widely, easily understood structure (that of the Latin alphabet) to the narrative he is creating for himself, for his life; his narrativity is simple in structure, complex in understanding, and beautifully intricate in its orchestration.
At the beginning of his book, Barthes does not even list his pages by number, but just has a few images of places and family members from his childhood; the number of pages begins only when the alphabetical order starts, which poses strengthens the postulation that is the order of events (denoted by the page numbers) is relevant to Barthes only through the subliminal structure of the alphabet. Similarly, the narration in alphabetical order of the recounting of events in his memory as such a consistent action, that the listing the events and occurrences of his life in a particular chronological order becomes arguably irrelevant to him and, therefore, to the reader. Barthes lists his description by their titles’ alphabetical order simply as a way to organize his thought in a cohesive manner because human nature craves structure within a narrative. So, perhaps the alphabetical order is the only proper way to narrativize memories (and give them a meaningful order) because the act of recounting memories is circular in its nature, so a person ordering their recalling of memories becomes a de-composing process, requiring the person to compose of themselves a new a identity, in which identity is predominantly characterized by the narrativization of events in a person’s life—just as Barthes does in Roland Barthes.
Barthes’ remembrance of his life’s memories lies in a “reality which lends itself to narrative representation [conflicting] between desire.. and the law” (which in the case of Roland Barthes is the conflict between a traditional narrative structure with a story arc, and that of Barthes’ autobiography which atypically structures itself in alphabetical order with the retelling of his memories) (White 16). This prompts the suspicion that, perhaps, narrative in general… has to do with… authority.” (White 17).
Narrative is a form of authority; autobiography is a narrative of the self; therefore, autobiographical narrative is authority over one’s life—past, present, and future; both in relation to the self and to the self’s community; authority over one’s life in both the external events and internal thoughts, processes, and introspections that occur for every individual, every day. An autobiography can be thought of as a “proper history” regardless of its format because it narrativizes an individual’s personal “historical events'' and makes them seem like they were telling a story all on their own; as if the events being laid out are not just obsolete parts of an individual’s life, but a web of learning opportunities that are part of a larger, more intricate system of existence—this is what Barthes does in Roland Barthes.
For Barthes, similarly to White, the reality of real events does not consist merely in the fact that they occurred, but that these real events were both remembered and “capable of finding a place in a chronologically ordered sequence,” in Barthes’ case, in the widely understood sequence of the alphabet (White 23). Stories (marked by a beginning, middle and end) are what give the story-receiver closure, and only in autobiography is the ending given a name (ex. Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes). So, if “narrative closure consists of… the passage from one moral to another,” then Barthes narrative closure lies in the shift from his autobiography’s beginning conceptualization of Barthes (literally labeled out by the first thing that the reader reads on his autobiography, the title: Barthes by Barthes), which is then de-constructed throughout the text, and finally concludes with a newly re-constructed identity for him: that which is made up of all the little memories he is able to recall. As White notes, a proper history opposes the idea “that any sequence of real events actually comes to an end… that events of the order of the real have ceased to happen,” so instead we say that something new was constructed from something that previously existed (White 26), as Roland Barthes does; a rebirth, a proper history.
Bibliography
Hayden White
Andreea Mateescu
Professor Constable
Rhetoric 117
2 March 2023
Meno's Modes of Listening Towards Learning Satisfaction
In Cathal Woods’ 2011 translation of Plato’s Meno, Meno and Socrates use various ways of listening while conversing as they search to understand and categorize virtue. If to listen is to understand spoken word, then there are multiple ways of listening, just as there are multiple ways of understanding spoken word. Listening is an act that seemingly necessitates another act in conjunction with it, to name a few: listening to oneself while speaking (like Socrates), not interjecting and listening closely to someone (like Socrates and Meno), and listening to agree or disagree with what is said (as Socrates and Meno do). By exhibiting a variety of listening modes during a conversation between its multiple characters, Meno supports a learning model towards satisfaction, which uses various ways of listening for an interlocutor to properly understand what is being said and finding what is not yet understood.
Through dialogue, Meno and Socrates try to define virtue in relation to what it is and what it is not. Socrates speaks much more than Meno. In doing so, Socrates guides the conversation by listening to himself speak, understanding what it is that he is saying, and expressing various aspects of virtue as the words come to him. Socrates both speaks much and listens much, seemingly trying to analyze what he says as he says it, as if this is a highly satisfying process.
As Socrates and Meno try to understand what virtue is (72a-b), Socrates proposes that “even if there are many different kinds [of virtue], they all have some one form the same, on account of which they are virtues, and which… a person who is answering another who asked for what virtue actually is to be made clear would rightly have paid attention to. Or don't you understand what I mean” (72b). Here, and often throughout Meno, Socrates finishes his proposition with a clarifying question to make sure he has understood Meno correctly. In doing so, Socrates satisfies the question of common understanding between him and Meno.
Socrates often phrases his question with the term “you,” implying that there is no one the question is posed towards, simply that the question is for anyone listening. For example, he asks that “you don't think that everyone, best of men, desires good things?” and “Would you say that people who are so confused about anything are properly teachers?” (77c, 96b). The first question seems directed to Meno, while the second is directed to Anytos, another character from the text. So, regardless of the character being spoken to, Socrates tends to use “you” in his questioning, rather than using the proper name of the character he is speaking to.
By incorporating “you” into his clarifying questions, Socrates appears to ask himself the clarifying questions, in addition to posing them to Meno. In this way, Socrates very closely listens to himself while speaking, so he is able to keep himself from possibly misunderstanding virtue based on shortcomings in his proposed notions of virtue. Additionally, by asking questions, as opposed to not, Socrates can be more attentive towards and more accurately understand what it is that is being said. Meno also asks clarifying questions to satisfy his understanding of virtue. For example, when Socrates brings up Gorgias, a self-proclaimed rhetoritian of their time, Meno asks to confirm, “What? Didn't you meet Gorgias when he was here?” (71c). When Meno listens, he listens carefully to every word from Socrates to properly understand what Socrates is saying.
In the moments in which Meno tries to evade distracting questions by Socrates, it becomes evident just how closely Meno listens to Socrates. At one point, Socrates changes the conversation topic from virtue to knowledge. Meno is asked if he “think[s] it is possible, if someone doesn't at all know who Meno is, to know whether he is handsome or wealthy or further, noble, or the opposites of these,” to which Meno responds, “not to me. But do you truly not know, Socrates, what virtue is?” (71c). Meno does not interrupt Socrates; he allows Socrates to finish his thought. Here, while Socrates is seemingly trying to illustrate that virtue might not have to do with reputation, Meno directs the conversation instantly back to the word “virtue,” which is what intrigued Meno to begin with. In avoiding distracting questions, Meno proves that he is listening closely to Socrates with the purpose of discussing virtue, thus somewhat satisfying the initial curiosity towards virtue.
The two characters try to understand what virtue is by listening to each other’s knowledge on the subject; it seems that Socrates better understands shortcomings within their proposed categorizations of virtue. This is possibly because Socrates listens closely twice: both to what he says and to what Meno says, while Meno listens more closely to Socrates speaking than to himself when speaking (possibly because Meno speaks less than Socrates). As they try to place known terms towards virtue, a concept that appears to not have had words put to it before, Socrates is the one who asks if “it seemed that it was teachable, if virtue is wisdom” (98d). Here, Socrates is not listening to Meno’s breathing or sneezing or what other noises the body might have exuded along the story— that would be the act of hearing noise. In asking if virtue “seemed” teachable, Socrates is listening to, learning from, understanding the word; it is not that a person made virtue seem teachable, it is language that made virtue seem teachable to Meno. As Socrates poses clarifying questions like this to Meno, Meno is listening to verbally affirm that he agrees with Socrates’ claim, that they share an understanding.
Eventually, Anytus, the son of a wise and wealthy man enters the story, showing that changing the way of listening can be necessary to properly understand claims. While Socrates and Meno listen to one another to understand and learn, Anytus listens to selectively pick out parts of the conversation that he does not agree with. In trying to figure out if virtue is teachable, Socrates proposes to turn to the sophists. “By Heracles! Quiet, Socrates!” proclaims Anytus, shocked, “let none of my household or friends… be seized by the kind of madness that would send them to be ruined by these people, since they are obviously the ruin and corruption of those they associate with” (91c). Here, Anytus has a predisposition to antagonize the sophists. “Or is it clear… that it is to those who promise to be teachers of virtue and declare themselves available to any Greek who wants to learn, and who set a fee and collect it? … the men people call sophists” Socrates proposes (91b). While Socrates is implying that there is a difference between one being bad at their job and just claiming to do it, Anytus is not listening to all the words Socrates is saying, but rather just the word(s) that trigger a strong response: the “sophists.” By not listening attentively, Anytus might feel unsatisfied with the conversation.
Further, it also seems that by responding only to a part of what Socrates says, Anytus has not listened fully to Socrates. Upon being asked why he dislikes the sophists so, Anytus confirms that he has “no experience whatsoever with these men” (92b). Then, Anytus listens to agree or disagree, and not to learn, while Meno and Socrates appear to listen so they can learn. While Anytus disagrees from a place of bias, Meno and Socrates point out disagreement in belief as a way of clarifying what is said, so they can agree. Anytus’ way of listening is selective, while Socrates and Meno’s way of listening is understanding, with the intent to learn.
As the dialogue comes to a close, Socrates reiterates that it is still not clear what virtue is despite the discussion, the knowledge, and the modes of listening used to try to find the essence of virtue. “We will have clear knowledge of it when… we first try to discover what exactly virtue is in its own right,” Socrates suggests, perhaps implying that to listen requires to learn (and vice versa), and that to learn requires to continue searching for answers. Then, one must listen attentively as they keep searching.
Because the Meno characters are trying to understand one another’s understandings of virtue (and whether it can be taught), the dialogue does not seem to focus on truth and falsity of what is said. Rather, by exhibiting different modes of listening, Meno seems to support that it is important to listen attentively in order to properly understand what is said, no matter who is saying the words. Listening, like learning, might be about working things out for satisfaction, even if temporary satisfaction. Socrates seems more satisfied with the conversation than Meno because Socrates seems to listen and understand more of what is said than Meno does; both seem more satisfied with the conversation than Anytus (based on Anytus’ aggressive response to Socrates, a response rooted in selectively listening). Anytus listens for (the word sophist) not to (the way that the word is used). Each Meno character seems to have different levels of satisfaction with the conversation because of the ways in which they listen. As such, Meno supports that different modes of listening can provide different levels of satisfaction through learning.
Bibliography
Plato. Meno. Translated by Cathal Woods. 2011.
Andreea Mateescu
Professor Bates
Rhetoric 103B
5 March 2023
Rousseau's Disclaimer on Hobbes: The Origin of the Human
In trying to discover the state of nature in Leviathan, Hobbes uses the lens of history to try and simplify the human being down to the key characteristic(s) that separate the human from the animal. On the other hand, Rousseau’s approach in Discourse on Inequality to find the origin of human reason is through the use of a thought experiment. Hobbes claims that the origin of the human is reason, while Rousseau claims that it is the capacity to change. Hobbes uses a behavioral, historical approach to differentiate the human from the animal, while Rousseau uses a theoretical, linguistic approach to find the characteristics that separates human from animal. Because of this, Rousseau would likely critique Hobbes on naming the origin of human reasoning by saying that Hobbes did not truly name the origin of human reason, but rather that Hobbes picked a point in history and called it the origin of human reason so that it could satisfy Hobbes’ argument.
More precisely, Rousseau would likely say that Hobbes’ approach disregards how humans were prior to that point. Hobbes argues that the human instinct is to defend the self, both from immediately perceived danger and from the belief that something might harm the individual later on. As such, Hobbes seemingly proposes that human nature is violent; the state of nature is one of violence and war against one another because “we seek all the possible of effects that can by it be produced… we imagine what we can do with it, when we have it” (Hobbes 16). Hobbes’ approach on naming the origin of human reason is similar in rationale to the rationale of evolution: human beings develop reason out of necessity because imagination helped humans envision diverse futures and the human could then choose the most successful path. For Hobbes, reason has to be something that allows us to navigate the future in a way that animals cannot— reason is what differentiates the human from the animal.
The human need for language in order to communicate can be understood as Hobbes’ understanding of a key component that appears due to human reason. “When a man reasoneth… [he just] conceive[s] a sum total of addition of parcels, or conceive a remainder from subtraction of one sum from another” because words becomes necessarily for labeling things so people understand one another (Hobbes 26). For Hobbes, to reason is simply to add or subtract because reason “is nothing but reckoning… of the consequences of general names agreed upon for the marking and signifying of our thoughts” (Hobbes 26). While Hobbes claims that the origin of human reason lies in the emergence of language, Rousseau would critique such an approach by likely arguing that Hobbes is not first defining what the key characteristics that separate a human from an animal.
Rousseau’s investigation on the origin of human reason lies in constructing a thought experiment. Rousseau designs a type of perfect, jungle-like environment, in which the human has two capacities: self preservation of the individual and pity (Rousseau 8). Self-preservation is an intense interest in our well-being and our self-preservation, and pity is a natural repugnance to seeing any sentient Being, especially any being like ourselves, perish or suffer. From this, Rousseau claims that four natural, human needs are realized: to eat, to sleep, to drink, and to have sex (Rousseau 10-11). Seemingly for Rousseau, more important than naming these two characteristics is realizing how they work together, which is likely where his critique of Hobbes might stem from.
While Hobbes turns to history to label the human beings as violent and always in a state of war because that is what he has experienced, Rousseau turns to language to define the human. Hobbes was living in a time of many wars, and his claims that the state of nature is one of perpetual aggression and defense would likely seem to Rousseau as an approach of claims without proof that merely satisfying Hobbes’ argument. Rousseau, on the other hand, constructs a thought experiment from which he is able to sift through characteristics of humans in the modern age and select only those necessary characteristics that distinguish the human from the animal. From this, in his Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau claims that “perfectibility,” the capacity for transformation, is what is the origin of the human.
Therefore, Rousseau’s critique on Hobbes’ approach to name the origin of human reason might be in saying that Hobbes should have looked at the characteristics that make us human and pinpoint the one that allows us to reason, rather than try to find a point in history in which humans began to differ from animals in behavior. Rousseau’s critique of Hobbes is not so much a critique of the content of Hobbes’ argument, as much as a critique of the method used by Hobbes’ to reach his conclusion.
Again, what might have contribute to Rousseau’s critique of Hobbes’ method of analysis is the different times and societies in which the two individuals lived. Hobbes lived in what seemed like a perpetual state of war between nations and in nations. Rousseau lived in a time of slightly more peace but incredibly more wealth disparity than in Hobbes’ time. Both writers are likely trying to make sense of the world around them, but it just so happens that they are trying to make sense of different things. Hobbes is likely trying to make sense of the violence while Rousseau is trying to make sense of the inequality (Discourse on Inequality is an essay response to the question of whether or not natural law permits the socio-economic inequality of the time).
While Hobbes tries to demonstrate what a natural society is, Rousseau is trying to demonstrate what a natural human is, claiming that the bond of dependence between humans is not natural (Rousseau 23). Hobbes’ claim is that human nature stays the same from the first created society to the current one, while Rousseau’s claim more heavily relies on “perfectibility,” and that because humans change, the nature of society will also inevitably change. Rousseau appears more interested in giving a minimal definition of what a human is, so that it can still transform into something called human beings; he seems to have a desire to experimentally conjecture something called a human being and put it to the test. Because of the difference of analytical approach, it makes sense that Rousseau would heavily critique Hobbes on his approach to name the origin of the human.
Part of Rousseau’s definition of a human through its capacity to transform is that the human, upon entering society, begins a process similar to that of sharing its self love (amour-propre); the human changes from its lonely, initially natural state. Because of this, society will also change (since the human is what makes up society). Because of this, Rousseau would further critique Hobbes’ approach to analyze the origin of the human from the animal by possibly saying that Hobbes failed to consider times in which society naturally existed without war.
The difference in thought, conclusion, and approach to reach their conclusions on the origin of the human shows that Rousseau and Hobbes might argue for different things that would need to be done to better society. While Hobbes would propose that Sovereign (an entity that makes decisions for everyone in a just way) be instituted, Rousseau might argue that new laws need to be written altogether. In turn, Hobbes might also critique Rousseau on his approach to a call-to-action. However, Hobbes approach in Leviathan claims that the current violent state of the world is the only state that the world has existed in, while Rousseau seems to be more encompassing and optimistic in his definition of the human. As such, Rousseau would very likely critique Hobbes on the Leviathan's approach to define human reason by saying that it did not first define what the key characteristic differentiating the individual from the animal is.
Bibliography
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. "Discourse on Inequality." Marc Michel Rey. Amsterdam.
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Oxford University Press. 1965.