A Radical's Opinion (I hope It's Not To Much)

               For pages 71-149 of Critical Media Studies: An Introduction, Ott and Mack had my composition and rhetorical synapses firing on full blast. Although by the format of their book, I wouldn’t necessarily assume their intentions were to connect the two discourses (media and composition/rhetoric in our sense of the term). Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but make those connections between the fields and reality. As I was reading the assigned section of text with my automated cultural perspective lens, the first question I asked myself why, in this critical media textbook, can there be such a definitive split between Pragmatism and Relativism? Does this mean that Philosophy, as a discipline, has an easier time producing calculated, empirical data than the field of Composition and Rhetoric? If you recall, Ott and Mack credited Rorty with giving Pragmatism the winning argument over Relativism based on:

“Pragmatists are relativistic when it comes to metaphysical theories, in a sense that all searches for essential truth are equally valid because none of them actually makes any real difference. However, when it comes to lived experience and situations, Pragmatists entertain options only to the point that they can be discussed, tested, and selected in the process of problem solving” (75).

The Pragmatists versus Relativist argument eerily reflects attitudes within the English departments and the debate of Current-Traditional Pedagogy versus Cultural Pedagogy. The Pragmatic argument in support of lived experience as a part of the defining measure is equal to the student’s right to finding their voice or being able to use their experience to enrich their writing rather than having prescribed composition courses.

               The philosophical argument only set up my mind frame for the rest of the reading. Another interesting thought I had came while digesting Gramsci’s notion of hegemony. Although the book did give a moderately relative example of hegemonic winning, because I was reading the text with a cultural theoretic lens, I developed a different example: In today’s society, the presence of racism allowed for Affirmative Action to be enacted, therefore the marginalized group did “not revolt because they actually consent to being dominated by the ideologies of the privileged groups” (131). My interpretation of this scenario does not necessarily mean that the marginalized groups support racism, but the acceptance of that racism exists within the dominant culture who in turn can choose to enforce it [racism]. Ott and Mack later explain,” When consent fails and socially marginalized ideologies gain significant visibility in a culture, these resistant ideologies represent a challenge [not a change] to society’s overarching hegemonic ideologies” (131-132). Those ‘challenges’ are simply referring to special interest or focus groups. They just become a power structure and a voice for the marginalized.

I know I was supposed to summarize AND tell what was interesting for this blog but I had to get this out! I am pretty sure I will write another paper about these little questions of mine, and belive me there were comments than just these two instances!