Facts are a dead horse

According to this weekend's issue of Information, a number of historiographic passages in Åsne Seierstad's Angel of Grozny: Inside Chechnya were removed in the editing process. It is Seierstad herself who reports this during a debate meeting in Copenhagen last week, and she argues that such passages tend to lessen the emotional impact of the narrative.

This is not a controversial statement in itself, but apparently her opponent in the debate asks about a specific part of history which he finds highly relevant to the story and yet missing from her book.

It was covered in the original manuscript, says Seierstad and refers to her editor who read that particular passage and then stated that "facts are a dead horse".

Now this is a controversial statement in itself. The phrase is an expression of resignation which completely outmatches the journalistic notion of BBIs, boring but important passages or entire boring but important stories, by saying either

BNI, boring so nevermind the importance, or worse:

IBDH, important - but dead horse.

Return of the Toggle Switch

So I presented Brian's legendary speech - and what was my point?

Well, I really like the speaker's blunt attempt to grant his audience rhetorical agency - which really, of course, he isn't, because he is not giving these people any directions or specific challenges to work with. He simply tells them that they need to think for themselves. Generally.

As a basic message listen to me, but think for yourselves is a fine principle to stick to for journalists and for rhetors in general. But there is no way to assert this freedom as a general principle. It must be done in specific relation to the given situation. Rhetorical agency must be granted from case to case by means of perhaps some more information, provocation, flattery, irony or fresh imagery.

Any rhetorical situation is heavily constrained by audience expectations that the rhetor must accept and then challenge. For "rhetorical agency is possible only within the communication practices of a given community of discourse", says a definition at Kairosnews which pops up in a google search for 'rhetorical agency'.

And now we're approaching the topic of the I's:

Somewhat surprisingly, the gesture of switching to the first person in a piece of news journalism still counts as a way of breaking the rules and thwart audience expectations (may I quote Nadja who expressed in a comment below how she "really - as in REALLY - never understood" why this is so). Saying "I" is a way of challenging the usual authoritative perspective of the press by reminding the reader that the reporter is a person with an individual sense of judgment.

But often the first person reporter not only draws attention to her own limited perspective, but also, by implication, to a false aura of authority and objectivity in the work of her colleagues. She distances herself from the rhetoric she herself is dealing in, as she decides to talk more plainly.

This is a very real dilemma - and readers may well join this brave and honest reporter in her adoption of the oppositional stance. Tell us! Tell us more!! And the first person narrative may become an appeal to free thinking and action which is really just as general and vague and paralysing as that of Brian. To distance yourself from the discourse you need to use is obviously paralysing. For it is not a question of either-or, honest or dishonest, subjective or objective, master or slave.

So what is it? What am I suggesting?

That we be specific in matter as we outline our situation.

And that we take manner seriously as part of the matter.

And, finally, that we try to change perspectives as we go along. Work the toggle switch and direct attention back and forth from manner to matter or from the fluff to the stuff (I've been told that this is Richard Lanham's latest popular rephrasing of this (his) concept of rhetorical toggling between depth and surface).

I.e. expose your rhetoric as rhetoric even as you are asserting what you consider to be an important truth. Because it is rhetoric, and most audiences need to be reminded of this, I believe, in order to be able to think for themselves.

I should exemplify and I will, but not tonight.

Now listen to me

BRIAN:
No. No, please! Please! Please listen. I've got one or two things to say.

FOLLOWERS:
Tell us. Tell us both of them.

BRIAN:
Look. You've got it all wrong. You don't need to follow me. You don't need to follow anybody! You've got to think for yourselves. You're all individuals!

FOLLOWERS:
Yes, we're all individuals!

BRIAN:
You're all different!

FOLLOWERS:
Yes, we are all different!

DENNIS:
I'm not.

ARTHUR:
Shhhh.

FOLLOWERS:
Shh. Shhhh. Shhh.

BRIAN:
You've all got to work it out for yourselves!

FOLLOWERS:
Yes! We've got to work it out for ourselves!

BRIAN:
Exactly!

FOLLOWERS:
Tell us more!

The presidential pronoun

In a current discussion at WriterL about writing in the first person, one member suggests that you avoid "I" alright, but still allow yourself to use "me". If you follow this rule of thumb you avoid placing yourself at the very beginning of your articles and sentences and avoid looking blatantly self-centered. This is a fine piece of advice, comparable with the old and quite challenging convention of never opening a personal letter by saying: I...

Still, of course, your rhetoric may well be centered completely on yourself and address your personal supporters exclusively, if only perhaps in more of an elegant manner. Mind the following analysis. It is Joe Klein at Time who takes a look at Barack Obama's use of personal pronouns, and I quote at length:

"We are the ones we've been waiting for," Barack Obama said in yet another memorable election-night speech on Super-Confusing Tuesday. "We are the change that we seek." Waiting to hear what Obama has to say — win, lose or tie — has become the most anticipated event of any given primary night. The man's use of pronouns (never I), of inspirational language and of poetic meter — "WE are the CHANGE that we SEEK" — is unprecedented in recent memory. Yes, Ronald Reagan could give great set-piece speeches on grand occasions, and so could John F. Kennedy, but Obama's ability to toss one off, different each week, is simply breathtaking. His New Hampshire concession speech, with the refrain "Yes, We Can," was turned into a brilliant music video featuring an array of young, hip, talented and beautiful celebrities. The video, stark in black-and-white, raised an existential question for Democrats: How can you not be moved by this? How can you vote against the future?

And yet there was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism — "We are the ones we've been waiting for" — of the Super Tuesday speech and the recent turn of the Obama campaign. "This time can be different because this campaign for the presidency of the United States of America is different. It's different not because of me. It's different because of you." That is not just maddeningly vague but also disingenuous: the campaign is entirely about Obama and his ability to inspire. Rather than focusing on any specific issue or cause — other than an amorphous desire for change — the message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is.

Read the rest of the article at http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1710721,00.html.

The overall strategy described here seems somehow related to the step-by-step introduction of self - first "they", then "we", then "me" and then, finally, "I" - that I have been pointing out in Lisbeth Davidsen and Åsne Seierstad's reporting. In this political context it might work well as a buildup of expectations to the elections; an approach based on pure formal identification (in Kenneth Burke's sense) on a macro (campaign) level:

Use "you", "we" and the occasional "me" on the campaign trail, but keep your "I" on hold until you're finally in a position to say: "I, the president of the United States..." Voters may swing along with the verbal gradation and decide to help their candidate release the ultimate personal pronoun.