Week ONE Post

Hi, All,

Now that I can access the blog fully here is my reflection one that I sent to Dr. Busl via email.

Although his article proves rather difficult to understand, Fisher certainly puts forth a new way to look at narratives. His narrative paradigm blends rhetoric and literature together. I am somewhat ashamed to say that I've never heard anyone within our field combine the two categories and make them work as one. Maybe I am new to this, but I've always been taught an led to believe that the two are separate entities -- rhetoric speech driven and literature -- everything that's not speech driven. Never did I think to combine (I did not think it was allowed) literature and rhetoric until I encountered Fisher's article which makes combing the two acceptable. Many, myself included, teach rhetoric and literature as different, and we use specific genres or types to create more of a divide as if the two never, ever cross paths. However, as we discussed in class, Fisher seems to claim that the narrative paradigm entails dialogue; humans are prone to communicate, and in return, this communication creates the society, culture, world -- a story.

With that said, Fisher's quote of the world being a series of stories to choose among is the very example of rhetoric and literature being combined. The purpose of an education since the time of the Greek philosophers was to produce educated, well-rounded, well-spoken citizens who are not easily swayed by empty rhetoric. In our world today and throughout history certainly, we have to (we are taught to) see both sides of the argument -- hear both sides of the story. Many of these arguments, if not all, are in some way reflected or rooted in literature. If we are not careful, we can be easily led to believe anything that anyone claims. For whatever reason, the two best examples I can think of here are commercial ads (of all sorts) and politics. Both examples are stories of their own -- stories with different outcomes I should say. Educated individuals are not easily fooled by all stories. Choosing among stories means that people are aware enough to understand some of the basics of the world in which they live. Anyone can come up with a story (and as I've learned so far and as Fisher claims, the world is a series of stories, but finding the correct one for each is key), but not everyone can easily evaluate the roots of that story or any story. Stories are a part of education, and anything is a (or can be) a story, yet discovering what's true (the true story) proves much more difficult.