2nd Essay Extended Draft

It can be found here

Taking One Last Approach

For Harris, “Taking an Approach” is essentially what a writer does when they collect his or her ideas to articulate a stance. Unlike “Coming to Terms,” “Forwarding,” and “Countering,” “Taking an Approach” has less to do with other people’s ideas and more to do with the individual writer’s. In a quick albeit probably over simplified way of explaining “Taking an Approach,” one can argue that it is basically “Coming to Terms” with one’s own ideas as opposed to another’s. “Taking an Approach” is obviously influenced by others, but it not simply “forwarding” or “countering;” it instead combines the two, sort of. “Taking an Approach” is how exactly one intends on moving the intellectual conversation ahead, and what literary tools he or she will employ to do so.

A large influence of the approach that one will take is their intention in writing. The New York Times, as a serious, if not the serious, literary news outlet, will obviously be taking a different approach than The Daily Dish or FiveThirtyEight. The Daily Dish’s usual approach is essentially Andrew, whom us readers feel we’ve come to know, giving his take on current events. Because the readers of The Daily Dish are aware that this is an opinionated journalist, there is an inherent casual sensibility that’s created. The New York Times, on the other hand, takes a more rigid and serious approach. The nucleus of The Times reports the news in a serious and factual manner, while segregating their opinion section from their reporting section. The Daily Dish’s approach is less concerned with breaking news to its readers; instead it simply offers analysis.

Because The Daily Dish is much smaller in scope than The Times, the stories that it covers are usually less diverse than The Times, which tries to report on every news event of significance. In essence, The New York Times’ approach is to report the news early in a factual and nonbiased way, while The Daily Dish’s approach is Andrew’s opinion on usually the same stories that The Times reports on. (This is assuming that the stories The Times reports on involve gay marriage, legalization of marijuana, or the Levi/Palin soap opera. Has anyone else noticed this weird obsession Sullivan has with these three topics?)

Also, on a completely unrelated side-note, I was watching ESPN on Friday and they released international soccer team rankings based on a system called “Soccer Power Index” (SPI). Nate Silver, from FiveThirtyEight, created SPI, and I thought that was pretty cool, well except for the fact that the US team ranks 14th in the world. I’m not sure if you know this Silver, but we’re supposed to be the best at every sport. USA! USA! USA!

My Attempt at Self-Countering

This is my attempt to counter myself. My blogpost “The Death of Intellectualism,” is about Chris Hedges article “America the Illiterate.” In the post, I talked about Hedges’ theory that the sharpest cultural divide in America today is not race or socioeconomic status, but instead alignment with either the print or image-based cultures. I will attempt to counter my original statement that I agreed with Hedges’ belief. I picked this post because I take a definite position that is counter-able. I figured forwarding my own blog would seem overly contrived, so I chose to counter instead. As you will see, I state my disagreement with what I said and then try to move the conversation in a different direction. Whether I succeeded or not has yet to be determined, but here goes.

Earlier in the semester, I said:

The American public, according to Chris Hedges, is strictly divided into two
sects, the enlightened and the unenlightened. One third of the nation’s
population is either illiterate or barely literate, so there is predictably a
rather large divide between those who of the print-based culture and those of
the image-based culture.For the most part, however, this divide is largely
covert. The general consensus on what divides America the greatest would be
race, religion, socioeconomic status or political affiliation. I’d have to agree
with Hedges, however, that it is the print vs. image divide that has alienated
this country the most.

While it is undeniable that the print/image-based culture line is a point of division in this country, to say that it is certainly what has divided the country the most, however, is erroneous. Seldom do people in the real world immediately draw distinctions between themselves and others, consciously or subconsciously, based on membership of either the print or image-based culture. It’s hard to look at someone and immediately say “I’m not like that person, they are from the print/image-based culture and I’m not.” Differences in terms of race, ethnicity, linguistics and even socioeconomic status are much more immediately perceivable.

So this begs the question, does the print/image-based culture divide stem from other cultural divisions? Does membership of either the print or image-based culture influence one’s socioeconomic and/or educational status? Or does one’s socioeconomic and/or educational status influence whether they are members of the print or image-based culture? The answer to this question is yes. Cultural status, whether it’s socioeconomic or print/image, is self-perpetual. Therefore the print vs. image divide is not a perceivable divide within itself; instead it’s essentially a combination of all other cultural divides. It is not racial or ethnic, and it is not political or economic either. Because an ambiguous intellectual divide is so hard to perceive, it cannot be the most divisive thing in our culture.

Countering: The Daily Dish vs David Brooks

Joseph Harris’ definition of countering is much less competitive than what I would have envisioned it to be. According to Harris, the goal of countering another text is not to end the conversation or to prove the text to be wrong. Harris instead states that the goal of countering is to push the conversation in new directions and to “open up new lines of inquiry.” (p57)

Harris claims that in order to effectively counter, one first must assess the text’s strengths and aims. He explains that once the author’s aims are identified, then the weaknesses can be expanded on, which in turn pushes the conversation in a new direction.

The three ways texts counter, according to Harris, are by arguing the other side, uncovering values, and dissenting. He stresses that the most effective way to counter is with graceful finesse, not by force. Harris explains that generosity is key when countering because it adds a sense of legitimacy to one’s argument.

The Daily Dish, a socially liberal blog whose principle writer is a self-proclaimed conservative, countered an article by conservative commentator David Brooks regarding how technology has changed the way people date today. The writer from The Daily Dish did an effective job of countering Brooks as evident by the illustration of the weaknesses in Brooks’ claims.

I read Brooks's column and thought of the 80 and 90 year old slaves
interviewed by the WPA. There is a lot in those oral histories that is, as they
say, old and true. But there's a lot that's old and false. A constant refrain is
the notion that the "moving pictures" were ruining young people, and the next
generation wasn't worth anything. To be clear, that would be the same generation
that gave us Martin Luther King, and effectively finished the Civil War.

This is a theme residing in the conservative soul--a professed,
thinly-reasoned skepticism of the [messed]-up now, contrasted against a blind,
unquestioning acceptance of the hypermoral past. This is a human idea--most
people, like those slaves, believe some point in the past was better. And
indeed, in some case the past was demonstrably better. But the writer who would
argue such has to prove it. He can't just accept his innate hunch. He has to
bumrush and beat down his theories of the world, And should they emerge
unbroken, that writer might have something to tell us. It's got to be more than
justifying your prejudice. It's got to be more than those meddling kids.

The writer from The Dish didn’t make too much of an attempt at generosity, which could’ve potentially added strength to his argument. Because The Daily Dish is a blog that leans to the social left, the somewhat-aggressive attack on the conservative Brooks appeared slightly partisan. The Dish strongly disagrees with Brooks’ belief that ‘kids these days’ don’t have the same moral standards that older generations had. The arguments made by The Dish are sound and they effectively show the limits of Brooks’ claim while moving the conversation in a new direction; however, the arguments perhaps could have benefitted from more generosity.

Sullivan Forwarding Silver

In “Forwarding,” Joseph Harris describes writing as essentially a conversation, while defining forwarding as anything that continues the conversation; and he explains the four ways people forward texts. He states that people forward texts by Illustrating, Authorizing, Borrowing, and Extending, and each of these have a unique purpose. Harris is quick to draw a distinction between forwarding and countering. He states, “In forwarding a text, you extend its uses; in countering a text, you note its limits.”

By reading The Daily Dish and FiveThirtyEight along with The New York Times, there are many examples of the blogs “forwarding” other news outlets and blogs. One specific example is the special Congressional election for New York’s 23rd district, which transpired last night. The 23rd district race last had some national interest, and because it is in the state of New York, The Times covered it rather extensively. Also, because it was an election that may serve as barometer for the current political climate, the story received significant focus from The Daily Dish and FiveThirtyEight. The New York Times covered the story initially, and explained how the election may be a microcosm for the midterms next year. Because elections are FiveThirtyEight’s primary focus, Nate Silver obviously covered the story extensively in his blog. The unique thing about The Daily Dish is that it covers a relatively high number of stories for a blog, so it could potentially be argued that the Dish is a hybrid between an extensive entity (such as The New York Times) and a more focused, opinionated blog. The Daily Dish’s role in the media ecosphere is an outlet for political commentator Andrew Sullivan to give his opinion on current events, and he often uses other people’s thoughts to do this. This week in The Daily Dish, Sullivan cited FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver to explain his opinion on the 23rd district race:

The Democratic brand is marginal in about half the country, but the Republican
brand is radioactive in about two-thirds of it. The biggest story of the cycle
is that a non-Republican conservative, Doug Hoffman, might win. Counterfactual:
if Hoffman had in fact been the Republican nominee in NY-23 all along, would he
be in the same strong position that he finds himself in today? Methinks not: it
would have been easier for Owens -- who isn't much of a Democrat -- to identify
himself as the moderate in the race.

I found it very interesting that Sullivan would use FiveThirtyEight to explain his opinion. This type of forwarding, according to Harris, would be an example of “Borrowing.” Nate Silver, like Sullivan, is a political commentator, so this is an example of borrowing because Sullivan simply used Silver’s opinion to express his own.

This week, Sullivan also referenced FiveThirtyEight to inform his readers of the odds for the race. Because FiveThirtyEight’s election prediction accuracy is so revered, this would be an example of Sullivan forwarding by “Authorizing.” These examples of forwarding are used by Sullivan to enhance his blog; and because political blogs naturally extend the conversation about current events, forwarding is a tool often employed.