I want to pause briefly from my late night studies to make an observation of some importance.  I have been struggling in my mind to establish strongly the connection of a great interest of mine, Rhetoric, to the other two branches of my study, philosophy and technology studies. This was really important because, well, rhetoric is the field I’ll be trained most heavily in and wherein I will teach and have to do a bulk of my work. I have known it connected strongly but I haven’t been able to articulate it the best, either in words or in my own mind. But as I sit here and read Aristotle’s Rhetoric it begins to become clear.

The technology studies-philosophy connection is clear because of what I call the “technology of philosophy” as opposed to the “philosophy of technology.” That is, that philosophy itself is molded by our technology because our technology makes up the core of our world and expands and shapes our ability to comprehend it.

This in itself assumes an anti-realist or relational knowledge point of view, that there is no such thing as “Subjective” or “objective.” Rather, while there may be a real Truth, our work consists entirely of constructing views of this truth that are merely heuristics or convenient ways of viewing the world–which might even work to, what do you know, make more technology.

In a world such as this, then, truth itself becomes constructed and construcatable. But how do we prevent ourselves from heading towards the terrifying territory of complete relativism where we lose sight completely of any concept of truth? Am I saying we just make everything up? No! It is in our relationship TO the world and our interaction with it that we create conceptions of the world and of truth. What is rhetoric? Narrowly defined in the greek sense it is about persuasion. In the broader sense, rhetoric is human ability to bring about action or force within the world. Given the existential view of our essence or being as more fundamental to anything else–as Sartre says, “we are made through our actions”–then we are essentially shaping truth and ourselves through our forms of rhetoric.

It is essential then as we move through the difficulties ahead in redefining ourselves within a new technological landscape that we formulate and enact new ways of being in the world yet still retain some element of ground, some relation to understanding, to the so-called “truth” of things. How we work out this truth is essential to our whole existence and to the perpetual progression of things. Thus rhetoric is intimately tied up in technology studies and philosophy, is even the core of the whole project. It therefore makes sense that I put it at the center of my studies.

Plus, rhetoric will get me an academic job easier than the other two

This is a friendly reminder of why I love reading academic articles; despite their increpidly boring style and tedious arguments (I’ve been reading too much philosophy!), they have incredibly interesting and fascinating ideas and I honestly hope that I am able to keep up reading this kind of stuff through my life, just sort of randomly or as the topics come up. 

So case and point. For my job with my professor and advisor, Pat Gehrke, I am reading this article on how the new job interview practices of so-called “new-work order” (think Google’s community based workplace) preaches the idea of individualism but actually requires specific ideaological and cultural boundaries, which are reinforced by the process of job interviews. In these jobs interviews, one is expected to formulate a secondary identity that the interviewer feels is in line with the culture of the company. Hence,  people who are unable to establish this secondary identity that falls within accepted boundaries is not hired. They normally cite as reasons things like “untrustworthiness” or having “poor communication skills.” Sometimes this is associated with too  much corporate speak, sometimes with too casual of a demeanor. None of it has to do with actual qualificaitons.

Man but this kind of stuff gets a writer and idea-gatherer’s head racing. There is so much good stuff in this articlel…all these citations to other papers as well that all support this conclusion. And it is all on a popular topic that is generally heralded as something good: the new casual corporate atmosphere. Part of what a writer’s job is to reveal such contradictions and this is a very relevant one. After all, it sounds an awful lot like high school. All the cool kids get to stay, everyone else leaves. But the “cool” just depends on that company’s version of corporate culture, so that Intel would prolly have a different culture than an Insurance company.  What does that mean? When you go to get a job, who cares about qualifications, you gotta find your click?  Thats a little messed up. 

See its the academics who spend their whole lives focused in on one or two ideas that really uncover these type of things, critique the things everyone else is generally accepting. Now I don’t have the patience to do that kind of focusing but I could sure love using these things as jumping points for articles and pieces.  Excellent stuff. 

I particularly love this paragraph:

The successful candidate must show that, for them, these more personal

discourses and aspects of their identity are fully integrated with their work

persona – that they invest personally in the organization’s goals and embody its

values. They must therefore be able to balance, move deftly between and integrate

the various ways of speaking mentioned above, and employ ‘strategies of

euphemization’ (Bourdieu, 1977) that enable them to self-disclose the unique

contribution which they can make to the organization, without appearing to

cross the boundaries of impartiality and discretion. Furthermore, this work

must be done implicitly and seamlessly, so that even the possibility of difference

and conflict between aspects of one’s work and non-work identities, and the

contradictions and fabrications that underlie the nature of the interview as a

‘game’ (Roberts, 1985), are not revealed.

The successful candidate must show that, for them these more personal discourses and aspects of their identity are fully integrated with their work persona – that they invest personally in the organization’s goals and embody its values. They must therefore be able to balance, move deftly between and integrate the various ways  of speaking mentioned above, and employ ‘strategies of euphemization’ (Bourdieu, 1977) that enable them to self-disclose the unique contribution which they can make to the organization, without appearing to cross the boundaries of impartiality and discretion. Furthermore, this work must be done implicitly and seamlessly, so that even the possibility of difference and conflict between aspects of one’s work and non-work identities, and the contradictions and fabrications that underlie the nature of the interview as a ‘game’ (Roberts, 1985), are not revealed.

You see that? “interview as a game!” Man, this would go great into the stuff I’ve started gathering for my book on how life is becoming more and more like a game! Oh man, I can’t wait to put that book together.  So much good stuff out there. I really must gather all the stuff I have for that together.

Also, this one is good:

Therefore, the personal discourses employed by the successful candidates considered here are always more or less synthetic personalizations (Fairclough, 1992). That is, they are strategically simulated constructions of identity, which are called up in appropriate moments of the interview, and which present an artificially fixed, continuous and measurable version of the self that is entirely consistent with organizational values and the institutional regime of the job interview. This particular form of selfpresentation is linked to understandings of the self that are dominant in aspects of western culture and particularly occupational psychology (Linde, 1993), a discipline which has had a formative influence on the job interview. This ‘authentic self ’ has become a kind of formative ‘myth’ within the discourse of institutions of the kind which Wodak (1996) has studied, and is the basis of the idea that if the interview can ask the right questions, make its tools sharp enough, it can reliably reveal the candidate’s ‘real’ personality and level of aptitude for the job.

This would also go well with all of the stuff I got from the trip to France on Simulation and modeling, but this time applied to human interactions. Again, a key idea with the idea of life as a game, an artificial and synthetic interaction. To be clearer, all this means is that interactions take place more and more in an abstract and imaginative realm, as opposed to the physical and concrete. It is an interesting phenomenon. That is life as “a game.”  There are also some elements of it being more lighthearted and less momentous in certain ways–it won’t kill you as easily you might say. Hmm, but these are all the ideas I want to play around with.

The article citation: 
Migration, ethnicity and competing discourses in the job interview:  synthesizing the institutional and personal  (lovely, interesting title dont you think?)
Sarah Campbell and Celia Roberts
Discourse Society 2007; 18; 243