Choosing a Body of Words
Choosing a Body of Words
Cadaxa Chapman Ball
Michigan State University
I am currently writing this article without any regard for my academic persona. This is an experiment. This is about fluid, authentic expression which brings me joy and offers myself to you. But mostly, it’s about how rhetoric has the ability to make visible the construct of the self through the construct of writing. How we construct the self and how we construct writing is a similar process. In this article, I’ll walk you through the steps I’ve taken to get here. I feel a strong desire to excuse what might seem like a scattered and confusing structure. However, this is a desire I am resisting because the structure illustrates my point. The self that I call Cadaxa is not a straight line. She is winding and moving and rhizomatic. Rhetoric is how I design myself this way. Rhetoric offers a framework for viewing the self and writing as constructed. Construction leads me to wonder about what how we construct. I take up this question of agency in thought through authenticity in writing. What is the relationship between constructing the self and authentic writing? How does writing reflect or inform thought? How does thought contribute to the self? Do we have agency in how we construct the self?
I’ll be constellating ideas from a number of scholars in an interdisciplinary fashion to define authenticity, rhetoric, and the self. I’ll venture to describe the purpose of writing. In addition to scholarship in rhetoric and composition, I’ll be taking from philosophers and poets (namely existentialists and Romantics). Despite my wanderings into the interdisciplinary woods, I find a home in rhetorical theory. Rhetorical theory offers me the space to elaborate on how rhetoric is a useful tool for those who wish to practice authenticity. Rhetorical theory also allows me to play and to follow Victor Vitanza and others by weaving between academic prose and whatever else may inspire me. In Inessential Solidarity, Diane Davis writes in her introduction “I get how this may sound, but I’m not going mystical or even particularly abstract on you here” (2), soothing any anxious readers that her goal “to expose an originary (or preoriginary) rhetoricity—an affectability or persuadability—that is the condition for symbolic action” (2) will not stray so far from an academic’s comfort zone. I make no such promises, but I will do my best to make clear movements in logic where it counts.
I have written and rewritten this paper in my mind many times. The first time I wrote it was on a walk. In Michael Griffith’s “A State of Ungress: Composing as Rambling,” he writes, “because no matter what the spaghetti-ish map of one’s wanderings may look like—the loops and eddies, the backtrackings—they turn out, in retrospect, to describe a path” (13). In the article, Griffith describes the connection between composing and walking. I am less interested in walking in particular and more interested in the role of motion and movement in composition. In this process of writing, I took a long walk in the woods, thinking the whole time through my ideas. Writing, for me, is movement. I wrote myself into the trees, and I revised myself as I took the trail back to my car. I flitted in and out of presence with the trees, the leaves, and the ground as I thought. I tried to connect my body to the thoughts inside of it. The rhythm of my steps gave me a background beat to my thoughts, much in the same way I listen to music while I write. I didn’t want to escape my body, to give it a scenic distraction to chew on while the rational, intellectual brain did the work. We are not separate. This paper was born from my body. For weeks I have been gestating, and now is the labor of birth.
Jeff Rice’s book Authentic Writing is a starting place to define authenticity. Rice traces the history of academic thinking on authenticity in rhetoric and composition. He concludes that the current academic standard of authenticity is one that “depends on the writer’s ability to make the enigma clear” (4), referring to the enigma of everything and anything: scholarship should critique and make hidden meaning visible. Rice does not agree with this. Rice argues that authenticity is about self-expression, which not only includes the personal, but also the banal. To Rice, the banal is void of meaning. Traveling with his kids, eating at restaurants, and urination (his example) are banal personal experiences that contain no underlying meaning. He isn’t trying to offer a radical or revolutionary approach, but a different one (16), one that attempts to free himself from the exhausting nature of critique. I agree that critique is, at times, exhausting, but I don’t see Rice’s inclusion of the personal to be banal. He is certainly using examples of what he deems the banal in his life to make assertions about banality and authenticity, but he has made a choice to pay attention and communicate the banal, which imbues it with purpose: the purpose of convincing the reader that what they are reading is banal. By arguing that critique frames “even the personal as an always coded experience” (15), he implies that the personal is not “always coded.” Yet, including the personal in his book encodes it with meaning.
I posit that anything can be coded if we decide that it contains meaning, although I would agree with Rice that personal experiences aren’t inherently coded. There are swaths of my life that I do not remember because I never considered them meaningful. These are banal. The experiences I can’t tell you about because I don’t even remember them. In contrast, everything that Rice writes about the personal is a type of critique. The way I see it, critique is the nature of communication. Even if I communicate an observation, I am making a low-level critique about what others should pay attention to. Is this awareness in itself exhausting? Potentially. Am I reading too closely into everyday machinations, making meaning from nothing? Of course, but then, that is all we have ever done. To make meaning is to make rhetoric. Rhetoric seems to have a different meaning depending on who I talk to, even within the field of rhetoric and composition.
Defining rhetoric is the same as defining my sexuality. Or my gender. Or my identity in general. Perhaps this is a singular problem (I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been anyone else), but I always end up running in circles when trying to define myself, or to know myself as anything in particular. It’s like looking up at swirling clouds and seeing a bird one second and a tiger the next. I envy queer people who know without a doubt they are a lesbian, a gay man, a trans woman, etc. One moment I’m lost in my memories as a child embracing my best friend, holding a wedding ceremony to each other in white costume dresses. The next moment, I see women the way I see flowers, beautiful, but I don’t want to lick them. Then, sometimes, I do? I see a femme-presenting non-binary individual with orange-pink hair and fall in love the moment I hear them sing. I hate men, they don’t know how to feel the way a woman feels. And I love with all my heart the boy with black fingernails. So, I look at myself in the mirror, and I think about how every cell in my body is moving and how everything I am is the culmination of every person who has given me a hug, bought me coffee, told me to shut up, or interacted with me in any capacity. And also, every stone I’ve walked on, every leaf, every cup I’ve held and every flower I’ve picked—these make up “me,” too. How can I possibly know myself to be anything other than undecipherable?
This is all to say that rhetoric is the process of describing myself in all these ways, but it never communicates the essence. Rhetoric, I’m suggesting, is construction itself: messy, inaccurate, confusing construction. I know that when scholars talk of rhetoric they often mean precepts for good speech, they mean Aristotle and the sophists, and they mean persuasion. These definitions don’t grasp at the heart of what matters to me in rhetoric, which is the ubiquity of it. Everything has rhetorical potential, and everything we decide to notice becomes rhetoric. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, yes it did really happen, but it is not rhetorical. The tree itself does have rhetorical potential; as soon as someone observes it, it becomes rhetoric.
Rice might find this definition exhausting because it implies that everything we experience is potentially meaningful. Here we come back to the banal. When describing critique as “framing even the personal as an always coded experience,” he argues that because of this, “criticism allows hope to evaporate for me because…it turns the personal into something grand and beyond the banal or everyday” (15). Rice turns to the banal to find peace in the mundane. But is there really such a thing? I don’t think he’s wrong in that academics do over-intellectualize everything to the point where nothing can simply be felt anymore, but I disagree that any mundane personal experience amounts to the banal. If, as I claim, everything has rhetorical potential, and everything we describe, remember, and understand through definitions is rhetoric, then all personal experience (that we remember/take note of) is rhetoric and therefore cannot be banal. Banality implies meaninglessness—but as meaninglessness is itself a constructed concept, then banality too has constructed meaning. True meaninglessness cannot be spoken of.
In my admittedly short time studying in the field of rhetoric and composition, I have come to find, to my utter dismay, that Romanticism is a nemesis of Rhetoric. The two R’s, my loves, I will join together in unholy matrimony. Percy Shelley writes about what Rice may deem “the banal” in his “A Defence of Poetry,” in which he claims that poetry “creates anew the universe after it has been annihilated in our minds by the recurrence of impressions blunted by reiteration” (866-867). Shelley’s banality is the “reiteration” that blunts our recurring “impressions.” Simply put, we do a lot of things over and over again, making them seem boring and mundane, or, banal. To Shelley, poetry (or language more broadly) has the power to give us awareness of the unique and individual sublimity of everyday experiences. The banal is not banal at all, but sublime. Nevertheless, Rice may continue to assert banality’s existence. However, the decision to view the banal as banal or as sublime is a rhetorical one: either way, a decision is made on what meaning to take.
So, where are we? I’ve defined rhetoric as the construction of meaning. I’ve questioned that the banal exists. I’ve been sprinkling in the role of agency in authenticity through rhetorical choices. I’ve moved toward defining authenticity by examining Rice’s definition, who sees authenticity as a question of genre—what matters to Rice is the authenticity of scholarly writing in particular. However, I’d like to explore authenticity not as validity within the academy, but as a question of ontology. To express ourselves to others more authentically, we have to construct a self (which is also a process of expressing, but an internal one). Joshua Hilst in “Deleuze: (Neo)Expressivism in Composition” argues otherwise. He uses Deleuze’s concept of “becoming-imperceptible” to formulate a “Deleuzean expressivism” which is unique from the more common version of expressivism in writing studies. Expressivism centers the individual, while Deleuzean expressivism does not. Hilst writes, “if anything, becoming-imperceptible refers to the self moving out of the way so that these forces can flow freely.” He reveals how expressions come not from the self, but of their own accord. Allowing oneself to become-imperceptible in writing allows for a more authentic, direct transference of whatever affect is floating around at the moment. We can avoid the unnecessary slippage that comes from fretting over academic writing standards, rules, and restrictions.
It may seem that my argument of the self as crucial to authentic writing falls within an expressivist framework and not Hilst’s Deleuzean expressivism, but the truth is the contrary—the main difference between Hilst and my conception of authenticity is how we define the “self,” but our arguments are similar. To illustrate how, I turn to Andrea A. Lunsford’s “Toward a Mestiza Rhetoric: Gloria Anzaldúa on Composition and Postcoloniality,” in which Lunsford interviews Gloria Anzaldúa (author of Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza). When asked if there is anything particularly hard or easy for her in writing, Anzaldúa says,
Sometimes I walk along the beach. So I access this state, I get all psyched up, and then I do the writing. I work four, five, six hours; and then I have to come off that. It is like a withdrawal, I have to leave that anger, leave that sadness, leave that compassion, whatever it is that I am feeling; I have to come off of that heightened, aware state. If I want to do some honest writing, I have to get into that state. If you want to do a mediocre job, you do a kind of disembodied writing which has nothing to do with your feelings or with your self or with what you care about (10).
Anzaldúa’s claim that “mediocre” writing has nothing to do with “your feelings or with your self” shows a discrepancy in definitions of the self. It can refer to one’s ego, to one’s identity, or it can be casually tossed into a conversation to appeal to a sense of genuineness. It can also be used in other ways. I am doubtful that “self” was the most appropriate word for Hilst to use in the previous quote because it may come across as a denouncement of the personal, which I don’t think is his intention. Instead, his understanding of the personal is different from the fixed, individualistic notion that many of us carry. I believe Anzaldúa thinks the same way. Earlier in her interview, she says, “this White culture has been internalized in my head. I have a White man in here, I have a White woman in here. And they have me in their heads, even if it is just a guilty little nudge sometimes” (8). Anzaldua is discussing race, but her understanding reflects an idea of the self as maybe not “imperceptible,” but certainly inseparable from the Other, from the surrounding world and people. So, we can talk about authentic expression as true expression of the self, wherein the self is a changing, ambiguous reflection of outer forces, or we can talk about authentic expression as letting the self get out of the way, wherein the self is a concrete, unchanging structure. As Hilst says, “we don’t have a stable being who expresses. Instead we look for what wants to be expressed.”
The illusion of stability is the problem. Hilst takes this to mean that, since constructing a self will always conceptualize what is inexpressible, then we should stray away from this construction. This idea intrigues me in endeavors such as poetry, a medium in which nonsensical and affectively rich language can better transmit the underlying inexpressible component. However, in writing meant to communicate intellectual ideas and concepts, a framework is necessary—a framework that comes from the self. Additionally, I would like to note that I will later walk in the opposite direction of the implication that there is little agency in authentic expression. The continually arising preconscious impulses and intensities (affect) act on an individual without consent, but the way one constructs the self in response is a continuing series of choices.
Let me distinguish between these two “selves” further—the self as a construction and the self as an ontological essence. The self as a construction is how we define ourselves. My constructed self is a writer, a graduate student, a woman, a night owl, and a number of other things I could list. I use these definitions to triangulate myself in the world, to place myself in relationship with other people and things. The most important consideration here is that all of these definitions are constructed and conceptual. They may be real as well, but, to take from Saussure and Nietzsche, a word or concept is not the same as the reality they try to represent. Nietzsche writes that “the ‘thing in itself’ (which is precisely what the pure truth, apart from any of its consequences, would be) is likewise something quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for” (116). If the essence of a “thing in itself” is “incomprehensible to the creator of language,” then the essence of the self is incomprehensible also. We should never try to solidify our constructed selves as eternal or fully accurate, but we do need to create and assert them as we change and move them around.
In Rhetoric Review’s first Octalog, James Berlin argues for this process of defining and redefining in reference to establishing a history of rhetoric. He states that “all histories are partial accounts, are both biased and incomplete. The good histories admit this and then tell their stories” (12). He recognizes that any history of rhetoric will no doubt miss crucial details. In the same way, any definition of oneself will fall short. Memories fail, thoughts don’t match actions; perceptions of the self reflect limitation. The words I use in this article tell an incomplete story. Robert Conners takes issue with Berlin’s attempt at broadening the field, seeing the perspective as an unhelpful form of relativism. He asserts that valuing all stories does not take a strong enough stance, and that as scholars who care about the truth, it should be our duty to pursue “closure.” Conners’ attack on relativism somewhat misrepresents what I see Berlin saying. Carefully considering other perspectives and other histories does not mean that they are all equal in value or truth. It also does not mean that we cannot attempt to come to agreed-upon, shared truths. Berlin gives a response later in the Octalog which provides a solution to Conners’ problem, explaining, “so closure is necessary; but, it seems to me, we must make it with a consciousness that we are not arriving at some universal truth, some eternal truth. We are arriving at a rhetorical solution, a stay against chaos, against confusion, against disorder, a tentative position” (33). Berlin is not against establishing a history of rhetoric. Instead, he acknowledges that histories will always inevitably fall short of truth, and that it is a scholar’s responsibility to account for that and make visible their shortcomings. This is the movement I’ve been speaking about, and it must start at the beginning: the self. We must keep pace with the changing self and continually redefine. Only then can we begin to communicate these ever-changing selves to each other.
But why do we care so much to share with each other, to communicate? Often, I communicate to bridge the gap between myself and others. There exists a fantasy of understanding, where the words I speak and write mean exactly the same thing to me that they mean to you. We understand each other perfectly. I can find the right words to transfer my essence to you. But that’s not possible, is it? Otherwise, we would literally be indistinguishable, imperceptible. In order to truly understand everything another experiences, we would have to be the same person. For a little while, I kept asking myself, “what’s the point?” Why try to communicate at all if we know we can’t reach true understanding? Much later in the process of writing, I came back to these questions. I decided to create a series of enthymemes, a practice which helps me work through my ideas. I wrote:
I create a concept of self because I want to communicate. I want to communicate because I want to understand others. I want to understand others because I want to continually update my concept of self. I want to continually update my concept of self because I want to adapt to changing circumstances. I want to adapt to changing circumstances because I want to live. I want to live because
I’ve cut this off here because I got stuck on finding a logical reason for why I want to live. I can list a lot of temporary reasons—I want to live because I love my cat and don’t want her to be sad (temporary because she will eventually die), I want to live because I like experiencing pleasure (temporary because all pleasure is temporary and actually relies on displeasure to exist), I want to live because I want to accomplish this, this, or that (temporary because once accomplished, the accomplishment cannot be pursued). I came to the conclusion that there is nothing solid to stand on. We live to continually tie ourselves to moving objects, which eventually break free. This isn’t a cry for help or a dive into nihilism. I don’t need a logical reason to live. My point here is that if my reason for communicating is rooted in my desire to live, then communication is also without a solid goal or reason for existing, and therefore must be in a constant state of change. I compose to keep up with the change. I attempt to create shared meanings with the knowledge that the meanings of our words begin to slip as soon as we let them loose.
Moving to keep up with change also requires conscious choice. The definitions I build with others must first start from within: I have to decide who I want to be, what I want to keep from the world, and what I want to leave behind.
If the essence of the self is incomprehensible, then how is it possible to have agency in defining the self, as I claim? Well, agency is tricky. I am not going to argue that we have much choice in what happens to us or what affects and feelings come over us. However, we do have a choice in how we direct our thoughts and actions. In David Foster Wallace’s 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College, he says “learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think.” This does not mean we have control over where the thought starts, but we do have control over where it ends. Often, thoughts will come to us without our consent. I happen to be the victim of a fair number of intrusive thoughts. For those of you who are blessedly unfamiliar, intrusive thoughts are often upsetting thoughts, violent, sexual, or inappropriate in other ways, that appear at random. These thoughts do not reflect the desires or wishes of the thinker. One of mine is, upon seeing a pan full of grease, to imagine drinking it. Yuck. However, I make the choice to not integrate these thoughts as a part of how I define my constructed self. They are products of my environment and a curious brain. I make the choice to think in that moment to not take the thought seriously, to allow it to go away and not identify with it.
What I write is more obviously a decision than what I think. Yet, they have much to do with one another. Everyone’s thought landscape is different. Some people think predominantly in images, some in words, and even some have no ability to imagine anything visual or auditory in their mind’s eye. While images accompany my thoughts, my usual stream of consciousness is narration. A voice, sometimes taking different perspectives, “speaks” to me. Pointing to where the thoughts originate precisely is a difficult task, but I can say that my thoughts often repeat phrases, snippets, ideas, and ideologies that I have been exposed to at some point. I consider it my responsibility to examine the logic of these thoughts and determine whether or not they are true, useful, and kind. Many times, I have a thought that I know is not true, useful, or kind, such as “I would look prettier if I lost weight” or “Michigan drivers are all assholes.” I examine these thoughts as I have them, go through the tedious logical script of “weight is not an indicator of beauty and beauty is not an indicator of value. This thought comes from Western colonizer beauty standards and diet culture, neither of which exists to promote your well-being” and “Some Michigan drivers may drive aggressively at times, as that is the culture here, and perhaps the drivers acting this way have had difficult days and want to get home quickly so they can relax.” The way I intervene here helps me align my words and actions with my values. This process is how I construct my “self.” We all have the ability to respond to ourselves in this way. The voice in my head is kind to me because I have decided that she should be. Is yours?
All of this takes place in the mind, meaning that a reader cannot know if a writer is being authentic. Yet, if a writer can see their own agency, then they can recognize the accountability they have to themselves and others to be authentic. Holding oneself accountable is difficult, especially considering how many of our thoughts and feelings are not under our control. This is where rhetoric comes in. Every person has a bunch of uncontrollable mental “stuff” to work with. Thoughts, feelings, ideologies, sensory experiences, whatever. We can’t and don’t remember all of this stuff. Rhetoric is the filter. Everyone has a filter that keeps some stuff and lets the rest pass through. We usually don’t notice this filter. It’s invisible. It’s the framework we operate with that determines what we notice and find important in our lives. We can’t change the material that encounters the filter, but we can make changes (to a certain degree) to the filter itself so that we keep more of what we want.
The way to make sure your rhetorical choices align with your constructed self is to make sure you are aware of the filter and how it's operating so you can check between the two. Let’s say you believe that perfectionism leads to stress and self-esteem issues. You believe this because you’ve read a study on it, and you’ve noticed how you and your friends (who happen to be perfectionists) struggle with stress and self-esteem issues. You may know that being a perfectionist is a problem, but you also identify yourself as one. You always expect perfection of yourself. You may tell others that perfectionism is bad, but when they ask how to stop being a perfectionist, you don’t have an answer, because you haven’t actually changed the structure of your mind, of how you think and operate. Perfectionist thoughts don’t get filtered through—they get stuck. You keep them. So, how do you get rid of it? The solution is to make small, boring, tedious decisions every day. You have to be aware of your thoughts. When you have a perfectionist thought, you must argue with it, all the while being very kind to yourself. Then, when you write about it, you will have an alignment between what you believe, who you are, and your message.
This is all in an ideal scenario. It takes a lot of time and energy to be so aware of oneself and so diligent about working with our thoughts and feelings. I chose perfectionism as an example for a reason: we cannot be perfectly authentic all the time. Our writing will not be perfectly authentic all the time. That’s okay. I want this paper to be an empowering one. None of us has much control over anything in life. However, we do have the ability to make small changes in the structure of how we think. In many ways, our writing may be aspirational. We may write what we believe in even when it hasn’t quite sunk in for ourselves yet. To write authentically does not mean that in order to write what you believe in, you must really integrate into who you are first. The perfectionist may still write about the detriment of perfectionism. However, if they aren’t working on their perfectionism, then I would consider their writing to be inauthentic.
Authentic writing is about trying. It’s the attempt to live and think what one writes, to assert one’s freedom. Simone de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity grapples with freedom and choice in her formation of an existentialist ethics in a way which allows me to elucidate the importance of agency in authenticity. Beauvoir distinguishes between essential human freedom and choosing that freedom. She argues that “to will freedom and to will to disclose being are one and the same choice; hence, freedom takes a positive and constructive step which causes being to pass to existence in a movement which is constantly surpassed” (84). Language of movement litters this passage. Willing freedom involves a conscious movement that existence continuously surpasses. Like all movement, we usually have some choice in it, even if it is very little.
We are all free to define ourselves how we want to, and even more free to write what we want to. Yet, it is all too easy to deny our freedom, to let the circumstances of our life lead us every which way. Again, construction comes into play. Beauvoir writes that “man is free; but he finds his law in his very freedom. First, he must assume his freedom and not flee it; he assumes it by a constructive movement: one does not exist without doing something; and also by a negative movement which rejects oppression for oneself and others” (170). The constructive part is “doing something,” or taking action. Action in our thoughts, in our words, in our movements. The “negative movement” is another crucial aspect to the rhetorical choice of constructing the self and writing. Asserting freedom requires acknowledging the freedom of others, thus aligning against oppression.
I find that Beauvoir provides an excellent solution to the problems in current radical and anti-oppressive conversations. In Laura Greenfield’s book, Radical Writing Center Praxis: A Paradigm for Ethical Political Engagement, she writes, “a radical politics does not throw definitions entirely out the window by celebrating anything and everything as a desirable or ethical description or meaning” (107); I like this quote because while I agree with it, it speaks to my issue with Greenfield’s book generally. Greenfield understands like Berlin that definitions are necessary so we don’t simply follow our old habits, and that the liberal notion that every definition is equally valid can be harmful. How, then, do we make the necessary distinctions? Where do we center ourselves, morally? Each person will have their own ideas of what it means to be ethical, which is the source of the issue in the first place. We can’t treat all ethics equally, but we can’t also assert one set of ethics as the “right” one. So, what do we do? To answer my question that Greenfield does not, what we should “do” is move, the way Beauvoir describes. We can show each other our definitions, our expressions, as they are now, to be worked through. A continuous and authentic display of our definitions and intentions allows us to move forward together.
Where this idea falls flat is in its praxis. de Beauvoir attempts to address this through her argument of action as crucial to asserting freedom, yet the minutiae of what action looks like is lost. This is a predictable problem, because, as I’ve discussed, everything is fluid and slippery. A radical act of freedom in one context may be an act of oppression in another. In the context of teaching writing, a practical approach would be to resist in ways that don’t risk getting shut down, like encouraging students to think critically about their labor and ways of expressing themselves, or writing in somewhat experimental ways without going completely astray.
Sometimes, though, I think some acts of compliance can be covert resistance. We can make our choices strategically, understanding that if we feel inclined to follow the rules, then they are our rules. I am cursed (and maybe blessed) with the inability to focus on or care about work I’m not passionate about. Yet, I have worked in customer service jobs before, none of which were jobs I had any bit of passion for. I didn’t stay in those jobs for long, but I didn’t feel oppressed by them because I chose those jobs and I maintained my sense of joy and liveliness. I resisted in small ways by writing poems on receipt papers, laughing with my coworkers, and doing small meditations during menial tasks.
These small acts of resistance are ultimately acts of authentic expression. James Daniel supports student expression in “Burning Out: Writing and the Self in the Era of Terminal Productivity,” arguing “that writing instructors should introduce students to self-expression as a politically and socially liberatory act and as a counteragent to the dominant professional rhetoric of obedience and efficiency.” Daniel talks about the distress and depersonalization of current work culture, or “grind” culture. This culture is born from an attempt to move more quickly, which ideologically feels like an appropriate idea, since if everything is changing, adapting quickly would be good, yes? Yet, usually to work more quickly we sacrifice the process of deliberate construction of the self that I have argued for in this piece. We have no time to be careful. Daniel mentioning “self-expression as a politically and socially liberatory act” resonates with me because self-expression requires slowing down and taking the time to construct the self and to write authentically. It may seem counterintuitive, but slowing down our productivity allows for the change necessary to ultimately be better humans—better communicators, better advocates, and better community members.
Something I have learned as a writing teacher and from my years as a writing tutor is that students find ways to bring themselves to the table. Writers will try to draw within the lines, but ultimately a voice finds itself in even the dullest of pieces. Many times, this voice is not present in a clear way. Layers of expectation and ideological chatter shroud the expressive voice. Yet, I can still see it—it shows itself in the frustrated, half-hearted prose of first-year students who don’t see the value in their education beyond the potential for better career opportunities. The frustration is the truth, the tension between how the student identifies their self and what others ask them to be. This expressiveness also shows itself in the manipulations of a student trying to insert some of their own passion into a paper requiring rigid adherence to inconsequential standards. The unfortunate part is that these glimpses of expression are often not the result of choice and understanding, but of survival. That is what I hope to work against.
The work of exposing authentic writing as a rhetorical choice is important because it facilitates better communication, emboldens writers, and fosters accountability. As I’ve stated earlier, communication is easier when the parties involved have a deliberately developed sense of their individual “selves.” Communication and community-building requires a certain amount of acquiescence, of adjusting oneself to meld with the group. If a community member enters a group with the mindset that their sense of self is fluid, this process is much easier. Being able to adapt to different circumstances also emboldens writers to make the expressive choices they want to, knowing that they have the capability to change if need be.
Finally, to take from Beauvoir once more, willing freedom itself through choice affirms accountability. It is common in American culture to believe that who you are is not a choice. This leads to individuals who take little responsibility for their actions, considering them to be authentic expressions of the self. I had a friend once tell me that he had no responsibility for what he said when he was angry because he could not control himself. This friend saw his anger and his expression of that anger as inseparable from his self, making him powerless to his own experiences and reactions. As such, he felt he was being authentic, and therefore free from accountability. I posit that authenticity and accountability work hand in hand. This is why writing can be such a powerful tool, because if I write something hateful in an angry moment, I can return to the writing later to revise it to be better reflective of my true values. This is no different from our mind; we just have less practice at creating that space between a feeling and a reaction. Perfect accountability may be a difficult and futile aim, and yet, so is perfect communication. I will try regardless.
Cadaxa Chapman Ball is in the final year of her Master’s program in Critical Studies in Literacy and Pedagogy at Michigan State University. She hopes to continue her graduate studies at the PhD level, where she intends on researching affect and embodiment in writing pedagogy. This interest reflects a desire to mix the philosophical and the practical. While studying for her Bachelor’s in English at the University of Oregon, she presented a paper on Percy Shelley’s nature of poetry as producing transformation in the reader at Sigma Tau Delta’s 2019 Annual International Convention. Her love of poetry and literary analysis informs her work in writing pedagogy. This is her first academic publication.
Beauvoir, Simone de. The Ethics of Ambiguity. Translated by Bernard Frechtman, Philosophical Library, 1949.
Daniel, James. “Burning Out: Writing and the Self in the Era of Terminal Productivity.” enculturation, no. 30, 24 Feb. 2020.
Davis, Diane. Inessential Solidarity: Rhetoric and Foreigner Relations. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010.
Greenfield, Laura. Radical Writing Center Praxis : A Paradigm for Ethical Political Engagement. Logan: Utah State UP, 2019.
Hilst, Joshua. “Deleuze: (Neo)Expressivism in Composition.” enculturation, no. 13, May 2012.
Kameen, Paul. “Meditation and Method: Reflections on the Relationship Between Discourse and Time.” Enculturation, no. 13, Jan. 2012.
Lunsford, Andrea A., and Lahoucine Ouzgane, editors. Crossing Borderlands: Composition And Postcolonial Studies. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense.” The Nietzsche Reader. Ed. Keith Ansell Pearson and Duncan Large. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006. 116.
Octalog. “The Politics of Historiography.” Rhetoric Review vol. 7, no. 1 (1988), 5-49.
Rice, Jeff. Authentic Writing. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021.
Shelley, Percy. “A Defence of Poetry.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, vol. 1, W. W. Norton & Company, 2012, 856-869.
Wallace, David Foster. “This is Water.” 2005 Commencement, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH. Commencement Speech.