Taking a Risk - Gas Prices

I drive an 86 Toyota Camry. Last week, it cost me 50 bucks to fill up, with Regular, in San Bernardino – and I wasn’t even filling a completely empty tank. This week, I drove by my local Corona “Shell” and saw that Premium was $4.51.

When I tell people what gas costs around me, I always use the Premium price – not the Regular, to which people usually reply, “But that’s the Premium.” As if 4.21 for Regular is better?! Moreover, news reports always focus on the average for Regular. Even further, no one seems to be saying much about diesel, which, last I saw was $5.09. Can someone tell me why diesel is so much more expensive because I apparently missed the reason in my busy, hurried life.

In fact, what IS the psychology behind gas prices? And just what are YOU going to do about them? Last I read on an MSN message board, these are the plans for some individuals to respond to the gas crisis so far (and what they expect others to do, too, in response to gas prices):

1. Buy a hybrid (oh yeah, let me just shell out the money for one. Oh, wait, maybe if I stop buying gas, I’ll be able to save for one!)

2. Take public transportation more often (oh yeah that’ll work considering the distances in between my various locations. I’ll get everywhere on time.)

3. Carpool (Feasible for some, but not for me considering my schedule.)

4. Ride a bike (Well, at least I’ll get in shape considering I’ve gotta bike 30 miles to get to school.)

5. Drive slower AND hope that the government mandates reduced speed limits (WTF? You need the government to tell you, and everyone else, to drive slower? Wow, this is a land of sheep, but yes, I have started driving slower.)

6. Elect a democrat (same as a Republican in my book!)

7. Accept it because Europeans have been paying more than us for a long time and our time is due to pay expensive prices (The value of the dollar is going down – this is the problem that Americans should be worried about.)

8. Do nothing because it will give the “upper class” even more of an “upper class” status, while controlling the “lower class” (yes, someone actually wrote this.)

9. Reduce spending on everything else: entertainment, food, material items, etc. – we spend too much on these things anyway. We should be more discerning with our spending. (A good idea for anyone, but this does not stimulate the economy. Instead, it keeps prices up, purchases reduced, and has a negative effect on overall societal morale, leaving us with a depressed, defeatist attitude.)

10. Do nothing because nothing can be done anyway (Let me just bend over and give the ones responsible for the price hikes the Vaseline) ß THIS seems to be what I see MOST people doing… including myself, and why? Because:

11. Eventually, gas prices will get so high that someone ELSE will do something about it (and how high will they have to go? What is the breaking point for you? I don’t even know how diesel truck owners are surviving, as it is, right now).

12. Or, there is just nothing I (or we) can do about it period. (We are slaves to the government. We are slaves to corporations. And we are funding our own, continued enslavement with what we pay for gas).

For some, these might actually be feasible, but are they really an answer to the problem? No, from my point of view, they are the psychological enablers. They keep gas prices steadily climbing. For instance, if a bully hits you on the head, eventually you put a helmet on to allow yourself to take the hits easier. The above constitute the helmet. Why not stop the hitting? Not only that, but some of the above just are not feasible for the masses to do.

And, well, if you’re like me, you really just don’t know how to solve the problem. And that’s partially the purpose of this blog. As graduate students and critical thinkers, how can we solve the problem without resorting to enablers? I want to know what YOU are doing or what possible solution YOU have to offer (that is/are different from the above) because I’m coming up empty handed, and it frustrates the absolute hell out of me.

I think facing an invisible enemy is part of the problem, psychologically speaking. We might differ on who the real culprit is behind the gas prices because the culprit is not clear cut for everyone (i.e. is it the government? Is it gas corporations? Is it the Middle East and the war?). Who do you think is responsible? I don’t really have a specific culprit in mind, myself, but if we cannot agree on who the culprit is, how can we organize to fight against he/she/them/it?

I know I should be writing another long overdue blog about Visual Rhetoric, but there is something alarming to me about what is going on with gas and diesel, especially diesel since this country RUNS ON IT. Trucks, trains, airplanes –major modes of transportation for our goods – are being hit hardest, and I have no doubt that the costs they incur will also be placed upon us. But for what reason…? Anyone? Anyone?

Oh yeah, and the environment. This is where the psychological briar patch gets MUCH stickier. We have been told, ever since we were little (the perfect age), by many different sources (the news, our teachers, Al Gore, some (not nearly all) scientists, the weather reports, etc.) that the environment is suffering and oil and cars are primarily to blame. So, it’s a GOOD thing that we have to think twice about living in our happily-ever-after-oil coated, suffocated world (going back to the pro-hybrid, public transportation arguments).

If we pair the hype – yes hype – over the environment with the gas problem, it makes it even easier to accept our “well-deserved” punishment. Could it be, I dare suggest, that the environment is being used – rather, prostituted - by those (nameless individuals) that are actually in control of gas prices?

Fear is one of the strongest forms of power over a group of people. As I study the apocalyptic rhetoric of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and their many cries of Armageddon and the end being near, I cannot help but see fear as the primary component in the apocalyptic rhetoric of the global, environmental movement:

“On August 9, 1923 front page article in the Chicago Tribune declared: ‘Scientist Says Arctic Ice Will Wipe Out Canada’” (Inhofe 9).

“On December 29, 1974 New York Times article on global cooling reported that climatologists believed ‘the facts of the present climate change are such that the most optimistic experts would assign near certainty to major crop failure in a decade’ (Inhofe 10).

“The article also warned that unless government officials reacted to the coming catastrophe, ‘mass deaths by starvation and probably in anarchy and violence’ would result” [emphasis added] (Inhofe10).

“These past predictions of doom have a familiar ring, don’t they? They sound strikingly familiar to our modern media promotion of former Vice president’s [Al Gore] brand of climate alarmism” [emphasis added] (Inhofe 10).

I’m not saying that the environment has not shown instability, but I am saying that those (unidentifiable individuals) who want power are prostituting environmental fear, akin to religious apocalyptic rhetoric, to breed acceptance of problems and to sell their protection. In what form is this protection? Control.

When we feel helpless, never more are we willing to accept our enslavement.

(The above quoted material comes from http://epw.senate.gov/repwhitepapers/HOT%20AND%20COLD%20MEDIA%20SPIN%20CYCLE.pdf)

My Frankenstien! - The Human Machine

This blog is going to be a work-in-progress. It is already massive, I know - but I've really found an interconectedness between many of the authors we're reading, and this is my attempt to connect them and find my own place in the arguments. I'll clean it up later - but this is what I've got so far.
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The "Brass Tacks"of this Blog:

It has taken me awhile to finally formulate a blog (while, admittedly, it probably wouldn't have taken as long had I not been trying to up my brain size and my vocabulary on the Internet and obsessing over Myspace Karaoke). As a result, this blog will be MASSIVE and unattractive to the hurried eye. So be it. I'm hurried, too, so one long blog about multiple authors is how it is going to have to be. As for the "design" of this blog - I've highlighted my main points in bold in effort to invite my readers to pick at least one section to respond to.

Mostly, though, the reason I procrastinated on this particular blog was due to an initial lack of understanding about what the readings were trying to say, while at the same time, having a hard time knowing how I felt about them (that I really "feel" has become an issue thanks to the readings). I have been noticing a few "trends" though (as I allow my human brain to catalogue):

1. That language is being used to describe humans (and society) as "coded" in the articles of the class text AND that language is viewed more in terms of "function." In the Ehses article "Representing MacBeth…," these notions appear, such as when this author writes that style works to arouse the appropriate emotional response [my emphasis] (166). Also, Ehses writes that rhetoric constitutes the functional organization of verbal discourse or messages (165). In fact, it seems that rhetoric functions based on understanding a perceiver's coded responses. Ehses discusses how deviation from ordinary expression produces a "challenge" (168), which demands that rhetors know how humans respond. Obtaining this knowledge means that "…the designer assumes and activates codes by meanings…" (169). Essentially, knowing how humans are socialized to respond to certain (crafted) stimulus enables for more effective function in rhetorical communication.

First, that "designer" has become the new, “hot” word implies an even deeper notion about the ability to create and foster reaction. “Design” seems to imply that every aspect of a communicative effort is considered and placed deliberately for a desired, or expected, outcome.

Second, that humans can be "reduced" to codes, and human communication to coding, bothers me; however, perhaps this verbiage merely reflects our developing technocratic society - the society of the transhuman (http://www.transhumanism.org/index.php/WTA/index/). I use "mere" lightly. I think that, as with all media, we have a mirror and we need to look into it to see who we are and who we are becoming. If we speak using technical terms, if we are looked at as coded beings (ahem, machines), what does this mean for the meaning in human interaction? Is it still meaningful? And by whose standards? Sure, machines can connect and interact. Computers talk to each other; however, do they mean anything to each other?

In response to this machination of the human and, consequently, human communication, Michele Shauf posits the humanist against the technologist, writing that there is too much focus on the "function" of language (366). Shauf hopes to imbue this techno-dialectical trend with meaning - meaning that seems a growing absence in the "design" of communication. She notes that there is plenty of technical ambition (i.e. the drive to understand the function of JavaScript) while very little rhetorical ambition (i.e. the drive to understand the meaning that JavaScript achieves on a larger social and communicative scale) (367). She hopes to continue the drive to invent rhetorically versus technically (367). It appears that I share Shauf's concerns. The "humanist" cannot become obsolete in design and technology. One way to achieve this, as Shauf alludes to, is to ask questions. Computers follow commands (well, we hope they do). They do not ask questions of what their users demand of their function. If we look at words or images and give "appropriate" emotional responses, are we then following the commands we are "coded" with? Hmm…

2. There is a continued notion of binaries in the relationship between verbal and visual AND binaries even within the realm of the visual, WHILE there is also a very intricate relationship between the image and corresponding text. First, I do find it a bit odd that there is such subordination of the visual as Ehses notes that "…this society is informed by visual discourse through a wide variety of media to a degree incomparable to any other time" (176). If the visual is so prevalent, why is there such a heated debate about its status compared to written discourse?

Criticisms highlighted by varied authors in the Visual Rhetoric… text point to why it remains subordinate. David Birdsell and Leo Groarke write that "visual images are assumed to be intrinsically arbitrary, vague, ambiguous (310), which leaves them open to suspicion. Additionally, Keith Kenney writes that scholars do not recognize visuals as capable of forming rational arguments because they lack explicit meaning, are perceived as whole (thereby lacking a two-part premise), and that they are prone to what David Perlmutter says is "ideological manipulation" (324, 340). Advertising seems mostly responsible, in my opinion, for the notion or stereotype that images cannot be trusted. That Roland Barthes focuses on the role of the image in advertising does not seem to help the image of "the image" in this argument.

Barthes' article is poignant, however, to one reason why images and text must be integrated. His argument that images are "polysemous" (have more than one meaning) explains why humans rely on the linguistic side to fix their potential uncertainty (156). Though this explains the connection, it only emphasizes the implied deviousness of human communication comprised of both text AND image (and have we ever wondered why humans must be so political, controlled, and devious with each other in their communications?)

Barthes explains, "When it comes to the symbolic message, the linguistic message does not guide identification so much as it guides interpretation" and that "The text directs the reader through the signifieds of the image, causing [her]/him to avoid some and receive others…it remote controls [her]/him towards a meaning chosen in advance" [my emphasis] (156). (Again, the possibility that humans can be remote-controlled appears even here.)

Barthes' explanation "frighteningly" implies that text filters the image, but because the text is 1) more accepted, 2) therefore more trusted, 3) and delivered in segments (versus the whole of the image), it is actually the TEXT that humans should be wary of (but perhaps not only the text – just other humans with “agendas” is what the general populous should be wary of). The wolf/text dresses itself in the sheep/image, essentially.

I used the term "frighteningly" above because of Barthes' mention about the hurried reader (157). Since our technological society encourages us to be so damn busy, we are consequently becoming a hurried society – having no time for anything because our technology gives us the ability to accomplish so many things. Being a hurried society, do we take the time to stop and reflect on what is going on around us? Do we even feel the “need” to do such reflecting – such as asking the question about why text is seen as so authentic, especially compared to the image? When reflections and questions cease to exist, we only become more susceptible to accepting code and being coded.

However, as Punyashloke Mishra (“The Role of Abstraction…”) quotes Gould as saying “iconography comes upon us like a thief in the night – powerful and remarkably efficacious, yet often so silent that we do not detect the influence” and that because images are treated as subordinate to the text, they are not given the attention that the words are given (178). If what Barthes says is true about text guiding interpretation of images, Gould’s assertion is not exactly an accurate view – it is not that the image is more sneaky than text, it is that the text guides us so strongly that we cannot help but see it over the image AND that it tells us what to see in the image.

It's not all bad, though. I like that Barthes shows how text can provide meanings that may not be found in the image itself (157). The benefit to both text and the image is that they both can transcend their own existence depending upon the interpretation(s) they offer. Barthes puts it well when he writes that “The language of the image is not merely the totality of utterances emitted…it is also the totality of utterances received…” (160). Unfortunately, though, if perceivers are coded to receive messages, than the utterance seems to occupy the same meaning as the message received.

2a. Images contain binaries in themselves. As Scott McCloud, Punyashloke Mishra, and Barthes note, however, text and image are not the only components connected in a binary. The drawing and the photograph fall into a binary, where the photograph is seen as more realistic (but distracting according to McCloud) while film, drawings, and diagrams promote a “magical fictional consciousness” (Barthes 159). In this way, images enter into a binary-type relationship, with one being perceived as better than the other because one is considered more truthful than the other.

On the same hand, McCloud implies that different types of images serve different purposes – that if one’s goal is to amplify specific traits, and to deliver an effective message, one should use a generic form so that the perceiver/receiver of the message is not caught up in distraction (207). McCloud shows how different images work differently (serve different functions), thereby taking more of a genre approach – which is, it seems the best rhetorical option any “designer” could work from because it admits that in every situation, every image or text may not be appropriate or may be more appropriate than another. Does this mean that one is better than the other? In McCloud's presentation, value judgments about communication mediums are context-based, not inherent to the communication medium's nature.

Mishra points out the importance of genre when considering the usefulness of a picture versus a diagram in scientific illustrations and discussions. For instance, "…a photograph is an imperfect representation of an actual object, while a diagram represents it more faithfully" (187). In this case, the traditional notion that the photograph is more authentic or realistic than the diagram works against someone trying to see all aspects of a cell, for instance. McCloud's assertion that simplification amplifies works well in terms of using a diagram in place of a picture. A "cartoon" cell would relay different information than a microscope image of a cell; however, both are useful for the science student.

3. Images (and what they are images of) seem able to occupy multiple subject positions (they can center, while de-center simultaneously). Mishra states directly that “pictures have a double reality” and that “pictures are unique among objects; for they are seen both as themselves and as some other thing…” (182). This is a paradoxical existence for images - one that seems an answer to the problem of the binary, while also the very thing that keeps images suspect. Since images can be "something else" or something different than they are, this leaves skeptics continuing their suspicions about the authenticity of images. Words also share double (perhaps triple, quadruple) meanings, such as the infamous "double entendre" construction. Moreover, the words of the Bible have never been more debated due to many possible interpretations (literal vs. symbolic). I am beginning to see that the image is, in fact, unfairly suspected and maintain that ALL of human communication is worth some inspection.

Arnheim Blurbs

I'm going to try something a little different... instead of writing a drawn out piece, I'm going to take sections of Arnheim's writing (from "Pictures, Symbols, and Signs") and respond, while asking readers questions at the same time. Hopefully it will make sense!

Arnheim writes about the nude woman being painted – how she exists “…at the realistic level of representation, as the muse, as the traditional allegory of truth, the fullness of life, all at the same time” (142). Arnheim notes how an image de-centers, while centering. It seems that, because images appear in whole, instead of a sequential order, that they truly do offer an existence that transcends the binary. This is ironic considering the fact the image is caught in the secondary position of a binary comprising verbal text and visual imagery.

Arnheim writes: “This creates a problem in a civilization which constantly throws things together that do not belong together or puts them in places contradictory to their function. All the mobility, transportation, transmission, and communication in our century removes things from their natural location and thereby interferes with their identification and efficiency” (143). This argument emphasizes the notion of truth – that things have a certain place where they belong. It is an interesting observation that present culture has a [postmodern] tendency to disrupt, which is seen as a positive move – one that breaks up established norms that may need/require change; however, because this interferes with identification, it also interferes with efficiency, which is, ironically, what the technocratic society seems to aim for.

Arnheim writes: “…there is always the risk of ideas coercing the life of the image” (148).

Now there’s a thought – that the image is not subservient to the idea. How does the image sustain life apart from the idea?

Arnheim writes: “Conceptual norm becomes poverty of imagination” (149). It appears that, with this statement, art should never enter into a “norm” for fear that it becomes incestual (to put it crudely). Yet, Arnheim stated earlier that problems arise in a civilization that tries to put seemingly unrelated things (concepts) together because then they cannot be identified. Identification begets norms and vice versa. Is it “wise” to deviate from the norm to avoid the “poverty of imagination”? Is the imagination something that is vulnerable to poverty? How so? Does a technocratic society argue for such deviations? Does a technocratic society imbue or hinder imagination?