Senior Writing Portfolio Students
Millikin University

Jesse Phillippe

biography

Jesse Phillippe is a crazy opinion editor who often fluctuates rhetorical strategies. Much of the time, he takes extreme views in order to break down people’s barriers and assumptions. Other times, he molds his argument to the readers and the common assumptions of the general society. But he often tries to do both: take a common societal belief and mold an extreme view out of it. He advocates multiculturalism and diversity and tries to get people to see as many different viewpoints as possible.

Writing Theory

Objectivity is Not Truth

One of the thought processes that carries over into my writing is the process of considering all or as many views as possible of the issue at hand.  It is an epistemology that defines knowing as considering all ways of looking at things and an ideology that says that we reach truth and understanding through open-mindedness, acceptance, and a desire to understand on many different levels.  There is never one way to look at an issue, an event, a person, an object, anything. And there are seldom only two ways of doing so.

I find that these are mistakes that the news media and mainstream politics make. The news media claims to strive for objectivity. The assumption is that to report something objectively is to tell the truth.  For the purpose of stating simple empirically observable facts, objectivity is fine. But objectivity is only one very limited way of looking at things.  In fact, to say that “the surface level appearance of something is the truth of the matter” is very biased (objective/positivistic bias) and sadly narrow-minded. The truth is on far more levels than the objective and requires far more interpretation than stating simple facts. But any news story always engages in some level of interpretation. Even if the writer could state simple objective facts, it would be no use to the common reader without any kind of interpretation to help the reader to put the issue in a context or in terms that the reader can understand.

So why then does the mainstream news media claim to strive for objectivity and a lack of bias (which objectivity is not)? This is most likely because the news media wants to cover up for the fact that it is a business enterprise and political endeavor with its own interests to secure. More importantly, it is to cover up for the fact that the news media seldom shows the whole story and seldom tells the whole truth. Rather, it only focuses on the mainstream events that affect it and the entities that it has to please, like the government, the mainstream political parties, and other business and advertising interests.

This mode of thought also comes through in the fact that the news media assumes that to be unbiased is to show “both sides of the argument.” This usually takes the form of showing the Democrat and Republican (or so-called liberal and so-called conservative) sides of the issue, working under the assumption that those must be the only two views to consider and doing so will bring us closer to the truth—or, alternatively, that there is no truth and it is up to the reader or viewer to decide (with this limited information). These assumptions tend to be ignorant of the fact that there are far more views to be considered and issues to be dealt with. There is often a historical and cultural context to look at as well as larger all-pervasive social issues to be understood. There are also educated people who have far more informed views about most of these divisive, two-sided issues. In “showing both sides of the argument” the news media continues to be very surface level, superficial, and narrow-minded.

So then, how does all of this relate to my thinking and writing processes? Long ago, I realized that two-sided, close-minded arguments do not get anyone anywhere. I recognized that the divisive Democrat/Republican dichotomy is a hindrance to the development of our country and that the ideological difference between the two is often an illusion. I read The Argument Culture by Deborah Tannen as a required text for Resistance Writing with Dr. DeJoy. I took a freshman honors seminar called "Conservatives and Liberals" with Tom Duncanson, that helped explain the ideological differences between the two. And I ended up with a better understanding of a lot of issues and major dominant social structures, etc. What I achieved was a sense of open-mindedness and an understanding of why that open-mindedness is important in achieving a sense of truth.

I now try to consider all views when writing and trying to be persuasive. I especially consider what I think my audience’s views might be. And I have learned not to underestimate my audience by characterizing them as narrow-minded and assuming that they all have set beliefs. Rather, I am aware that my audience has some sense of awareness about the issue at hand. So their views are often quite varying. Understanding this and considering all possible views is one of the most important and most persuasive ways to engage in rhetoric.

Writing Sample

Introduction to "The Second Gulf Crusade"

This article is a response to the controversy over the printing of cartoons that are potentially offensive to Muslims in a Danish newspaper. It discusses the different ideological constructs that are being imposed on the people of the Middle East. And it concludes with a reversal of the cartoons. This reversal would suggest that the second gulf war is actually an ideological crusade, not unlike the Crusades in the Middle Ages.

The Second Gulf Crusade: A more critical attempt to understand the violence in response to a “comic strip”

The recent occurrence of a comic strip that provoked unrest and rioting among many Arabs and Muslims is an example of ethnic and religious stereotyping. It conflates religion with political terrorism. But if one wanted to continue to make those kinds of connections, one could turn the tables very easily. The U.S. is doing the very thing that this comic strip makes fun of: using its belief systems (nationalism, capitalism, “democracy”) to justify violence.

Could it not then be conjectured that this is a kind of crusade? The Second Gulf Crusade perhaps. After all, the U.S. is also working to impose its dominant belief systems on Iraq, and possibly the Arab and Muslim worlds in general. One begins to get a sense of why many Arabs and Muslims feel the Western imperialist nations like the U.S. are the oppressors.

This is not to say that there is anything particularly wrong, corrupt, or imperialist about democracy itself. In fact, true (multicultural, post-capitalist, non-coercive, non-quantitative) democracy can be an extremely beneficial form of government. This ideal democracy (owing to its multiculturalism and internationalism) would probably refrain from using force and violence (due to its non-coerciveness). Thus, there would be no room to justify violence with democracy. But our form of “democracy” has not quite reached the ideals that I have in mind. We cannot truly justify the U.S.’s violence with the idea that we intended to or even continue to intend to help Iraq form a better government.

The idea that we could have even conceived of using violence to promote democracy begins to sound ludicrous: “We are going to go kill people in order to give them democracy (freedom, pursuit of happiness, and life).” Ultimately, our attempts to use violence to impose our form of government reek of the converse: the use of our belief systems to justify violence.

And we are all aware that capitalist interests play a huge part in this occupation of Iraq. It would not then be surprising to find that the U.S. is also attempting to impose capitalism on the forming of Iraq’s governmental and social structure. This is simply a propagation of another dominant Western belief system. Again, the U.S. is using violence to propagate its dominant beliefs. But this time, it would not seem as if this particular belief system is opposed to violence. Rather, the overbearing capitalism that characterizes U.S. big business interests condones amassing as much wealth and power (political and otherwise) as possible by any means possible, including violence, corruption, oppression, etc…. Of course, it would make the current administration look bad to admit that they are propagating capitalism. So instead, they tell us that Iraq will have a “democracy.”

This propagation of “democracy” and capitalism suggests that the U.S. is also attempting to propagate western thought in general, especially the western manifestation of nationalism—a sense of nation which can be exclusionary and self-supremacist. (Look at how we think of America—i.e. the “best nation in the world,” “the most powerful,” and the ever patronizing “guardian” or “world peace-keeper.”) The latter example is, of course, entirely ironic, because apparently the U.S. uses violence in order to keep the peace.

Lastly, this may seem a bit far-fetched, but I’m going to say it anyway, just so that the reader may consider the situation with a critical mind: In this propagation of Western thought could very well be an attempt (intended or not) to change the way Iraqis think—their epistemology (how they know and understand existence). And an intricate facet of western epistemology is its religion. We may try our hardest to keep a separation of church and state, but I think that it is obvious that Christianity has a major influence on our government.

The most readily identifiable evidence for this is simply that all of the presidents have been members of the organized religion of Christianity (or at least they have said so). And most members of Congress (and other governmental bodies) share the same condition. So it could be argued that the U.S. is using violence to propagate Christian modes of thought (which is not a very Christian thing to do), precisely because this imperialist nation is doing so with other forms of Western thought.

So now I ask you to picture a comic strip with George W. Bush standing on a map of the world, walking toward Iraq, holding a cross (or crucifix). Or possibly more effective would be a comic with Jesus and some Crusaders flying F-15 fighter jets. And at the top, it would coin a new name for this war/ocupation: “The Second Gulf Crusade.”

I think that now the reader can see why many people feel that the U.S. is an imperialist oppressor. It is too simple-minded to say that a simple comic caused the riots—the eruption of violence. Violence has been going on for quite some time now. And it is not simply that “these Muslim extremists and terrorist only want to kill people, devoid of idealism.” Rather, it is that many Arabs and Muslims feel oppressed by our Western imperialism. It is oppression that provokes anger, hatred, and violence. More precisely, it is the capitalist and nationalist oppressors in the U.S. and the Western world that are pitting the people of America and others against the Muslim people, the Arab people, and the Iraqi people.