(The) Writer's Mind: Pathos
To understand pathos, consider that we are always already within a mood, state-of-mind, or emotion. Because it is always there (waiting for us, so to speak) it is for the most part invisible to us. And it is from this invisible "location" that our moods direct our attention, guide the judgments we make, and determine our reactions.
Beginning to notice what mood we are always already in gives us access to listen for what mood someone else is in, namely, whoever we intend to address in a given rhetorical act. If it is so that we are always already addressing someone in a particular mood (but don't know it), then if we look closely at what we have written, we may begin to "see" the mood we project our addressee to have. Furthermore, we can begin to see how successful we are in inviting our addressee to step into that mood and in shifting that initial mood into other states. Crucial, and unfortunately often overlooked, is that the rhetor must be committed to carry the addressee through various shifts in mood. If there is little or no interest on the rhetor's part, little or no shifting actually occurs (reinforcing the mood of complacency, perhaps, but quite unintentionally). Sometimes such shifts may be an increase of intensity of the same mood, or an incremental movement to an opposing mood, or total leaps between moods, which in turn triggers its own shift. Now, the actual physical person reading your writing may enter your discourse not already in the mood you project them to have. As a writer, you need to account for that possibility (true, some writers don't care, assuming that the reader will do backflips to enter the world of the writer--e.g., James Joyce), and so work to invite any given audience to begin to step into the mood you project. However, if you begin with a mood most all people are likely to be in to some degree, then you've found your way. What might such a mood be?
The highly rhetorical philosopher Martin Heidegger claimed that the fundamental and interconnected moods human beings are always already in includes:
One way "in" is to see what actually triggers the experience of these emotional states: what has to happen to who in order for the emotion to arise? Figuring that out will help you to write in such a way that will impact your addressee, "moving" them from one mood to another. For instance, if someone is indignant about someone unjustifiably and undeservedly receiving a benefit (the emotion many republicans experienced in 2012, and then democrats in 2016), how could you shift that person into feeling pity for the very same person they felt indignant about?
What is a breakdown?In our always already way of being in the world, we carry out our business without a second thought, that is, until a breakdown occurs. A breakdown occurs when we go to do something and the “tool” we ordinarily use to do that something is either:
While most of life is built around avoiding the headaches breakdowns bring us, rhetorical education is the kind of education that trains us to cope effectively with breakdowns, such that we design multitudes of tools or instruments that we can creatively employ in various situations, as needed.
And so, in order to practice such work, during your observation assignment, you are to create your own breakdown, observe yourself and others during the breakdown, and write out your observations and insights that emerge from your intentional breakdown. |