Hey classmates. So this is an article my brother sent me for some delicious debate via facebook, and while that could lead to an entirely different rhetorical conversation itself, I think it goes really well with what we were talking about tonight. While the fundamental data collection and major argumentation is flawed, (at least in my opinion...discuss?), and it showcases some significant bias, the article talks about younger people lacking the verbosity necessary to contribute to the identification of morality within society. So, in short, here's an example of people from the digital age using the vernacular and an argument for how that is bad for society, specifically in regard to ethics. Is this a bi-product of living in a hypertextual\intertextual world, and do you agree with the argument? When should we start worrying about how the vernacular may be holding back educational progress? Are we doomed for idiocracy?!
http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/sociology-and-the-life-of-virtue.html
Interesting article...and a good example of intertextuality. Here you have an opinion piece commenting on someone else's opinion piece which is commenting on a sociological research study. Talk about falling into the rabbit hole. I don't necessarily agree with the author's point of view in the piece or the sociologist's for that matter, but I don't know that I disagree either. On the one hand, it disturbs me that many of the young people surveyed were not inherently opposed to cheating, stealing or driving drunk on purely moral grounds. Yet, it isn't like the respondents were in support of these things either - they simply felt it was up to each individual to decide for themselves. The authors want to make the case that these young people don't have the educational background or linguistic skills to talk about their moral experiences in meaningful ways (clearly, he is unfamiliar with our class). For me, it raises a bigger question: is morality a code of conduct based on personal virtues or public ones?
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ReplyDeleteIt really is interesting, and looking back on this, I'm starting to see that maybe it isn't about the inability of students to transcend the vernacular, but about the acceptance of postmodernism among young people today. The responses they posted in this article were all about, as you said John, the individual deciding for themselves what is right and wrong. They are echoing the belief that there is no absolute truth when it comes to morality, and that perspective and subjectivity guide both their language and their opinions. The modernist view the article takes conflicts with this stance, and it is assumed that the absolute truth at play is that young people lack the language (and knowledge) to articulate the absolute truths they must believe. I don't think that's the case. Perhaps the only real meaning we can construct from this piece is that the rhetoric of post-modernists (understandably) conflicts with the reality and rhetoric of a modernist.
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