"The holocaust may not be so much a breach of the Platonic wall of Virtue, an aberration of Western culture, as an outgrowth of it, the final development and manifestation of something deeper and more problematic in Western civilization itself"--Steven B. Katz
"The relationship between rationalization and the excesses of political power is evident. And we should not need to wait for bureaucracy or concentration camps to recognize the existence of such relations."--Michel Foucault
A quick scan of the forum threads for this week reveals a striking tendency of students to discuss the reading authored by Cezar Ornatowski. Four out of five threads discuss this reading, and, at the time of this writing, 19 of 21 comments are on threads which primarily discuss the Ornatowski reading.
I consider the above "striking" because Ornatowski discusses almost solely the political and rhetorical situation of technical writers in the workplace. He concludes with the not-so-striking observation that technical writing is not useful because "communication costs money and may have an impact on one's career," but rather that communication costs money because technical writing itself is useful (181). Ornatowski further suggests that "it is useful because it is a vital element in furthering the goals (business, political, economic, and other goals) of organizations and institutions," (181).
Such observations are useful to technical writers immersed in the corporate or otherwise "professional" world. However, I wish to argue that such observations, as well as those expressed in some forum threads, ignore a crucial matter: the power and politics of our modern situation, a politics which I believe is rooted in what Katz describes as the “ethic of expediency.” This ethic is intricately linked to rationality, as the “Just Memo” illustrates wonderfully. However, as Anne Reznicek points out, this excess of rationality is found not just in Nazi Germany, but also right here in the United States. She suggests that within “corporations, with their strive to use communication in the most effective manner possible, i.e. make more money, ethics are often times thrown out the window.” As Michel Foucault suggests, there is a clear link between rationalization on the one hand and bureaucracy, concentration camps, or corporate actions on the other. And too often, rhetoric is subsumed beneath the blanket of rationality and the accompanying power relations in the West.
This is demonstrated quite clearly through a cursory examination of some forum posts. For example, let us take this observation from one of Jenni Schroll's posts: “Better, more prepared writers going into the job force mean savings of time and money for both the companies in question and for the employees themselves.” She also seems to lament that realistic situations, such as those that arise in the corporate world, are lacking in higher education. However, what is absent in this analysis is why those realistic situations are to be privileged.
If our goal is to determine the ethical, indeed, to practice an ethics, then this goal is clearly hampered when we assume social forces to be benign. Instead, the professional writer (and anyone else) must continually remain critical toward all of these supposedly 'natural' and 'benign' social forces. In our current society, defined by capitalistic and bureaucratic power relations along with their theoretical foundation of cold rationality, we would do well to heed the warning Katz offers: “if...technological expediency in the guise of rationality can become our telos, then deliberative rhetoric—devoted to the use of reasoned debate to arrive at informed consensus and decisions in a democracy—could become nearly impossible,” (198).
Katz further suggests that “in a capitalistic society, technological expediency often takes precedence over human convenience, and sometimes even human life,” (198). A regularly recurring topic of conversation is the place of a professional writer in the corporate/business world. Therefore, I would suggest that Katz's warning is even more important to those wishing to join this world, to enter the proverbial 'belly of the beast.' Hierarchical relations frequently, if not always, are at odds with a democratic deliberation of the “intersubjectivity” which Nathaniel discussed in class. With the hierarchical forces present in our Western society and the emphasis upon rationality, I would suggest that any investigation into the genealogy of ethics would produce the surprising (or not so surprising) revelation that ethical standards are often in the services of the ruling forces of society. This realization is crucial to the ethical deliberations of professional writers, and we would do well to respond with an unending critique of hierarchy in all its forms, with our knowledge of rhetoric as a guide.
Matt Bradney
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