Postmodernism |Paper #1 | Prof. Bay | September 26, 2017
This is not a book, even though, “the ideal for a book would be to lay everything out on a plane of exteriority of this kind on a single page, the same sheet” (Deluze & Guattari, 9). Accessing a similarly spacious ideal, agency emerges here and sprawls there, all the while containing itself in conveniently observed spaces—agents and actors situated in context and mediated by text. The venture to explain how, why, and quite simply that things happen underscores much of human discourse aimed at understanding itself, but the particular discursive thread surrounding agents and agency persisting through postmodern theory reveals a dynamic trajectory of evolving thoughts and shifting paradigms.
Modern conceptions of agency are rooted in, and largely presuppose, the notion of stable agents. Here, agents are, “exclusively humans who possess the cognitive abilities, intentionality, and freedom to make autonomous decisions and the corollary presumption that humans have the right or ability to master nature” (Coole and Frost 9). Postmodern and post-structuralist challenges to the subject/object distinction undermine this notion of agents, but this hardly closes the conversation, rather it permits a kind of conceptual rupture that allows many distinct (and sometimes divergent) iterations to develop with new contexts, connotations, and implications. A crucial shift that allows this discourse to change and persevere is the transition from focusing on agents, and instead discussing agency. Whereas agents, as responsible and autonomous persons, are inseparable from the subject-object dichotomy, the property of agency, or “agentic capacity” emerges as a force or being that can be shared (Coole and Frost 9). But before sharing it, how is agency individuated?
Rhetorical agency is often conceptualized as contextual, but essentially individual. Cooper speaks of rhetorical agency as an, “emergent property of embodied individuals,” which is a “matter of action: it involves doing things intentionally and voluntarily, but it is not a matter of causing whatever happened” (421, 439). This view of agency accounts for the ways in which rhetors interact which their audience, the context within which this occurs, and the mutually interdependent nature of these interactions. Although this view of agency conveniently avoids any metaphysical commitments about causing whatever happens, it still associates agency with notions of responsibility in that responsible rhetors recognize the meanings of others, particularly how they are able to persuade and be persuaded. This points to another longstanding presupposition that accounts of agency not only describe what agency is, but also what it should be, a question that Geisler notes in describing the meeting of the Alliance of Rhetoric Societies.
Geisler describes this as the descriptive/prescriptive split between “fact” and “value”, and as she and other thinkers note, the conflation of these distinct questions highly problematizes discussion of agency in any form. Her report of the ARS meeting focuses primarily on the fact, or “what is” side of the question on agency, as she recounts the death of the subject, ideology, and rhetorical agency in “not-traditional” contexts including images and digital media (10-11). For Geisler, the notion of agency is deeply linked with persons, as rhetors and rhetoricians. As she acknowledges, “one of the comforts of the traditional model of the humanist agent was its close link between the mission of rhetoric and the concept of the rhetorical agent” (15). According to some post-humanist thinkers, the problem is that this comfort is built on an illusion of agential control which is immune from contingency—life interjects on plans; unpredictable and spontaneous factors support agents just as much as calculated game theory and risk management. Further, by conjoining the broad notion of agency with rhetorical agents (and the mission of rhetoric), the conflation of fact and value that Geisler wants to avoid permeates the discourse once again.
In their rejoinder, Gunn and Lundberg argue Geisler’s characterization of the conference is inaccurate, and in correcting the record, they advance a view which permits agency to be decoupled from subjects and to transcend the traditional imperative of situating agents in a political/civil/ethical framework. Just as Geisler draws attention the often-overlooked difference between what agency is and should be, so too do Gunn and Lundberg disambiguate a common confusion as they explicate agents and agency. This conflation, they believe, is the source of both confusing post-humanism with postmodernism, and for clinging to the illusory image of agency as ontotheological (86). As Gunn and Lundberg unhitch agency from its historically conjoined antecedents of responsibility and ethics, they expose a conception of agency capable of thriving independently of autonomous, intending human agents (92-93). This is the point where my preexisting models for understanding agency shuddered, and I winced a bit in disbelief, but in remembering that an ecumenical approach is essential for transdisciplinary learning, I sat with the idea, becoming more and more fascinated by the possibilities permitted by this new way of conceptualizing a seemingly familiar term.
Beyond expressing itself in everyday things (not necessarily human), agency as “thing-power” can be noticed in varying degrees all around—agency could be a continuum (Bennett 355). Things draw and catch our attention (surprisingly active terms for inanimate objects). Here, there are still specific terms for describing people as “actors” in their contexts, but the vocabulary has simply expanded to also account for all the non-human “actants” which take part in the unfolding agency as well (Bennett 355). From this plurality of materialisms, I’d like to consider agency through the trope of transplantation.
As kind of event, transplantation, offers a vehicle with which to explore the contours of agency. Consider the physical transplantation of a bodily organ from one person to another. A donor’s liver is a part of them and participates in their agency (some might even call it an agent itself), but then in transplantation, the liver comes apart from the donor, and becomes a part of someone else. Now, it’s the recipient’s liver. A philosopher of action theory might peel at this scenario in order to discern how and when (or if) agency is transferred from one subject to another, but new materialisms provide vocabulary to describe agency in way that permits individuation and holism in a simultaneous coherence. The liver is both the donor’s and the recipient’s; somehow, they share it and each could call it their own. Of course, body parts are not the only things that undergo transplantation—people, families, and communities lift themselves or sometimes get torn from one place and land in another. Where’s the agency in that? Sometimes, a shift in attention is so abrupt and differentiated that swimming in systemic agency, it’s only the impulse to locate my agency that motivates the next step; the next breath.
Discourse, too is full of transplantation. Every time an author cites another, ideas and meaning are transplanted between contexts. Rhetorical agency is shared, yet individuated at the same time. Sure, there are ethical and conventional reasons for attribution, but there’s something sublime when authors seek and accept transplanted ideas, and through this sharing and recycling, a new, albeit negotiated, agency pokes through. Consider the dialogue between Geisler and Gunn & Lundberg. Each author expresses and develops a unique rhetorical agency (G&L do so collaboratively!). Through discourse, their agency develops and depends on the exchange or transplantation of ideas. Dialectically, their discourse itself expresses its own agentic capacity. Finally, their whole written dialogue was initiated by the spoken conference dialogue they shared and sustained. If words were a kind of currency, they express not only the values and intentions of the rhetors that use them, but also the things they purport to represent. In holding place, things make space…or they don’t.
Tight at the margins?
Relax a bit and wriggle.
Making space is fun!