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Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. The Ethics of Style. The E thical Responsibility of Writers and Readers. Writers have the responsibility of writing clearly. Readers have the responsibility of reading hard enough to understand the complexity of ideas.
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Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler The Ethics of Style
The Ethical Responsibility of Writers and Readers • Writers have the responsibility of writing clearly. • Readers have the responsibility of reading hard enough to understand the complexity of ideas. • If we don’t want others to impose carelessly complex writing on us, then we should not impose it on others.
An Ethic of Style • Unintended Obscurity- Those who write in ways that seem dense and complicated but rarely think they do. • The ethical issue is the innocent ignorance of the writer. • Intended Misdirection-when writers knowingly use language in their own self-interest rather than that of the reader’s.
Who erred? When responsibility is not recognized by the writer and word choice misdirects the mistakes as occurring on their own. • Who pays? The writer intentionally deflects responsibility in which the First Rule of Ethical Writing is breached. • Who dies? The main character of the story is not me, the reader. I am ignored because the writer deflects my fear and violated the duty to write to me as he/she would want to be written or addressed. Protecting self-interest is unethical.
Necessary Complexity • How do we as readers respond to those who know they write in complex manners but claim they need to because they claim breaking new intellectual ground. • EXAMPLE: “If, for a while, the ruse of desire is calculable for the uses of discipline soon the repetition of guilt, justification, pseudo-scientific theories superstition, spurious authorities and classification can be seen as the desperate effort to ‘normalize’ formally the disturbances of a discourse of splitting that violates the rational, enlightened claims of its enunciatory modality.” • What does this mean? Is it a thought so complex that it cannot be expressed otherwise or is it babble? • Take time to unpack it, don’t make readers struggle.
The Declaration of Independence • Organized into three parts • First part is the major premise that justifies a people throwing off a tyranny and replacing it with a government of their own. • Part two offers evidence supporting Jefferson’s premise that the king intended to establish absolute tyranny. • Part three makes the claim that the colonists made the right decision, which was declaring independence.
Style and Ethics In part one, Jefferson chose to make the king the active agent of every oppressive action in order to support his argument that the king was indeed abusive. He wrote in a very impersonal style to lay a philosophical basis for the revolution. The colonists were made to look coerced into their actions and had no free will. In part two, Jefferson made the king the a freely acting agent of his own actions and in part three the colonists were the agents of their own actions. Part two is the justification of the overthrowing of the government and the last part is the obvious correct choice for the colonists declaring independence.
Rhetorical Power • He created a logical argument to justify independence. • He manipulated his language to support his logic. • Was he marginally deceptive using language instead of logic? • Do we trust a a writer who seeks a response not only through logical argument but alos with prose style?
