Kinneavy and the Myth of the Self

1.21.2013 Kinneavy

Here's another blog of Kinneavy. I hope people find this a useful addition to Jess's excellent response (I flaked out and didn't get in on the signup process for the first week, so I had to double up in places).

I’m writing about JLK on MLK day… JLK advocates an expressivist theory in his focused but clumsy argument. Essentially, as C.S. Lewis’ (Anthony Hopkins) student Peter Whistler (James Frain) quotes his, Whistler’s, father  in Shadowlands , “We read to know we’re not alone,” JLK commands us to attend “We write to know we’re not alone.” Moving from the phenomenological ethos in the first part of the argument, JLK gets to the meat of his message: expressivism is germane to all instances of discourse because it is a fundamentally human quality. And expressivism is a fundamentally human quality because the three nodes of discourse, analogous to our own rhetorical triangle (must be the communication triangle to which JLK refers on p. 373), influence discourse. Being-for-itself (author), Being-for-others (writing for, influenced by, audiences), and Being-in-the-world (context as a toolkit for self-definition) shape style, which is of course manifests in individual texts. By writing, reality is given value because, according to JLK, everything is used to define the self. Even magnanimous acts, subsumed under Being-for-others presumably, take on a sort of self-shaping reality. In other words, it’s what can what I can do for my country do for me? Obviously, this theory is problematic if you’re an idealist who believes in true magnanimity. More to the point… Though I agree that we write to define and shape ourselves—writing, context, and audience—offers us those tools by which we can be free (380, 383)  to construct our identities, JLK doesn’t address any sort of magnanimous impulse. My objection doesn’t come from a thin ideal but the annoying desire for thorough arguments. Or rather, can this emotion that he erroneously associates with myth provide the basis of writing that can be divorced from one particular author? As mentioned, JLK associates emotion with myth (373, 378). Myth is “colored” by emotion, sure. Each individual interacting with and/or composing a myth invests the myth with a certain force. But myth, unlike many other forms of discourse, by definition supports the society that made it. Sure, it benefits individuals as myths, particularly the Campbell-described Hero-journey, show individuals how to survive the “inevitable crises of life.” But myths also show individuals how to function within and provide boon to their respective societies.

Campbell pithily said over and again, “Dream is a private myth; myth is a public dream.” The self according to Campbell, is a part of a whole, even if a culture’s myth purport the rugged individual. So it seems that, though JLK and his cronies definitely articulated one level of expressive discourse, they failed (at least what I can see from the anthologized chapter) to acknowledge a higher order of context that subjugates the all-governing self JLK et al describe: the Other, according to JLK, exists for the sake of the individual; the World exists as a toolbox for the sake of the individual; style is, as Nikos Kazantzakis says, “My soul is a cry; my work is a commentary on that cry.” JLK does not consider that the self may take on existence for the sake of others and for community—sure, s/he knows his/her role in the process, but that role has a higher end. JLK acknowledges that all writing has expressivist qualities. We agree on this. The human ego is nothing to ignore. However, JLK’s argument suggests otherwise, that all writing is fundamentally expressive. Some is, sure. That depends on the author. One who exists solely for him or herself would write mostly expressivist discourse. However, that’s not everyone or even most people. Most people are egotistical to a degree, but they are able to subsume themselves within a group or cause, which brings me back to the emotion-and-myth issue. One assumption that informs JLK’s argument is that the presence of emotion indicates an investiture of the self. That’s true. But, especially in regard to myth, when a society/culture appropriates a text, individual emotions, however valid, become the culture’s emotions.