The 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness As a Model for Rhetorical Theory

Hendry/1 The 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness as a Model for Rhetorical Theory John Hendry Hendry/2 The 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness as a Model for Rhetorical Theory Introduction The connection between rhetoric and consciousness has been made mostly implicitly and in parts. Various scholars have made claims about the epistemic1 and ontological2 components of rhetoric, but few rhetorical theorists have directly attempted to link rhetoric to a more holistic view of consciousness. Perhaps the closest rhetoric has come to its own theorists of consciousness are Eric Havelock (The Muse Learns to Write, 1986) and Walter Ong (Orality and Literacy, 1982), whose work engages with the ways in which technological change and language have produced new forms of consciousness we may call rhetorical, but these studies of consciousness are constrained to particular epochs in history. While we may find useful analogies for modern living, neither Havelock nor Ong make claims about the current state of consciousness or its connection to the mediated rhetorical landscape of the twenty-first century. Ong’s central claim in Orality and Literacy is that “writing restructures consciousness” (77). He explains this change by saying that “the critical and unique breakthrough into new worlds of knowledge was achieved within human consciousness not when simple semiotic marking was devised but when a coded system of visible marks was invented whereby a writer could determine the exact words that the reader would generate from the text” (83). This insight, coming hundreds of years after the invention of writing and literacy, stands in stark contrast to 1 Robert Scott’s “On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic” (1967) produced a lively debate which drew in scholars like Michael Leff, Barry Brummett, and Sonja Foss over the years. This debate is summarized in William Harpine’s “What Do You Mean, Rhetoric is Epistemic?” (2004). 2 See Karlyn Khors Campbell’s “The Ontological Foundations of Rhetorical Theory,” which drew responses from prominent figures such as Wayne Booth, Gerald Mohrmann, and Michael Leff. Hendry/3 Plato’s allegation that writing “will introduce forgetfulness into the soul of those who learn it” (Cooper 551). Plato’s model for understanding consciousness assigned a negative value to writing, while Ong’s model assigned a positive value. Current work on consciousness and rhetoric has shifted focus away from the technologically-mediated consciousness to the unconsciously-mediated consciousness. Based on the work of Jacques Lacan, rhetorical studies has begun to address the ways in which unconscious factors influence our ostensibly rational rhetorical choices. Christian Lundberg and Joshua Gunn argued in the major journals what a psychoanalytic rhetoric would look like before both publishing book-length treatments of their competing ideas,3 and a new wave of scholars like Kimberly Huff and Mina Ivanova are bringing psychoanalytic tools to bear in rhetorical criticism.4 Attending to these unconscious factors that shape the social fields in which rhetoric takes place is crucial for a holistic understanding of rhetoric’s role in human affairs, but we must not underestimate the mediative role played by technology in our increasingly-connected world. To fully account for the unconscious, mediated consciousness of the rhetorical subject, a new model should be deployed to advance the understanding of consciousness in the discipline. In this project, I suggest adopting such model of consciousness for rhetorical studies, a model that accounts for the philosophical insights of the epistemological/ontological debate as well as the mediated nature of our modern understanding of psychology and neurology. This model is The 8-Circuit Model of Consciousness, developed by Robert Anton Wilson, an American philosopher, novelist, and social critic. This way of understanding consciousness is 3 See Joshua Gunn’s Modern Occult Rhetoric (2011) and Christian Lundberg’s Lacan in Public (2012). 4 See Kimberly Huff’s Rhetorical Failures, Psychoanalytic Heroes (2011) and Mina Ivanova’s “The Bulgarian Monument to the Soviet Army” (2014). Hendry/4 well-suited to rhetorical studies because it accounts particularly well for the interplay between individual psychology, social contingencies like technology, and the constitutive element of language. To show the usefulness of Wilson’s model of consciousness in rhetorical studies, this piece will proceed in three parts. First, I will provide the reader with a brief sketch of Robert Anton Wilson’s career and influences, showing how his work draws upon the tradition of critical theory. Next, I will explicate Wilson’s model of consciousness, showing how his engagement with critical theory relates to the field of rhetorical studies. Finally, I will close with some suggestions for how to implement the praxis inherent in Wilson’s model in the field of rhetorical studies. Robert Anton Wilson, Counterculture Icon Robert Anton Wilson, a philosopher and social critic, was a key member of the California counterculture from the 1960s through the early 2000s. He has become something of a countercultural icon in the present day, with his work influencing two particular countercultural movements that I can identify—post-Freudian psychology and radical liberalism, and the revival of western mysticism. In each of these areas, Wilson contributes to the tradition of critical theory, which is “that part of intellectual and cultural history by which we come to know a certain dimension of ourselves” (Adams 1). As I move through these three countercultural strands of which Wilson is a part, I will show both his contributions and their precedents in the history of critical theory. Before I do so, I must define the term critical theory, showing how it encompasses certain literary theorists, philosophers, and theorists of society. The term “critical theory” is somewhat contested, as it draws together multiple strands of thought under one banner. The first strand, the literary-critical strand, is best exemplified by Hendry/5 Hazard Adams’ anthologies Critical Theory Since Plato and Critical Theory Since 1965. In this anthology, Adams connects the history of critical theory to the development of literary theory, which he divides into three epochs: the ontological, the epistemological, and the linguistic (Adams 3). This strand involves the use and criticism of literature as it relates to notions of the self and language. The tools of criticism used in Adams’ anthologies have a distinctly political tone. That is to say, it is not difficult to see the liberatory political potential in Longinus’ theory of the sublime or of Derrida’s centerless structure. The other strand, based primarily in the Frankfurt School, is political-economic. This line of inquiry is at its best in works like Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment, or see Martin Jay’s The Dialectical Imagination for a historical gloss of these thinkers. Taking as a given the ontological, epistemological, and linguistic questions posed by the literary-critical strand, thinkers like Benjamin and Adorno critiques the modes of cultural production that produced self-alienation and domination. As the twentieth century drew to a close, it became more and more difficult to diverge the two strands of thought. In the work of Jacques Derrida, Jacques Rancière, and Michel Foucault, for example, both the literary-critical and political-economic strands of thought are at work. In my readings of these authors, the core overlap between these strands of thought is a desire for personal liberation borne from self-reflection on subjectivity, art, and language. In his work, Robert Anton Wilson, like these later thinkers, engages with both traditions in an "attempt to break down conditioned associations, to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth" (Monaghan). As I move through the three Hendry/6 countercultural movements Wilson influenced, I will show how his work engages with the tradition of critical theory as I have described it. Post-Freudian Psychology Wilson had a lifelong mistrust of the scientific and psychological establishments, stemming from his experiences with polio as a child (Cosmic Trigger II 45-47). He was treated with the “sister Kinny” method of treating polio, at the time repudiated by the American Medical Association. This method of treatment is widely-regarded today as both a legitimate method of treating polio and as the beginning of the field of physical therapy (Rogers). As a result of his positive experience with non-mainstream medicine later regarded as sound, Wilson developed a deep mistrust of scientific and medical orthodoxy, which he refers to as “The Citadel” (The New Inquisition 20-21). One of the chief social ills produced by The Citadel, for Wilson, is the ascendance of Skinnerian behaviorism over Freudian clinical psychology. Wilson finds the “intuitive and poetic psychologies of Freudians and Jungians” more effective at relieving psychological distress than the “1984-ish” Behaviorism of Skinner, which has entrenched itself in the American Psychological Association’s reality-tunnel (Cosmic Trigger I 37, 40). Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Wilson was a fierce advocate for psychologists like Timothy Leary and Wilhelm Reich, whose methods were outlawed by the psychological mainstream. Leary was excommunicated

Load more