Rhetoric, Technology, Culture Spring 2011

Harraway's modest witness "is objective; he guarantees the clarity and purity of objects." Your inobjective "immodest witness" is the opposite - rather than "self-invisible, transparent, so that their reports would not be polluted by the body," he avoids accountability: 'remixing' without any attribution, instead putting his body in place of citation.

Interestingly, we privilege immodest witnesses in fiction - the story about Flaubert is compelling because we wish to see our author-figure as the Immodest Witness - pouring the body into the text, somehow providing a ghost of their essence so we can see them in the future. However, I'm wondering how different this illusory effect is from the similar effects of the modest witness.

To bring the term full circle and return to Lanham, "value-free language does not exist, and we cannot posit a purely transparent language devoid of distracting ornament" (169). The modest witness or immodest witness is then merely an effect of rhetorical constructions, their queerings similarly based in a transformation of rhetorical effects.

Specifically for potential goals of the immodest witness, I think the primary goal is to call as much attention to artifice and construction. The Induction to Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair" provides an interesting version of this: he demands a contract with his audience that tells them both what they are about to see and how to perceive it. Jonson even tells his audience not to try to play the game of "who's who" with his characters - calling attention to various rhetorical (and theatrical) tricks he plans to use. While still rhetoric, by calling attention to the rhetoric one is making a slightly less modest choice than normal.

To return to Flaubert, the 'modesty' we expect from authors is what we would see as immodest from scientists. If Flaubert were to reveal he had constructed his work from a remix of other works, he would actually be operating "immodestly" by calling attention to the artifice of rhetoric. While still a rhetorical choice, it is immodest in that the audience often wants to believe in a particular fantasy (objectivity for science/subjectivity-embodiment for fiction). When one reveals the artifice of that fantasy, immodesty emerges

James, fantastic podcast! I laughed aloud (yes, the semi-joke about the shirtless, sweaty Flaubert was what got me) and also really stopped to think about the equivalent disingenuousness behind the “modest voice” and “immodest voice.” Yes, you’re right on: they’re both constructs, albeit possibly opposite constructs. Whether it’s the self-effacement and suppressed subjectivity of Haraway’s “modest witness” or the sweaty, yawping hyper-subjectivity of the novelist’s “immodest” self, the situation is the same: the self (or lack of self) is carefully crafted to suit the social/rhetorical purpose.

I’m interested in thinking about the place where Gustave Flaubert meets Robert Boyle. You point out these two ends of a spectrum, and do a great job showing how they are actually two different examples of the same (in some ways) phenomenon. But what happens when we really bring them together—when, as we do in our own writing all the time, we offer the “objective,” logos-driven argument in the voice of the Invisible Scientist, but then weave in a narrative designed to excite the reader, arouse his passions? We are certainly influenced, in our own writing, by the masculine, empiricist tradition. Yet we also draw on our own voices to create essays/notes/miscellany that compel the reader with a sense of “felt persona.”

James, your podcast also made me think of Kristen’s podcast (Kristen, I hope you’re reading this too!). One difference between our podcasts and our writing is that we cannot, in our podcasts, “deny our positions altogether” (loosely quoted from James) because our physical voices reveal traces of our bodies and identities, whether we want them to or not. We have tones and accents and cadences. Even the “robot voice” (which many of us have the pleasure of hearing at times on the DC buses and metro) has a character: it is stiff and awkward. Sometimes I picture the female robot voice as belonging to a constantly smiling woman (about 5’ 10”, slim, blond) who moves a bit jerkily and wears a navy blue skirt suit.

In her podcast, Kristen asks if voice—live voice—can “get away with” something that writing can’t. Interestingly, Haraway suggests that that is exactly the intention (and consequence) of the Male Scientist’s “unadorned, factual…naked way of writing”: being able to “get away with” objectivity (226). Then we can ask about Flaubert, as well: what does he “get away with” with his overwhelming (written) Selfiness? I suppose there is an entire acting industry to prove me wrong (last I checked it was called Hollywood), but part of me still feels as though the spoken voice is more difficult to manipulate—whether we strive for invisibility or embodiment—than the written word.