Week 11: Reflection on Entitled Opinions ( Part 2)

In last week's entry, I focused on Caddie Alford's statement, at the beginning of her book Entitled Opinions: Doxa after Digitality, that opinions are "entitled to more" and literally ran with it [in my own direction]. After a more complete read of the material, the salience of Alford's addendum to that statement towards the end of her book is apparent: "...opinions are conceptually entitled to more, but that also means that the circumstances of opinions - the why, where, how , when, and wherefore of opinions - are entitled to more"( Alford 170 - emphasis mine).

At the crux of her discussion are the ways digital rhetoric interacts with, adheres to or rejects notions of traditional considerations of rhetoric, particularly its effects on the creators and consumers of online rhetoric, individually and collectively. In essence, Alford brings the discussion surrounding the value of rhetoric started in Plato's Gorgias to modern times, engaging a dialectical conversation that replaces Polus and Callicles with modern day scholars and rhetoricians.

In true Platonian style, Alford ensures that key terms are explicitly defined early in the text, with much attention given to the the polysemous term which grounds her "theory of opinions," doxa, and the neologisms emerging from it that speak to its metamorphosis in the online environment. Pulling from ancient and modern understandings, Alford defines doxa in its simplest terms as "opinions" and "beliefs;" in metaphorical terms as "the coin of rhetoric's realm;" and more formally as "forms of knowledge that fluctuate" (Alford 7, 24, 25). The newly introduced endoxa are defined as "a community's local truths" (think shared values that are subject to change) and "networked social lineages" (Alford 27, 28), while adoxa represent "surface level," "bizarre" and "generally unaccepted opinions that are thin skinned" and "irrelevant" (think conspiracy theories/white supremist thought) (Alford 30).

These terms are important to building Alford's case that doxa in and of itself are not antithetical to episteme (that is, truth or goodness) in ancient rhetoric nor modern forms, but instead that the friction between base rhetoric and the highly considered philosophy lies in adoxa posing as endoxa. In fact, bringing doxa and its related terms to the forefront of rhetorical situations online actually mirrors the intended purpose of the Socratic dialogue in Gorgias, to bring beliefs into the authenticating light of morality, a view that is expressed and/or supported in multiple ways by others in the book:

Doxa/opinion "(re)mediates and brings into meaningful, rhetorical creation the episteme/logos (unobservability; withdrawness) of the world" - Scott Sundvall (Alford 60).

"To be able to respond, and to be able to become a rhetorical subject, we must somehow be vulnerable, exposed, or open to the affection of address from outside ourselves" - Kendall Gerdes (Alford 34).

"Genuine adoxastic offerings impart a shame that instills the interpersonal disposition of humility, bending us toward both recognizing and suffering shame in and with others" - Caddie Alford (36).

Having laid out these terms and concepts, Alford then explains how other variables such as Google searches and algorithms, which are not as objective or free from ideological constraints as users may think, aim to socialize, delineate, expand, narrow, revise, reinforce, challenge and/or reinvent endoxa in online spaces. Alford also effectively shows how social media platforms can run the gamut of the affective from instilling fear in some to empowering others to fight stereotypes; or it can result in an enlightened shift in attitudes or prompt irrational real life behavior, including antisocial and violent actions.

Alford's final chapter shows how invention appears in digital rhetoric, primarily to shift dominant doxa that reflect patriarchal, misogynistic and racialized views that sometimes drive content and search results. For instance, she examines how Twitter hashtags like #MyAntiRapeFace and #IfTheyGunnedMeDown contended against victim blaming and black male stereotypes, respectively. She also provides less successful models to drive home her point about the need for digital invention to marshal "an effect that creates something surprising, if just for a second" (Alford 137). The phrase 'just for a second' made me wonder about memory and social media. With hashtags created daily and the ability to revise and remove sites and information, I think about a digital amnesia and how that can possibly impact or distort identity and future doxa.

Finally, as I read through Alford's conception of doxa, I thought of a possible [para]doxa I have recently observed. I would define that as a doxa that appears to emerge at a point of cognitive dissonance. It can manifest itself in harmless or harmful ways such as hate-follow activities online or in the support and, perhaps, even the promotion of endoxa that is knowingly harmful to self, but clung to for reasons which may require further reflection or deeper self-interrogation.