Discussion
of Two Activist Stars
Coke: Our next presentation: how about a comparison
of classical and post-classical?
Rumi: Can you be a little more specific?
Coke: Well, classical is Aristotelian narrative, a
story has a beginning, middle and end. Chronological linearity. Post classical
is avant garde, fragmented, flashbacks. Discontinuous expository.
Rumi: So who do we take as examples?
Coke: American Noam Chomsky, the classical activist,
compared with Chinese Ai Wei Wei, the post-classical activist. Chomsky proceeds
point by point. He transitions between. Ai Wei Wei is impressionistically post
modern. His scenes are jump cuts.
Rumi: So you propose analyzing films about Chomsky
and Ai Wei?
Coke: Watching documentaries might be easier than
reading essays.
___________
Voice-over
There might be two false assumptions leading to
false analogies here.
(1) Rational argument does not necessarily
share a narrative trajectory with a story. An essay does not always have the
same structure as a vignette. The discussants will need to argue that essays
also can follow classical and post-classical argument.
(2) Films, augmented by visual footage, have a
different structure to an essay.
