Discourse, Rhetoric, and the Author Function

"The promise and pitfalls attending the roles of those who witness and testify are complex and, at times, can be hazardous for already harmed individuals and communities, a factor which rhetoricians are well prepared to critique with attention to motives, since ‘‘protection’’ can be a euphemism for taking control, while ‘‘support,’’ in contrast, can meaningfully enhance the agency of affected populations" - Lyon and Olson 

When we think of human rights, what comes to mind? Equality? Fair Treatment? Protection? Liberty? Freedom? Universality? 

What discourse defines human rights? How do we discuss it? How do we attempt to stop it or combat it? What are we doing about it?

As I read over Arabella Lyon and Lester C. Ollson's work, Special Issue on Human Rights Rhetoric: Traditions of Testifying and Witnessing, I was intrigued to see that many our discourse and our rhetoric was part of the issue within defining human rights. Lyon and Olson discuss "what might be considered a  rhetorical approach to human rights in that it articulates a rationale for examining how rights are represented in language and symbolism, and how public debates influence communities, interpretations of rights, and rights enforcement" (204). How do language and symbolism affect human rights discourse and how we understand it, especially universally? 

After reading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we can begin to understand the idea of what language defines and constructs "human rights". Lyon and Olson argue that it is important to unpack "human rights implications of language and symbolism by examining the hierarchical significance of words, definitions, re-definitions, symbols designating social groupings, myths, rituals, symbolic images, and the like" (204). Because of this, we have to further examine the language and symbolism of the UDHR. Words like "inherent dignity", "inalienable rights", and "fundamental human rights" rhetorically suggest that freedom and equality have always been present, yet simply abused. Phrases like "common understanding", "universal respect", "universal and effective recognition" provide an understanding that everyone, nationally and internationally, is on board. 

Olson and Lyon also discuss how that language can sometimes be lost in translation. They argue that the rhetorical approach to human rights can be "a limited perspective on language and symbolism rather than their entwined relationship to material and historical conditions that clearly extend beyond such representations" (206). Because language and symbolism can also depend on experience, the relationship between meaning and discourse can become strained. 

I believe this is how Foucault, Lyon, and Olson connect. 

Foucault argues that the author function should not impact the work being read. foucault believes that "in writing, the point is not to manifest or exalt the act of writing, nor is it to pin a subject within language; it is, rather, a question of creating a space into which the writing subject constantly disappears". Through this, and through the idea that limited perspective can impact language, we see a need to separate from the work in order to create a better outcome. A writer must be freed from feeling. 

Foucault would also agree with Lyon and Olson's point that " human rights discourses, at times, are viewed skeptically as tools by which elites manage or control otherwise already disenfranchised or marginalized, ostensibly ‘‘autonomous’’ individuals and other communities—oftentimes behind a persona or mask of beneficence" (206). Foucault would argue that "the author allows a limitation of the cancerous and dangerous proliferation of significations within a world where one is thrifty not only with one's sources and riches, but also with one's discourses and their significations". In order to lose the skepticism within a work, especially a work of human rights, the author must become an author that is "not an indefinite source of significaitons which fill a work". 

I find the idea of a detached author to be perplexing. But I can understand the need for one when it comes to discussing the rhetoric and discourse of Human Rights. In order to be a "universal" idea, this author function must truly identify with no one in order to identify with everyone.