Author and Interpretation

“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, 204)

           

            Reading these articles has spawned a lot of thought about what a “human right” is and just what kind of stipulations and restrictions answering a question like this entails. In their article, Special Issue on Human Rights Rhetoric: Traditions of Testifying and Witnessing, Arabella Lyon and Lester C. Olson take the reader step-by-step into just how arduous of a process documenting, discussing, drafting, and deciding on what “universal human rights” are and just who and why they would be fit to make those decisions.

            When examining claims regarding human rights in rhetoric, it’s important that every facet of the conversation is stringently defined and laid bare against the many over-arching parameters the conversation must meet. “A rhetorical approach to human rights considers the 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” (Lyons and Olson, 205). With a primary focus on language and how it’s adapted to circumstance, navigating the issue will look at how audiences identify with rights of individuals or communities called into question (or, who’s rights are being impeded on), and that in turn, will provide insight into how people adapt to and reciprocate legislation when it’s enacted on somebody separate from themselves.

            This idea of situation-dependent, subjective interpretation links to Foucault’s idea of the function of the author in the sense that the name attached to the work in question can largely determine the accepted legitimacy of the text separate from the name. This insinuating the idea that despite the work being separate of the author there will be some skewed or varying interpretations of a work simply by way of being symbolically attached to an “author,” or that the language used would then be heard or read in a completely different light because a different name is attached. So when a document like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights circulates a large part of the reception is filtered through the interpretation and preconceived notions regarding the author, or name attached to the idea of the document, the United Nations.

            Foucault says that, “…today’s writing has freed itself of the dimension of expression. Referring only to itself without being constricted to the confines of it’s interiority, writing is identified with its own exteriority. This means that it is an interplay of signs arranged less according to its signified content than according to the very nature of it’s signifier” (Foucault, 905) To break this down and bring it back to Lyon and Olson, so much of what is said is attached and directed by the nature of discourse between the author and the reader by way of certain linguistic parameters that are put in place by already-extenuating circumstances be them environmental, political, social, economical, etc.  

            Rhetorically analyzing and sculpting and argument pertaining to human rights will need to encapsulate almost any extenuating circumstance or idea that makes us human, and why and what has brought about the need for an over-arching agenda. It will have to be done so without any interference from special interest groups as free from toxic power-dynamics as possible. The goal should be the in favor of supporting equal opportunity, not necessarily that of protection.