Art of Persuasion

Paper #2

John Holtzman

Paper #2

October 20, 2008

 

Substance as Voice

 

Part One: What is voice?

            Is
it what one says or the way one says it that makes voice voice? Well, right now
I’m going to say that voice is substance. After all, isn’t what you say at least as important as how you say it? Yes,
personality is often important and even vital to the voice of a text, but it is
absolutely crucial that first and foremost a writer says what he or she intends
to say while focusing on the content of that writing.

            Let’s
look at academic discourse as an example. For me personally, reading literary
theory and criticism was more than a chore. Many writers attempted to add some
kind of voice (usually in the form of large and mystifyingly intense words).
The writings of the majority of these people, more often than not, only served
to confuse me beyond the point of sanity. It was only in class when those
readings were broken down that I understood the intentions of the writers. To
put it another way, I began to understand what they were saying, but I could
not begin to grasp the way they demonstrated their points or the reasons they
had for writing in such a way.

            The
voice of many texts attempted to establish the beliefs and ideas of the writers
and upon discussion of the texts, the true voice of the authors was revealed. I
began to see a voice of sorts in what they were saying when I realized that it
didn’t matter quite so much how they were saying it. Once all of the flashy
language and the large and complicated words were taken away, the heart of
their ideas was exposed. It was then that I also understood that through this
realization of voice as substance, the style of the authors mattered much less.

 

Part Two: On Truth imitation

            To
make the argument that voice is substance a bit more clear I will imitate a
portion of Harry G. Frankfurt’s On Truth.
At this point of Frankfurt’s book, he argues that joy
basically equals love.

            If
one understands joy and realizes that joy is the thing outside of him or
herself- in other words, if one sees another person or an object as the source
of his or her joy- Spinoza says that the person in question loves that thing.
Spinoza comprehends love as our reactions to the cause of our joy. According to
Spinoza, then, one must love anything that is accepted, to them, as a cause of
joy. That person consistently loves the thing they think assists their
continuation to turn into him or herself. It seems that Spinoza is headed in
the wrong direction. Several classic examples of love show, more often than not
basically, a different model than what Spinoza describes: many people love
something that does not necessarily give them joy, make them happy, or bring
them accomplishment.

            In
addition to this, Spinoza attaches an examination of love that seems inexact:
“A person who loves unavoidably endeavors to keep that which he loves.” In
other words, Spinoza says that the things people love are clearly and
inevitably important to them. Their lives, and the achievements and delights of
individual legitimacy, depend on them. Consequently, he argues, that person
logically attempts to guard them to make certain they are easily accessible to
him.

 

Part Three: Analysis

            What
then is it that the substance of the text tells the reader? It says that
Spinoza believes that love is caused by joy. For the sake of this paper, I
chose to say that voice has more to do with substance than with style, but I
think it’s actually much more complicated than that. After having completed the
imitation exercise, voice seems more complex; sure, my imitation was an attempt
at using Frankfurt’s style to make my own points, but I
felt my own methods creeping in. I twisted Frankfurt’s
words into my own and I still feel like I used some techniques and word choices
that define who I am as a writer.

            In
the end, I think that in attempting to take on Frankfurt
in his style but with my ideas, I ended up seeing just how necessary style can
be. Substance alone doesn’t make a great read, but at the same time something
that is written purely stylistically can be confusing. The marriage of those
two elements of voice and finding the right balance between the two seems to be
the best solution.

                        Take films, music, and books for
example. In film, it is important for a director to get his point across while
at the same time making the film he envisioned. In music, a songwriter must be
able to address a subject while approaching the song with a sense of him or
herself. In books, motifs and themes often represent the core of what the
writer wants to get across to an audience while the way they write keeps
readers entertained. All of these examples are a combination of substance and
style, both of which are important in order to provide entertainment and
understanding.

 

            After
having seen the effects of style and substance individually, it is easy to see
that the combination of the two is what can make a piece of writing truly shine
and stand out from the rest. For example, I simply could not read many literary
theorists due what seemed to me to be an overuse of style. On the other hand, a
piece of writing with nothing but substance, while it does demonstrate easily
what it wants to get across, can become boring and hard to read. It is only
when style and substance are united that a writer’s voice can come out.