In his chapter “The Spatiality of
One’s Own Body and Motility”, Maurice Merleau-Ponty details his observations of
a patient named Schneider as a means of discussing the ways in which our
perception of the world is affected by our physical interactions with it. In
one section, Merleau-Ponty describes how Schneider is unable to grasp the “essence”
of a story and when asked to repeat anything about what he has heard he is only
able to remember the individual facts. From this observation, Merleau-Ponty
then draws a correlation to a normal individual’s ability to glean the overall
meaning of a story. He writes, “there is, then, in the normal subject an
essence of the story which emerges as it is told, without any express analysis,
and this subsequently guides along any reproduction of the narrative” (153). Inherent
to Merleau-Ponty’s description of the “normal” individual, is the idea that all
stories, or texts, carry with them an implicit, subconscious message that
subsequently influences the reader’s reception of the material. Merleau-Ponty
continues to say that this implicit aspect of a text is like a “transparent
envelope of meaning” that the reader inhabits. This connects to what Heidegger
says in Being and Time when he talks
about the geographer’s “source of the river” being different from the
‘springhead in the dale’. In both instances, the goal is to arrive at an
“essence”, the “being” or phenomenon of the thing, but this arrival is
complicated by the process of naming and the innate ambiguity and complexity of
language. How then would Schneider, who is impervious to this implicitness,
have an advantage in distinguishing the rhetoric of something like a newspaper
article if, as Merleau-Ponty says, he is more inclined to see signs (words,
texts) as something not to “envelope” him but rather to be “severally
deciphered”?
Consider
for example these two separate articles which are subtly different in their
portrayal of the same event and how when distinguishing the materiality of
these reports one is better able to see the ways in which the “facts” affect
our understanding of the article as a whole.
The most interesting differences
between these two articles are related to their coverage of the content of the
leaked phone call and Anonymous’s method for intercepting it. In the New York
Times article there is virtually no discussion of content whereas Wired offers
a detailed description of what is going on in this somewhat confusing conversation
between the FBI and Scotland Yard. Also, the NY Times downplays the groups
hacking ability by revealing the almost fortuitous nature in which the call was
“hacked” and Wired does not mention this at all.
Beginning with
this second point, it is interesting how the Times seems to be playing both
sides of the coin in downplaying Anonymous’s method for obtaining the call and
yet attempting to benefit on the group’s reputation as “Hackers”. The headline
of the article, which reads “FBI Admits Hacker Group’s Eavesdropping”, would
clearly seem to be pointing to the fact that Anonymous was able to listen in on
the call because they are “Hackers”. However, the article is quick to dismiss
this conception when it reveals that the group only had access to the call
because it was able to intercept a misfired email detailing the access code to
the call. Thus the article initially leads its reader to believe that the group
“Hacked” into the FBI in some way, most likely because this is a more provocative
and intriguing headline than one that is closer to the actuality of the
situation.
However,
not everything in the article can be said to be closer to the actuality of the
situation. In the Wired article, one can see that the content of the video, although
not necessarily interesting, could be potentially harmful to this investigation
and potentially helpful to members of the illegal internet group. Yet the only
time that the NY Times mentions the content of the call, they seem to be
painting a different picture about the pertinence of its content, writing: “The
investigators also refer to several suspects who had not yet been arrested,
including one described by the British official as ‘a 15-year-old kid who’s
basically just doing this all for attention and is a bit of an idiot’”.
Clearly, in selecting this as the only quote from the call, the NY times is
trying to show two things. That the call itself was not necessarily helpful to
Anonymous and that the members of the internet group are young and stupid.
Looking at the
article from Wired, it would seem just the opposite. Not only does this writer
post the entire phone call at the beginning of the article, but most of it is
dedicated to a discussion of the call’s content. This article also mentions the
15 year old suspect but in this case he is seen less as a stupid kid and as
more of a legitimate suspect, mentioning how he was able to disrupt the
websites for several major European corporations.
So, in each case
there seems to be an intentionality in the way that this situation should be
perceived and in both articles this is achieved by leaving out certain aspects
of the situation or, naming them. The NY times provides insight into how the
phone call was intercepted, even though they capitalize on the misreading of
“Hackers”, and yet they fail to provide an accurate depiction of the call’s
content. Wired, on the other hand, provides a detailed analysis of the content
of the call but fails to provide its reader with the details concerning how the
call was obtained. So in a sense, someone like Schneider may be able to more
accurately name this situation if given the bare facts of each article since it
seems that the “essence” of each piece is attempting to direct its readers to a
different perspective on the event.
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