“I.” It’s a word we tiptoe around. Writers are wary of it and academics cover it up with layers of objectivity and jargon. Children are warned about it in classrooms. “I” is viewed as the end-all of relationships, and the nemesis of foreign policy and development.
I don’t know how I feel about this. Do you sometimes find yourself wishing you could simply present how you feel about something without having to evade the fact that it is, indeed, you who feels that way? Well I sure do. I often feel like this when writing for The Argonaut.
We all know bad writing has lots of “I”s. Journalists are hyper-aware of “I” — even after avoiding “I” copy will be edited to change any remaining culprits into empirical statements. But the realm of “I”s is not avoided solely by anxious writers.
Students must hide from “I” in order to have any legitimacy in their field. A chemist cannot plausibly write in a paper, “Today I discovered (insert chemical equation here) and I was really excited.”
I have written foreign policy White Papers in which personal pronouns are so feared that “we” is used in place of “I.” “We believe that the premise of clause two lacks transparency,” I typed, while sitting alone at a desk.
I find it interesting to note the divide between recent post-modern shifts within many fields, and the way students continue to be taught in the classroom. While reflexivity and awareness of self has become a theoretical trend in many fields, this seems to be limited to those higher up in the academic ranks. It seems once you have established yourself and been published — writing within the bounds of tradition and objectivity — only then may you join those who are privileged enough to use “I.” Move up the ranks even more and you may reach the pinnacle of “I” — an autobiography.
In part, the fear of “I” does stem from a legitimate concern: No one wants to hear you talk about yourself for any length of time (it’s true, people are self-interested). The success of Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” attested to this, selling millions of copies with its encouragement of people to “speak in terms of the other’s interest.”
But it has gone too far. In preparing to present a paper at a national conference this semester, I felt forced into molding my writing into the particular format of the particular journal published by the association. It has been difficult writing about a project that was a deep personal experience and characterized by human interaction in this way. I feel the very essence of the project is being lost with each suppression of self I am forced to make.
Truth is often found within the empirical statement. But all statements are written by someone, someone who believes in the truth of what they are saying. So truth can only exist in a statement acknowledging the constructor of the sentence
Well, at least, I think so.
I don’t know how I feel about this. Do you sometimes find yourself wishing you could simply present how you feel about something without having to evade the fact that it is, indeed, you who feels that way? Well I sure do. I often feel like this when writing for The Argonaut.
We all know bad writing has lots of “I”s. Journalists are hyper-aware of “I” — even after avoiding “I” copy will be edited to change any remaining culprits into empirical statements. But the realm of “I”s is not avoided solely by anxious writers.
Students must hide from “I” in order to have any legitimacy in their field. A chemist cannot plausibly write in a paper, “Today I discovered (insert chemical equation here) and I was really excited.”
I have written foreign policy White Papers in which personal pronouns are so feared that “we” is used in place of “I.” “We believe that the premise of clause two lacks transparency,” I typed, while sitting alone at a desk.
I find it interesting to note the divide between recent post-modern shifts within many fields, and the way students continue to be taught in the classroom. While reflexivity and awareness of self has become a theoretical trend in many fields, this seems to be limited to those higher up in the academic ranks. It seems once you have established yourself and been published — writing within the bounds of tradition and objectivity — only then may you join those who are privileged enough to use “I.” Move up the ranks even more and you may reach the pinnacle of “I” — an autobiography.
In part, the fear of “I” does stem from a legitimate concern: No one wants to hear you talk about yourself for any length of time (it’s true, people are self-interested). The success of Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” attested to this, selling millions of copies with its encouragement of people to “speak in terms of the other’s interest.”
But it has gone too far. In preparing to present a paper at a national conference this semester, I felt forced into molding my writing into the particular format of the particular journal published by the association. It has been difficult writing about a project that was a deep personal experience and characterized by human interaction in this way. I feel the very essence of the project is being lost with each suppression of self I am forced to make.
Truth is often found within the empirical statement. But all statements are written by someone, someone who believes in the truth of what they are saying. So truth can only exist in a statement acknowledging the constructor of the sentence
Well, at least, I think so.
– See more at: file:///Volumes/argonaut$/stories/sections/opinion/stories/2012/Feb/28/truth_in_i_of_beholder.html#sthash.CIN4AJTW.dpuf