This project, put together in one, all of the things that we have talked about in class. The issue with using the rational mode of thinking, the 4 paradigms, using the aesthetic mode of thought, and expressing someone else’s lived experience. All of these things compiled into one to make a new type of discourse. And I believe through my project I showed that. Furthermore, one of the issues in class was using the aesthetic mode rather than the judgment mode. I took the techniques from all of the readings, and incorporated into my project, the techniques that they used in order to make the reader use the aesthetic mode of thinking. I do believe that there are shortcomings with rational discourse. By looking just at my historical information, one would use judgment and rationality to look at the situation, and would not see the whole picture. That would just be using the binary way to think. As we have talked about in class, that is limiting. But if one incorporates, history, culture, personal, one can tap in to the aesthetic mode of thought. One of the things that I tried to do in my project was make separate things blend together. I tried to make my historical information have resonance with my cultural, or with my personal. I believe that that is a very unique way to express lived affect, but that it is very useful.
This experiment made me really look at things differently. This experiment made me learn a new way to think, and allowed me to see the difficulty in expressing lived affect, and how if the aesthetic mode of thought is not being used, one might loose the true affect by just using judgment. It made me look at everything that I have read in the past, literature, history books, biographies, and see if I incorporated aesthetic mode of thought. With understanding people’s experiences and stories, did I use judgment? I believe that I can use this critical expressionism, assemblage writing, attunement, and resonance modes in expressing other people’s experiences. Especially when I am talking of others, or writing papers about people other than myself, to really make sure that their experience is conveyed, I can apply this new innovative mode of thinking.
An advantage to this type of work is that it allows the reader to be an active participant. They are not passive receivers. While they are receiving information, they are also becoming a part of the information that they are receiving. A limitation is that sometimes it is hard to not use rationality. It is also hard to make sure that that mode of thinking doesn’t come out in your work. I do believe that we have an ethical responsibility to undertake this new mode of thinking. What we as people need to do, is really try to understand other people. With using judgment we see only what we want to see, making us critical, and making us miss the true lived affect of experience. But if we use this new way to think, to think in the aesthetic mode, taking away rational thought, allowing us to look at their lived experience with an open mind, one can truly understand others.
