Ong, Aristotle and the Separation Between Writer and Written Work

Emotions are a controversial topic. People push them aside, put them front and center, and use them to set up their arguments and convince others to do what they want them to do. However, too strong an influence from emotions and situations get messy. In his essay "The Writer's Audience Is Always A Fiction", Ong discusses how the writer and the audience gets involved in a work. Ong claims that the audience is kept at a distance, but given a role in following along with what the narrator says to move the story along (Ong, 13). Any stronger involvement of the reader, and the story would fall apart.

The urban legend collection site Snopes dissects and discusses an older rumor that has been resurfacing every couple of years. In it, a former Vietnam POW eats breakfast at a restaurant in which a group of professors and students are eating. The professors and students are loudly discussing how they are against the war (usually whichever war is relevant to the immediate era) when the POW walks up to their table and tells them that he was in the war and they are wrong. He then takes the American flag that was conveniently hanging behind their table and puts it on his table. Two sergeants who had happened to be eating at the restaurant at the same time sit with the POW to protect the flag and lead the restaurant in a rousing chorus of 'God Bless America', which scares away the professors and the college students. Everyone in the restaurant donates money to the POW, who gives it to a 9/11 charity, and everyone celebrates this scene as a victory against domestic terrorism.

If you found that pedantic and unrealistic, then you can understand what Ong meant when he had discussed the separation of reader, writer and written work. Specifically, Ong had said 'Such special cases apart, the person to whom the writer addresses himself normally is not present at all. Moreover, with certain special exceptions such as those just suggested, he must not be present.' (Ong, 10). What Ong means is that the reader's involvement must be kept to a minimum; they can participate in the story but they shouldn't get too involved in the writer's work. The story above is an urban legend that has been circulating since the Vietnam War. Whenever something significant happens overseas, this story makes the rounds again, with 'readers' casting themselves as 'writers' to make the story more applicable. The story itself never even happened, thus making the original writer a reader, too. What Ong had meant was that the readers' involvement meant that their prejudices and their emotions were put together into one big mishmash of story that is both implausible and ridiculous.

Although Ong speaks out against too much of the combination of the emotional and story, Aristotle had supported it. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle speaks of three pillars of public speech: pathos, ethos, and logos. In particular, pathos is seen as an emotional appeal that calls the audience to do something. Furthermore, it makes the speaker or the writer seem approachable and warm to the audience, which helps to sell the idea even better. Lack of pathos makes the writer or speaker seem cold and unapproachable. Aristotle used pathos to convince his students and opponents of laws that had needed changing and of work that needed to be done. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches used pathos by quoting old hymnals and from the Bible. However, pathos has to be backed up by logic. The story above, with its shaky roots, its implausibility and its ever changing formula, has little logic.

Overall, Aristotle commended the use of ethos to lead audiences into arguments and to convince them onto the speaker's side. However, ethos needs logic to back it up, or else it has nothing to stand on and audiences won't believe it. Ong was against the use of emotions, especially coming from readers, who he argued were supposed to follow the story. However, without the presence of emotions, the writing suffers greatly from sounding sterile and callous. Writers should find a balance between both emotions and logic when they construct their stories and arguments so that they can explain their points and make audiences care about them, while avoiding sounding like a broken record...or an urban legend.