Joe Packer
Central Michigan University, Communication & Dramatic Arts, Department Member
- Game studies, Procedural Rhetoric, Video Games in Communication Studies, Communication, Social Movements, Sophists, and 21 morevideo games, serious games, MMO, Debate, Asteroids, Anti-Natalism, David Benatar, Cultural Studies, Virtual Worlds, Philosophy, Critical Theory, Humanities, MMORPG, World of Warcraft, Spontaneous Orders, Marxism, Continental Philosophy, Social Change, Gender Studies, Argumentation, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Bioprospecting, and Access and Benefit Sharingedit
Hillary Clinton and Katy Perry drink the blood of murdered children to live forever, Barack Obama and Tom Hanks participate in the sex trafficking and molestation of children, and a cabal of Satan worshippers control global events from... more
Hillary Clinton and Katy Perry drink the blood of murdered children to live forever, Barack Obama and Tom Hanks participate in the sex trafficking and molestation of children, and a cabal of Satan worshippers control global events from behind the scenes. This is the central, animating idea behind QAnon, a right-wing populist conspiracy theory that has achieved a level of saturation in American and global politics (in)commensurate with its peculiarity. Although part of the reason for QAnon's enormous success must reside in widespread conditions of political distrust and epistemological uncertainty, another part consists in its exploitation of a technologically enabled mode of rhetorical hermeneutics. This article focuses on the latter, arguing that there exists a tendency among QAnon followers to read and write esoterically, primarily in relation to President Trump, and to do so via the amateur “produsage” made possible by a serpentine pipeline of digital-cultural interactivity a...
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This paper takes as its point of departure the newly resurgent controversy about whether the possible civic or pedagogical functions of true-crime documentaries outweigh the harm they are occasionally known to inflict. Although supporters... more
This paper takes as its point of departure the newly resurgent controversy about whether the possible civic or pedagogical functions of true-crime documentaries outweigh the harm they are occasionally known to inflict. Although supporters of true-crime documentaries tend to downplay their potential to create or exacerbate trauma, their arguments, like those of the subgenre's critics, presuppose that trauma functions as an unwanted byproduct. This paper maintains that while this assumption buttresses belief in a shared moral universe of what qualifies as the just administration of law or authority it also conceals the dual possibility: (1) that the design of certain true-crime documentaries constitute an exercise of extra-juridical punitive power; and (2) that viewers are capable of deriving pleasure from such an exercise. To that end, the paper examines three recent, critically acclaimed true-crime documentaries-The Thin Blue Line, Tickled, and The Act of Killing-identifying in each a specific form of technologically enabled retribution: interrogation, surveillance, and torture, respectively. It argues that insofar as the films succeed as entertainments and elicit pleasure from audiences, they engender and maintain subjective adherence to extra-juridical practices of retributive justice, at both a cognitive and affective level.
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Alien Life and Human Purpose: A Rhetorical Examination through History provides a rhetorical examination of the way major historical figures connect their arguments for the absence of alien life, or “unity,” to their philosophical,... more
Alien Life and Human Purpose: A Rhetorical Examination through History provides a rhetorical examination of the way major historical figures connect their arguments for the absence of alien life, or “unity,” to their philosophical, religious, and ethical agendas. Although the unity myth has often existed in the background of society, shaping institutions and values, during periods where relativism gained prominence, its opponents actively wielded the unity myth as a response; Plato used the unity myth against the sophists, Anglican theologian and philosopher William Whewell against the utilitarians, co-discoverer of evolution Alfred Russell Wallace against the social Darwinists, university professors Frank J. Tipler and John D. Barrow against the postmodernists, etc. These individuals presented scientific defenses of unity and then used the “fact” of unity to claim the universe is teleological, knowable, and ordered, rather than chaotic and relativistic. This book argues that unity and its complimentary mythic function have played an important role in shaping values throughout history and more importantly continue to do so today.
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The current Communication studies literation on the abortion debate shows the pro-life side holding all of the cards. Their use of deontological rather than teleological language and their ability to assert their ideograph <life> over... more
The current Communication studies literation on the abortion debate shows the pro-life side holding all of the cards. Their use of deontological rather than teleological language and their ability to assert their ideograph <life> over <choice>, by making women invisible, act to stack the deck in their favor. “If abortion is criminalized, what should the penalty be for a woman who has an illegal abortion?” This simple question has the capacity to overturn these advantages, causing pro-lifers to use teleological language and making visible the women who choose abortion.
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This article argues that the first-person shooter Bioshock uses the video game medium to provide a powerful critique of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. The city of Rapture, collapsing into chaos and violence, provides a dystopian... more
This article argues that the first-person shooter Bioshock uses the video game medium to provide a powerful critique of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. The city of Rapture, collapsing into chaos and violence, provides a dystopian vision of what the game suggests are the inevitable results of the laissez faire politics of
Rand. Bioshock not only tells a compelling story about the dangers of Objectivism, but also encodes anti-Objectivist messages into the very mechanics of the game. I examine the game’s visual, narrative and procedural rhetoric, and the ways that it counters the fiction that has acted as the conduit to spread Objectivist thought.
Rand. Bioshock not only tells a compelling story about the dangers of Objectivism, but also encodes anti-Objectivist messages into the very mechanics of the game. I examine the game’s visual, narrative and procedural rhetoric, and the ways that it counters the fiction that has acted as the conduit to spread Objectivist thought.
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This paper directly tackles the question of Benatar’s asymmetry at the heart of his book Better Never to have Been and provides a critique based on some of the logical consequences that result from the proposition that every potential... more
This paper directly tackles the question of Benatar’s asymmetry at the heart of his book Better Never to have Been and provides a critique based on some of the logical consequences that result from the proposition that every potential life can only be understood in terms of the pain that person would experience if she or he was born. The decision only to evaluate future pain avoided and not pleasure denied for potential people means that we should view each birth as an unmitigated tragedy. The result is that someone who seeks to maximize utility could easily justify immense suffering for current people in order to prevent the births of potential people. This paper offers an alternative framework for evaluating the creation of people that addresses Benatar’s asymmetry without overvaluing the potential suffering of potential people.
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George W. Bush's speech before a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001, outlined how the nation would respond to the terrorist attacks of September 11. President Bush outlined a bold plan of action, framing the issue in... more
George W. Bush's speech before a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001, outlined how the nation would respond to the terrorist attacks of September 11. President Bush outlined a bold plan of action, framing the issue in antithetical terms ‐‐ as a war between good and evil. This framing helped account for the strong public support Bush initially enjoyed as he pushed for congressional approval of his policies in the war on terror.
"This work explores our contemporary fascination with pessimism with such a strange relish and joy that one can't help but feel relief that the end of human exceptionalism means the opening of weird new narratives and worlds (rather than... more
"This work explores our contemporary fascination with pessimism with such a strange relish and joy that one can't help but feel relief that the end of human exceptionalism means the opening of weird new narratives and worlds (rather than the dire existential crisis we expected). Rigorous and cynical while being jubilant, the book is a marvelous injection of vitalistic wrongness to a sometimes tedious field." -Patricia MacCormack, author of Cinesexuality
In A Feeling of Wrongness, Joseph Packer and Ethan Stoneman confront the rhetorical challenge inherent in the concept of pessimism by analyzing how it is represented in an eclectic range of texts on the fringes of popular culture, from adult animated cartoons to speculative fiction.
Packer and Stoneman explore how narratives such as True Detective, Rick and Morty, Final Fantasy VII, Lovecraftian weird fiction, and the pop ideology of transhumanism are better suited to communicate pessimistic affect to their fans than most carefully argued philosophical treatises and polemics. They show how these popular nondiscursive texts successfully circumvent the typical defenses against pessimism identified by Peter Wessel Zapffe as distraction, isolation, anchoring, and sublimation. They twist genres, upend common tropes, and disturb conventional narrative structures in a way that catches their audience off guard, resulting in belief without cognition, a more rhetorically effective form of pessimism than philosophical pessimism.
While philosophers and polemicists argue for pessimism in accord with the inherently optimistic structures of expressive thought or rhetoric, Packer and Stoneman show how popular texts are able to communicate their pessimism in ways that are paradoxically freed from the restrictive tools of optimism. A Feeling of Wrongness thus presents uncharted rhetorical possibilities for narrative, making visible the rhetorical efficacy of alternate ways and means of persuasion.
In A Feeling of Wrongness, Joseph Packer and Ethan Stoneman confront the rhetorical challenge inherent in the concept of pessimism by analyzing how it is represented in an eclectic range of texts on the fringes of popular culture, from adult animated cartoons to speculative fiction.
Packer and Stoneman explore how narratives such as True Detective, Rick and Morty, Final Fantasy VII, Lovecraftian weird fiction, and the pop ideology of transhumanism are better suited to communicate pessimistic affect to their fans than most carefully argued philosophical treatises and polemics. They show how these popular nondiscursive texts successfully circumvent the typical defenses against pessimism identified by Peter Wessel Zapffe as distraction, isolation, anchoring, and sublimation. They twist genres, upend common tropes, and disturb conventional narrative structures in a way that catches their audience off guard, resulting in belief without cognition, a more rhetorically effective form of pessimism than philosophical pessimism.
While philosophers and polemicists argue for pessimism in accord with the inherently optimistic structures of expressive thought or rhetoric, Packer and Stoneman show how popular texts are able to communicate their pessimism in ways that are paradoxically freed from the restrictive tools of optimism. A Feeling of Wrongness thus presents uncharted rhetorical possibilities for narrative, making visible the rhetorical efficacy of alternate ways and means of persuasion.