Fishing for facts on fisher

“The Validity of Schell’s argument is not the question here. Our concern is its reception, which the limits, perhaps the impossibility of persuasive argument in our time, given the rational world paradigm.” (Porter 387)

As I was reading Fisher I found myself wondering the same question. In this postmodern information driven rational paradigm of a society is there any room for debate? Of course once you start to think about this you think about political debates. This is covered by porter when he defines traditional rational, “some sort of hierarchical system, a community in which some persons are qualified to judge and to lead and some other persons are to follow.”(Fisher 385) In my opinion and Fishers, intellectual debate is mental stimulating, aimed toward knowledge and the betterment of all parties of the debate, including the audience. In this modern society a heavy portion of individuals are already educated because of the internet and television. Fisher also says “being rational (being competent in argument) must be learned.” (Fisher 379) So, because information is so assessable, because programs to project trends, and because we have an easily excisable history there is no reason to learn rational when it is practically presented to you on a silver platter. So I ask again what happened to the intellectual argument? When I was reading Fish’s opinion on the important aspects of argument, I couldn’t help thinking about underground societies. The first thing that I thought of was the School of night. Basically, it this was an underground club of the best minds around England during the times of Shakespeare (it might still exist today). It was thought that these men sat around arguing and contemplating life, the natural world, the afterlife, astronomy, science etc… Some modern examples of this could be the skull and bone society or the illuminati. Beyonce Illuminati?  

 Where has this drive for intellectually stimulating conversations gone? Sure there are debate clubs in high school but is there any new knowledge being formed and contemplated? Or is it just the same knowledge getting repeated from a not card formed from facts from the internet? Because of this never-ending stream of knowledge have we gone straight past rationality and toward a fact driven society? I think it is interesting to bring up the last reading and the thought there is no original work. Fisher touches on that subject on pages 381-382 when he describes the unending conversation. All works seem to have stemmed from a main conversation. With this thought there is no original ideas, it is interesting to think about where society is now. Let’s just say I am correct and society is now only a fact driven society, could the reason for this be that there is no original ideas? Could society be dying like a star just building and building on top of our own ideas until we become too heavy and implode?