Blog Post #2 Millie Gamarra

In Kristine Fleckenstein's essay titled Incarnate Word: Verbal Image, Body Image, and the Rhetorical Authority of Saint Catherine of Siena, Fleckenstein explores the term of scopic regime. She defines it as "the tacit cultural rules of differing times, places, and people that enable a community to see some things and not others.” I found her definition of the scopic regime to be a very structured and developed way of explaining what “lenses” mean. Before being able to comprehend why St. Catherine of Siena’s rhetoric was successful one first must dive into the time and space which dictated the development of such.

Throughout history other rhetors have been aware of this. Aristotle claimed that one must analyze all means of persuasion, the idea that there are specific filters which hold great power over an audience is primordial for a proficient rhetor. Here, the “available means” are dissected by Fleckenstein through this concept. The scopic regime determines how we see, meaning how we experience life and how we can create the illusion of a collective and unified reality. It is an inactive process in which we choose to acknowledge some aspects of reality while avoiding others, through this regime we assert our place as members of a particular society and avoid the feeling of isolation.  Fleckenstein adds that “a scopic regime reveals the reciprocity between changes in cultures and changes in scopic regimes.” By highlighting the malleability of what seems to be the Truth, once again the fragility of social conventions are exposed as well as the importance of being aware of such in order to create an impactful rhetoric.

First, the idea of a scopic regime is at play currently. There is such thing as a unified (for the most part), notion of reality in the West. Most of us are experiencing a materialistic reality which foundation is objectivity. However, these notions seem to clash due to globalization. More people are able to connect and thus create collective experiences which are directly opposing others and opening room for division. In current expressions of rhetoric, which do not differ from previous, the communicator is responsible to become aware of the audience’s scopic regime in order to be successful. A clear example of this is news networks which report meticulously picked situations, or use a specific frame to share these situations, in order to rattle or touch their viewers and gain their loyalty.