306 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 50, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2007 The Evolving Face of Ethics in Technical and Professional Communication: Challenger to Columbia —PAUL M. DOMBROWSKI Abstract—Our view of ethics in professional and technical communication has evolved, paralleling developments throughout society. Earlier views on ethics and values have grown into a broad perspective of complex gradations with people at many levels affecting eventual practical outcomes. This newer perspective includes not only persons but social forces and organizations. The organizational culture of NASA, for example, was specifically identified by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) as one of the causes of faulty communication leading to a terribly tragic event. The Challenger investigations of 20 years earlier, on the other hand, focused primarily on physical events, secondarily on professional judgments, and only little on the social and cultural context of the disaster. We learn by failures but also by self-examination. As we see how ethics and values impact technical events, we understand that technological progress is ultimately a human endeavor in which reflection and judgment is as important as measurement and observation. Index Terms—Challenger, Columbia, ethics, language, NASA, organizational culture, philosophy, professional communication, rhetoric, shuttle, technical communication, values. Ethics has always been an important subject because it involves decisions and judgments about how we relate to one another, whether in the technological realm or the social realm. We expect others to behave ethically toward us, and they expect likewise of us. We all are aware, too, of dramatic contemporary lapses of ethical practice and of ethical debates about advances in the scientific and technical world such as stem cell research, the disposal of radioactive waste, and remedying the Digital Divide. ETHICS AS A SUBJECT Ethics, despite or because of its fundamental importance, is one of the most difficult subjects to talk about sensibly and effectively, like politics and religion. The subject of ethics is also complicated by its perceived overlap with the moral, the legal, and the religious. Many of us feel that we know intuitively what is ethical and what is not—like some people feel about art—and we feel this deeply and earnestly, regardless of what others might think. It is a subject that practically guarantees controversy and differences of opinion. There are many approaches to ethics as an area of study. The standard approach grounded in systematic theories—like those of Aristotle, Plato, Kant, and utilitarians—is sanctioned by the course Manuscript received June 30, 2006; revised February 5, 2007. The author is with the Department of English, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816 USA (email: pdombrow@mail.ucf.edu). IEEE 10.1109/TPC.2007.908729 of time. This approach gives us concrete texts to serve as starting ground. The drawback is that, for some, the study of detailed theories can seem arid or abstruse (e.g., Emmanuel Levinas’s theory). An over-involvement in systematizing and theorizing can make ethics seem to lose its punch and miss its purpose of practical effect. There are alternatives to traditional systematic approaches, of course. Both the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Topics, and the society of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) offer online forums for discussing applied, less-formalistic approaches to ethics issues of a technological nature. Or one could adopt a practical variant of the Golden Rule and posit that some course of action is ethically problematic if we would not wish to be on the receiving end of the action as a stakeholder or consumer. Whatever the approach, however, the important thing is that we begin, foster, and continue the on-going discussion of ethics. Many scholars have studied the emergence of ethics as an area of study within professional and technical communication. Allen and Voss’s book, Ethics in Technical Communication: Shades of Grey, for instance, reveals typical practical dilemmas that many communicators might face [1]. My book, Ethics in Technical Communication, deals with ethical issues about how knowledge originates, how it will be used, and how realistic are the claims made about technology and science [2]. In a number of articles, too, I have shown the ethical dimensions of technical and professional discourse [3], [4]. Over the last two or three decades, an expansive understanding of the concept of ethics in 0361-1434/$25.00 © 2007 IEEE Authorized licensed use limited to: Dalhousie University. Downloaded on March 16,2021 at 12:24:41 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. DOMBROWSKI: EVOLVING FACE OF ETHICS IN TECHNICAL AND PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION technical discourse has evolved. This movement, which will be discussed later, displaces the focus from the clarity and correctness found in earlier studies to a wider focus on complex, critical theories of language, ethics, and culture. As a result, it is now common to think in terms of social context and historical circumstances as much as it is on individuals and events in isolation. Reflecting on this course of development, it appears that an important watershed event has occurred. In the past, the assumption of most ethical critics has been that ethics is basically a personal matter, the responsibility of individual persons. I recall the stirring words of Andrei Sakharov, commonly known as the father of the H-bomb of the Soviet Union, who later turned anti-weapons activist and still later was awarded the Noble Prize in Peace in 1975: If I feel myself free, it is specifically because I am guided by my concrete moral evaluation, and I don’t think I am bound by anything else . If not me, who? [5, p. 624] Nevertheless, the trend now is to consider as equally important as the individual, the complex social context in which individuals think and act. The following discussion deals not only with ethics with respect to technical, scientific, and professional communication, but also with a broader scope to include such areas as environmental ethics, feminist ethics, and cultural ethics. It assumes a rough comparability between ethics and value systems. HISTORICAL PROGRESSION One clear indication of how far we have come in understanding the manifold ethical dimensions of our profession can be gained from reviewing the groundbreaking Baywood Technical Communication Series. The first volume, published in 1971, spanned 14 essays and covered topics such as defining the field, evaluating writing, and readability, but held nothing on ethics or values, and nothing on the social nature and context of technical writing [6]. The second volume, published in 1983, spanned 12 essays and is notable because several dealt directly with rhetoric, which situates discourse within a particular social context—with the values embodied in the rhetoric of science and technologies, and with scientific writing as a social act [7]. A later volume, published in 1991, dealt entirely with collaboration either in small or large groups or within an entire organization, and 307 includes a detailed research study of collaborative writing at NASA [8]. A still-later volume, published in 1994, dealt with the topics of the rhetoric of science, social constructionism, feminist critiques of science, and ethics [9]. Thus, over only a 23 year period, this series demonstrates an evolving recognition of the fundamental importance of ethics, values, and social context in shaping technical discourse. Within that same period, in 1989 the Society for Technical Communication published Technical Communication and Ethics, edited by Brockmann and Rook [10]. In journal articles in our field, ethics was not a significant presence until the 1970s. Even then, ethics appeared almost entirely in the form of the values of correctness, clarity, and impersonality only, as noted in a survey of ethics articles from about 1975 to 2000 [5]. Since those early days, however, ethics has become an integral part of our understanding of technical and professional communication as a practice. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION reflects this expanding, evolving understanding of the role of ethics in discourse, too. In December 2004, for instance, the special issue devoted to case studies involved a strong ethics or values component in every one of the cases presented. Gattis explores the role of criteria, and the values embodied in them and their usage, by relating the recommendation reports about the Texas A&M bonfire accident [11]. Strothers reveals the complicated context of crisis communication associated with 9/11 [12]. Nelson-Burns explores evaluation factors and decisions associated with the degradation of materials at a nuclear power plant [13]. Eichmans Cochran reveals the difficult and conflicting representations of knowledge involving one of the national laboratories [14]. House, Watt, and Williams discuss the rhetoric and ethics of whistle-blowing associated with the Enron debacle [15]. Zoetewey and Staggers examine the importance of stakeholder involvement in deliberative technical rhetoric in a particular airline disaster, thus expanding the scope of the interests and values that should be involved in decision-making [16]. This collection thus shows that discourse—to one extent or another—always stems from, is about, or looks toward some value system, whether implicitly or explicitly. An entire special issue of Technical Communication Quarterly (Summer 2001) was devoted to ethics in technical communication. The articles grappled with the complexities and subtleties of putting Authorized licensed use limited to: Dalhousie University. Downloaded on March 16,2021 at 12:24:41 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. 308 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 50, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2007 ethics into practice, going well beyond traditional philosophical theories. Sullivan and Martin, for instance, developed a “retrospective narrative” approach to reflect on the principles and choices that went into a particular piece of writing [17]. Salvo developed an “ethics of engagement” approach to usability testing that expands the scope of ethical responsibilities to broader communication and a broader sphere of communication [18]. Faber reported on his study of generational differences in values among engineering students about such matters as individual versus group identification and loyalty to organizations [19]. Kienzler sought to cultivate ethical awareness in students, focusing on the psychological theories of moral development [20]. Hawthorne, similarly, undertook the cultivation of ethical awareness in students, relying on traditional ethical theories, audience analysis, and practical writing applications [21]. Dragga, in the introductory essay, cautions about Richard Rorty’s pragmatic approach to ethics: Social constructionists, like Rorty, echoing the sophists, see ethical principles as the subjective creations of specific human beings within specific situations. Ideally, this newer ethics encourages sensitivity to multiple voices, to dialogue and dissensus, but at its worst is erratic, aimless, ineffective, and incoherent. [22, p. 246] Another indicator of the broadening scope of the ethics perspective is found in articles dealing with pedagogy, instructional content and manner, and the relation between the academic and non-academic spheres. For instance, in “Employed Students: Ethical and Legal Issues in the Technical Communication Classroom” Jennings reviews several forms of normative ethics, applies ethical analysis to actual instructional incidents, and provides guidelines for ethical awareness in an instructional setting [23]. Jennings also recently received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities specifically to conduct a seminar on ethics for the technical and professional communication curriculum [24]. Broadening in still another direction, Harrington and Ruppel explore values, advantages, and disadvantages relating to telecommuting—focusing primarily on the intangibles of trust and shared emotional understanding; this focus indicates the growing awareness of the importance of values and perceptions contrasted to tangible and measurable factors of professional discourse [25]. This broadening scope of ethical perspective is more readily seen in the many articles published in the sub-areas of critical theory, feminism and gender issues, specific ethical theoretical approaches, environmental ethics, and visual ethics. The articles cited here for the most part are limited to those published since 2000. (For the period between1975 to 2000, see my article “Ethics and Technical Communication: The Past Quarter Century” [5].) My apologies for any articles I have overlooked or omitted because of their appearance in my earlier review article. Critical Theory Katz’s influential article in 1992 on ethics with regard to Nazi human extermination technology is one of the most widely cited and provocative articles in professional and technical communication among academic readers [26]. The Journal of Technical Writing and Communication in 2004 and 2006, for example, published a reaction to Katz’s 1992 article followed by Katz’s rejoinder [27], [28]. The provocative power of the article, I believe, is that it directly confronts the oft-supposed duality that technology is either value-indifferent and therefore beyond ethics, or that it is always a reflection and enactment of particular value systems. Tillery, as another example, uses the hermeneutical approach of Gadamer to reveal and critique power relations in professional discourse. We need to teach our students that ethical writing entails a delicate negotiation between the demands of the workplace and the demands of a greater society, and no writing task, no matter how seemingly trivial, is immune from the pressures of the power structure. [29, p. 113] Chambers focuses on C. S. Pierce’s particular ethical and philosophical system and adapts it for instructional use in a continuing education course for professional engineers, emphasizing its conflict resolution perspective [30]. Faber uses Michel Foucault’s theory of language to critique the notion of intuitive ethics. This approach displaces our focus from the individual and his or her responsibilities, and redirects it to the culture that constructs, and indeed creates, the individual—with our sense of individuality and freewill being only an illusion [31]. As Faber states, Foucault’s work on ethics emerges directly from his analysis and critique of the ways individuals unconsciously allow themselves to be transformed into organizational subjects Authorized licensed use limited to: Dalhousie University. Downloaded on March 16,2021 at 12:24:41 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. DOMBROWSKI: EVOLVING FACE OF ETHICS IN TECHNICAL AND PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION Foucault’s ethical project can be seen as a cultural critique since it examines how culture creates individuals’ value systems. [31, p. 195] Feminism and Gender Issues Durack explores the gender influences that shaped various sewing machine manuals in the 19th century, differences that were highly influential in contributing to the persuasiveness, usability, and marketability of their associated technological products [32]. David explores the value-ladenness of seemingly innocuous portraits of professional women, which differ significantly from portraits of men at comparable professional levels. These differences reflect historical context and assumptions about power and gender [33]. Thompson and Smith explain that feminist and gender perspectives in technical communication studies are important in introducing, discussing, and revising our ideas about communication. They also note that contemporary feminist studies have moved to “a postmodern critique of visual, verbal, and mechanical ‘technologies,’ which previously were not considered political” [34, p. 183]. Though their review of 20 articles on gender issues found that these studies “provided little support for the existence of gender differences,” this avenue of criticism is important in fostering political calls for action [34, p. 441]. Among the most sophisticated and intensive explorations of gender issues are Sauer’s several studies of hazard and risk communication within the mining industry [35], [36]. By identifying the assumptions and values lying behind conventional discourse in this field—whether by the industry or by regulatory agencies—Sauer reveals the absence or suppression of other values and perspectives that have great significance and immediacy for the workers and their families. In particular, the knowledge and judgments of workers and their spouses is excluded, suppressed, or ignored precisely because they are non-technical and personally invested. But by valuing objectivism and aloofness and by devaluing subjectivity and lived experience, Sauer explains, the industry does a disservice to workers and their families. Environmental Waddell explains the role of environmental values in a number of articles on sustainable development and environmental communication [37], [38]. The issues are complex and heated because so much is at stake and because the root concern has little to do with the accuracy of the content of the communications; 309 rather, the concern is with value systems that underlie the discussion and that define the purposes and goals of the communications. Compounding the tension is the debate about authority—whether environmental decisions should be left to “experts,” or to the public as non-experts. Killingsworth urges a contemporary ecological sensitivity attuned to localization in our teaching because “environmental ethics makes clear the connection of various regions to one another through the media of air, water, and land” [39, p. 371]. Visual In the visual realm, one of most stimulating developments has been a series of two articles published in Technical Communication, jointly authored by Dragga and Voss, entitled “Cruel Pies: The Inhumanity of Technical Illustrations” and “Hiding Humanity: Verbal and Visual Ethics in Accident Reports” [40], [41]. The co-authors call for a more humanizing ethic for many technical illustrations, which otherwise fail to communicate the humanity of victims or potential victims, especially in impersonal graphics such as bar and pie charts. Their follow-up article elaborates this theme while replying to criticisms of their earlier one. For example, they claim that showing only the mechanical features of an accident site “leads writers to ignore or minimize the human dimension of the accident” [40, p. 62]. Other critics, however, contend that dispassionate numbers have an important ethical importance for two main reasons: (1) they avoid the excessive stimulation of emotionality, and (2) they focus attention on mechanical aspects as the causes of the subsequent harm to persons. As another example, Hofmann is renowned for extolling the virtues of visual language and graphic instruction. We can see his work as being motivated by concerns for usability and therefore marketability, but his work can also be seen as an expression of cross-cultural sensitivity—making one’s meaning clear to others, and trying to be as helpful as possible to the receivers of our communication. Such sensitivity reflects a values motivation. General Articles of a more general ethical nature from 2000 to the present are summarized below. • Kienzler and David, responding to recent ethics scandals throughout the professional world, developed a professional communication curriculum that provides a limited discussion of ethics theory and writing projects to practice putting these theories to practical effect [42]. Authorized licensed use limited to: Dalhousie University. Downloaded on March 16,2021 at 12:24:41 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. 310 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 50, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2007 • Spigelman and Grobman reveal first-hand the numerous difficulties in developing an entire professional writing program that integrates a thorough preparation for professional practice with a thorough exposure to classical principles of rhetoric, ethics, and ethos in the academic tradition [43]. • Moore develops an analytical approach to understanding and enacting persuasion in a professional context, particularly when significant power differentials exist [44]. His approach deals with the argumentative intangibles (i.e., values) of legitimacy, determination, and goodwill, revealing the key role in communication of all types of values. • Dragga’s influential study of the operative ethical practices and principles among actual professional and technical communicators showed that they often act on intuition rather than on systematic theories, and have difficulty articulating the bases of their ethics [45]. • Markel applies a class of ethical theories to an argument for their broad application in professional and technical discourse [46]. • Longaker is particularly interested in operating in the boundary area between ethics and political theory, specifically with a historical materialist approach (in the manner of Marx) [47]. This approach is incorporated into a professional writing course in order to reveal the juncture between culture and economics and to develop students who are “elite and influential knowledge workers” [47, p. 78]. CHALLENGER AND COLUMBIA Background is important in making sense of what happened and why in these shuttle disasters. We should avoid a hasty rush to judgment along the lines of something terrible happened; therefore, someone made a mistake and should suffer consequences for this lapse. As Perrow explains in his ground-breaking work Normal Accidents (published before the Challenger disaster), modern complex technologies can be expected to suffer accidents by their nature as complex systems of advanced technologies [48]. This is particularly true for high-risk technologies that are characterized by “interactive complexity,” or the “tight coupling” of processes. Perrow is especially concerned about inappropriate attributions of causation to human operator error, which oftentimes masks larger-scale features of the system that can make catastrophic failures practically “inevitable” [48, p. 3]. Flying the space shuttle is an inherently dangerous activity. Like that of an airliner, the shuttle’s design is a balancing act between weight and performance versus safety and cost. Designers try to anticipate the hazards in which the space shuttle will operate, and develop a machine with an acceptable safety margin. In the case of Challenger, they did not expect to face freezing temperatures at launch time; in the case of Columbia, they did not expect any foreign matter ever to strike the thermal protection system. It is a credit to the bravery of the men and women who fly the shuttle that they understand and accept the risks involved. As the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) observed: “Columbia’s failure to return home is a harsh reminder that the Space Shuttle is a developmental vehicle that operates not in routine flight but in the realm of dangerous exploration” [49, p. 25]. The CAIB was charged with investigating the causes of the disaster and recommending means of preventing similar disasters in the future; it did not explore culpability. Besides the ethical dimensions of NASA history and culture, there are many other dimensions to the disaster, but they are beyond the scope of this article (e.g., political and economic pressures, outsourcing maintenance, debris from a bolt catcher, and wind shear). Indeed, the investigation was strained from the start, mainly because the CAIB chairman insisted on complete independence from NASA. The important thing is that the CAIB strongly and clearly implicated the culture, history, and organization of NASA as a major causative factor (aside from the proximate mechanical details of the failure of the thermal protection system and the breakup of the vehicle). Though the CAIB identified a number of important “missed opportunities” as events or decisions that could have unfolded differently but did not, they do not refer to these as causes [49, p. 145 and throughout Ch. 6]. The CAIB report strongly emphasizes the parallels between the Challenger and Columbia reports, yet there are several significant differences in their circumstances. The commission instituted by then-President Reagan, commonly known as the Rogers Commission, included heavy involvement by NASA, which many people believed compromised the commission’s disinterestedness. Indeed, concern about disinterestedness was the reason a separate, major congressional investigation of the loss of Challenger was begun. As I point out in an earlier article, the presidential commission and the congressional committee came to significantly different conclusions, despite having examined the Authorized licensed use limited to: Dalhousie University. Downloaded on March 16,2021 at 12:24:41 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. DOMBROWSKI: EVOLVING FACE OF ETHICS IN TECHNICAL AND PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION same evidence and largely the same testimony [50]. The presidential commission concluded that the primary cause of the disaster was the burn-through of the solid rocket motor due to a failed O-ring. They also concluded, in fairly confused language, that the secondary communication difficulties were of a systematic (i.e., impersonal) causative nature. Thus, physical failure seemed more significant than personal and organizational failures. The congressional committee, on the other hand, highlighted poor judgment and decision-making on the part of particular people involved. In the case of Columbia, however, the presidentially-appointed commission headed by Admiral Gehman struggled for independence from NASA right from the start. As a result, its formal charter went through three iterations. In addition, when the Columbia report was presented to NASA, it was received in an atmosphere of tension and veiled resentment. As evidence of the impartiality of the Gehman commission, we should note that no congressional committee was formed to conduct an alternative investigation specifically as a counter to the presidential commission. In the case of Challenger, several scholars have voiced similar opinions. Winsor, for example, suggests that most of us automatically assume, incorrectly, that individuals are to blame in disasters such as this. To the contrary, she argues that the accident instead shows the “uncertain, socially conditioned nature of discourse” in complex organizational situations [51, p. 8]. Winsor also explains that the decision to launch was in fact quite ambiguous in the minds of NASA managers. Organizational pressures probably did influence managers at both NASA and Morton Thiokol, she notes, but “this does not mean these managers made decisions contrary to evidence” [51, p. 10]. Perspective The CAIB report begins by stating the broad perspective that the board took regarding responsibility and social origination: The Board recognized early on that the accident was probably not an anomalous, random event, but rather likely rooted to some degree in NASA’s history and the human space flight program’s culture. Accordingly, the Board broadened its mandate at the outset to include an investigation of a wide range of historical and organizational issues, including political and budgetary considerations, compromises, and changing priorities over the life of the Space Shuttle Program. The Board’s conviction regarding the importance of these factors 311 strengthened as the investigation progressed, with the result that this report, in its findings, conclusions, and recommendations, places as much weight on these causal factors as on the more easily understood and corrected physical cause of the accident Cultural traits and organizational practices detrimental to safety were allowed to develop, including: reliance on past success as a substitute for sound engineering practices; organizational barriers that prevented effective communication of critical safety information and stifled professional differences of opinion; lack of integrated management across program elements; and the evolution of an informal chain of command and decision-making processes that operated outside the organization’s rules. [emphasis added] [49, p. 9] Mission Confusion From the very beginning of the shuttle program, there was confusion about what the shuttle was intended to accomplish—its raison d’être. The shuttle program sprang from a plan for the manned exploration of Mars. When that mission fell through in the late 1960s, NASA sought another mission for the program and found it in launching military satellites into orbit. As the CAIB explains: NASA needed a new rationale for the Shuttle. That rationale emerged from an intense three-year process that attempted to reconcile the conflicting interests of NASA, the Department of Defense, and the White House. [49, p. 22] Since then, the shuttle has been tasked with myriad missions, including supply of the International Space Station, though it is no longer used to launch military satellites. Experimental versus Operational In January 1972, President Nixon lauded the nascent shuttle in terms that would later haunt the program when he made the following statement: “It will revolutionize transportation into near space, by routinizing it” [emphasis by CAIB] [49, p. 22]. In 1981, President Reagan, on the occasion of the very first shuttle launch involving Columbia, said, “beginning with the next flight, the Columbia and her sister ships will be fully operational, ready to provide economical and routine access to space” [emphasis by CAIB] [49, p. 23]. The board concluded, to the contrary, that the shuttle has never advanced beyond its experimental and developmental stage—it has always been a research test vehicle. Unfortunately, many influential figures, from the president on down, have treated Authorized licensed use limited to: Dalhousie University. Downloaded on March 16,2021 at 12:24:41 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. 312 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 50, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2007 it as fully operational and able to be repeatedly used like a jet airliner. Though the CAIB acknowledges that “after the Challenger accident, the Shuttle was no longer described as ‘operational’ in the same sense as a commercial aircraft,” they also noted that “the Shuttle was mischaracterized by the 1995 Kraft report as ‘a mature and reliable system’” [49, 118]. As a result, of this mischaracterization, NASA used the shuttle to carry out operational missions without the close attention to anomalies that is usual for a “development vehicle” [49, p. 118]. Organizational History and Confusion An entire chapter (5) is devoted to the organizational and programmatic history from Challenger to Columbia. For many reasons, the shuttle program had an ever-shrinking piece of the budgetary pie, the result of which was enormous pressure to accomplish more with less. This meant tight constraints on resources for anticipated expenditures and even less for unanticipated events such as preventing tile damage caused by foam strikes. The CAIB also points out that changes in administrators and lines of authority within NASA complicated communication and decision-making within the agency. One dimension of this complication and potential for confusion is the repeated contradictory and conflicting messages about the safety of the shuttle program. For instance, an Office of Technology Assessment report in 1989 stated that the reliability of the shuttle was “uncertain, but has been estimated to range between 97 and 99 percent” [49, p. 103]. The Augustine Committee in 1990 reported, “NASA has not been sufficiently responsive to valid criticism and the need for change” [49, p. 103]. Quite differently, in 1995 the internal Kraft report claimed that the shuttle was now a mature and reliable system. The CAIB, however, commented parenthetically, “The [Kraft] report characterized the Space Shuttle in a way that the Board judges to be at odds with the realities of the Shuttle Program” [49, p. 108]. Another internal NASA group, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Board, took issue with the Kraft report, stating that “the Space Shuttle may never be mature enough to totally freeze the design” [49, p. 108]. And in 1995, NASA engineer José Garcia wrote to President Clinton directly about his concern about the loss of civil service personnel to support the shuttle, as the program moved to the privatization of maintenance and support. He said that these changes were “the biggest threat to the safety of the crew since the Challenger disaster” [49, p. 109]. Taken as a whole, these documents show fundamental conflicts about the same technical entity—the space shuttle as either an experimental or as an operational system. Language and Meaning Definitions played a role in the disaster, too, but more in the sense of the very human act of defining rather than impersonal definitions per se. And these acts of defining were acts of collective authority by managers for the most part. Among the most glaring of several confused or complicated definitions are “in family” and “out of family” as they pertain to debris damage to the shuttle thermal protection system (TPS) [49, p. 122]. Keep in mind that by design the TPS was intended never to be impacted by debris of any size. As numerous shuttle flights returned with debris damage of various degrees, these were categorized as being “in family,” meaning having happened in the past. “Out of family,” on the other hand, supposedly indicated that some substantial deviance from previous experience and expectation based on that experience had occurred (rather than on design specifications). The difficulty is that new instances of “out of family” damage in the past came to define the new boundaries of “in family” for the future. Thus what seemed like a reasonable definition with well-described boundaries and functional significance became instead like an “elastic waistband” that simply expanded to fit whatever explanation seemed desirable [49, p. 196]. In the case of Challenger, a similar phenomenon occurred regarding “acceptable risk. ” Though early instances of O-ring charring (discussed next) were considered “anomalous,” over time they came to constitute an experience base indicative of safety, and were described as an “acceptable risk” [49, p. 196]. An even more surprising phenomenon occurred regarding the design specifications of the O-ring seal system. It was designed as a pair of seals such that if one should fail, the other would serve as a backup. It was therefore initially classified with a criticality rating of 1-R (for redundant). Later, though, it was learned that some seals were not sealing properly, in effect making it a simplex rather than duplex system. Therefore, the system was re-designated as having a criticality rating of 1, meaning that failure could be catastrophic. Memos were circulated to this effect to many people, including to the astronauts. Surprisingly, the Challenger investigators found that even some of the astronauts themselves continued to perceive the O-ring system as redundant, even though they had signed off on memos to the contrary. Authorized licensed use limited to: Dalhousie University. Downloaded on March 16,2021 at 12:24:41 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. DOMBROWSKI: EVOLVING FACE OF ETHICS IN TECHNICAL AND PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION Apparently the desire to fly and the organizational pressures to do so outweighed sensible caution. Normalization of Deviance The CAIB at several points highlighted the process described above as a major contributing causal factor, and one that reflects both history and organizational context. Adopting a term coined by sociologist Diane Vaughan, they referred to this process as “the normalization of deviance,” by which what is initially perceived as deviant and anomalous and therefore cause for concern is reinterpreted as normal and acceptable because it happens often [49, p. 130]. They also referred to this as the Shuttle Program turning “the experience of failure into the memory of success” [49, p. 181]. In the case of Columbia, the deviance involved continual instances of damage to the TPS by foam debris falling from the external tank or elsewhere. Keep in mind that the TPS was designed with the explicit understanding that it, including the wing leading edges, would never be struck by anything. Langewiesche, with The Atlantic Monthly, reported the following in his extensive interview with chairman Gehman after publication of the CAIB report: Falling foam had plagued the shuttle from the start, and indeed had caused damage on most missions. In 1988 the Atlantis took a heavy hit. Its commander told the CAIB that the shuttle’s belly looked as if it had been blasted with shotgun fire. [52, p. 78] As mission after mission returned without disaster yet with tile damage, this deviation from specification came to be considered unremarkable, even normal. It thus was no longer perceived as an indicator of serious risk. As the CAIB report stated, The acceptance of events that are not supposed to [have] happened has been described by sociologist Diane Vaughan as the “normalization of deviance.” The history of foam-problem decisions shows how NASA first began and then continued flying with foam losses, so that flying with these deviations from design specifications was viewed as normal and acceptable. [49, p. 130] The CAIB states that the parallels between Columbia and Challenger are “striking.” In the Challenger’s case, the O-rings on the rocket boosters were designed never to be exposed to the heat and pressure of the explosive exhaust gases. From the earliest missions, however, it was noted with serious concern that some O-rings 313 had experienced charring, some almost burning through entirely. At first, these instances were referred to as “anomalous.” Over time, though, as successive flights returned with charring and with the vehicle intact, the instances came to be perceived as normal and of little concern. The board quotes Nobel laureate Richard Feynman’s famous dissenting opinion in the Challenger report by the presidential commission: The phenomenon of accepting flight seals that had shown erosion and blow-by in previous flights is very clear . Erosion was a clue that something was wrong. Erosion was not something from which safety can be inferred . In these situations, subtly, and often with apparently logical arguments, the criteria are altered so that flight may still be certified in time. They therefore fly in a relatively unsafe condition. [emphasis by CAIB] [49, p. 130] Confusing Assumptions Another striking parallel between Columbia and Challenger with ethical dimensions in technical decision-making has to do with a reversal of conventional assumptions. In the case of Columbia, the Debris Assessment Team met on day seven of the flight to seek special Department of Defense imagery to determine the degree of damage to the shuttle. Their request was denied because there was no “mandatory need” for such imagery requests. But practically the only way the team could have demonstrated such need would have been by having imagery of the kind it was seeking, the CAIB noted: Analysts on the Debris Assessment Team were in the unenviable position of wanting images to more accurately assess damage while simultaneously needing to prove to Program managers, as a result of their assessment, that there was a need for images in the first place. [emphasis by CAIB] [49, p. 157] In the case of Challenger, on the other hand, in the crucial review meeting held the night before the launch, engineers faced a radical reversal of assumptions as well. Typically, engineers are expected to present positive proof that the shuttle is flightworthy, arguing against the presupposition of managers that the shuttle is not flightworthy. This presupposition is much like the presumption of innocence in a law court, erring on the side of safety and conservatism. In this particular meeting, however, managers turned the tables by asking engineers to prove with certainty that the Authorized licensed use limited to: Dalhousie University. Downloaded on March 16,2021 at 12:24:41 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. 314 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 50, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2007 shuttle was not flightworthy, for which they were unprepared and indeed unable to do. As engineer Boisjoly later explained: This was a meeting where the determination was to launch, and it was up to us to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was not safe to do so. This is in total reverse to what the position usually is in a preflight conversation or flight readiness review. It is usually exactly opposite to that. [53, p. 93] Thus, a reversal of argumentative assumption, rather than technical information, completely undid the outcome engineers were arguing for. History as Cause These organizational causes are of long standing because the culture is refractory to change. The CAIB report devotes its entire Chapter 8, “History as Cause: Columbia and Challenger,” to the organizational history, as it explains systemic effects that link the loss of Challenger to the loss of Columbia. “History is not just a backdrop or a scene-setter. History is cause” [49, p. 195]. And the history is embodied in the organization. Furthermore, the CAIB notes the interplay between individual and social responsibility. They explain, for example, that though the Flight Readiness Review process involves numerous engineers and managers, it yields a collective decision “built on consensus verified by signatures of all responsible parties, [which] in effect renders no one accountable” [emphasis added] [49, p. 198]. In another significant indication of the shift from an individual to an organizational focus, the CAIB addresses the repeated failures of managers to respond to engineers’ concerns. These failures reveal the very real effects of intangible attitudes: Engineers’ failed attempts were not just a matter of psychological frames and interpretations. The obstacles these engineers faced were political and organizational. They were rooted in NASA history and the decisions of leaders that had altered NASA culture, structure, and the structures of the safety system and affected the social context of decision-making for both accidents. In neither impending crisis [Challenger or Columbia] did management recognize how structure and hierarchy can silence employees . In perhaps the ultimate example of engineering concerns not making their way upstream, Challenger astronauts were told that the cold temperature was not a problem, and Columbia astronauts were told that the foam strike was not a problem. [49, p. 202] Though the CAIB did not use the word “unethical” in its report, their message as a whole is clear that the principal responsibility for the disaster lies with management and the organizational culture, despite also citing several “missed opportunities” by particular persons [49, p. 145]. Thus the burden of responsibility that we usually associate with ethics has been shifted in the minds of the CAIB from the traditional nexus in persons to the nexus in layers of social context and history. Sadly, the CAIB is not sanguine about the likelihood of the culture change that it strongly recommends for NASA: “Without these changes, we have no confidence that other ‘corrective actions’ will improve the safety of Shuttle operations. The changes we recommend will be difficult to accomplish—and will be internally resisted” [49, p. 13]. This sentiment is amplified by investigator Brigadier General Duane Deal in his supplement to the report. Deal would rather the CAIB change several of its “observations” to concrete recommendations that must be satisfied before the shuttle returns to flight, and he writes the following in his report supplement: History shows that NASA often ignores strong recommendations; without a culture change, it is overly optimistic to believe NASA will tackle something relegated to an ‘observation’ when it has a record of ignoring recommendations. [49, Vol. II, Appendix D.a, p. 9] Additional information comparing the Challenger and Columbia accident reports can be found in my recent article entitled “The Two Shuttle Accident Reports: Context and Culture in Technical Communication” [54]. THE PROFESSIONAL DILEMMA In considering any ethical dilemma in light of this expansive view of ethical responsibility, we might naturally ask ourselves “where lies the burden—with the individual or with the social context?” For me, the observations of Parnas, often called the father of software engineering, about his own remarkable opposition to claims made for the original Star Wars missile defense system (Strategic Defense Initiative) captures the intermixing of the individual and the social within a single perspective. For Parnas, it is like two sides of a single coin. As an individual professional engineer, he has a sense of ethical responsibility; while at the same time, as an engineering professional, he is a personification Authorized licensed use limited to: Dalhousie University. Downloaded on March 16,2021 at 12:24:41 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. DOMBROWSKI: EVOLVING FACE OF ETHICS IN TECHNICAL AND PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION of what the society of engineering professionals feels it should be as an ethical collective body. As a professional: • I am responsible for my own actions and cannot rely on any external authority to make my decisions for me. • I cannot ignore ethical and moral issues. I must devote some of my energy to deciding whether the task that I have been given is of benefit to society. [55, p. 122] IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PROFESSION Where are we headed? It is hard to say except that current trends are unlikely to slacken. It is likely that the understanding of how ethics and values play a fundamental role in discourse will continue to expand in scope. And, as we already know, rhetoric and values are intertwined, so the continued expansion of ethics investigations will be coupled with continued investigations into the rhetorical character of technical and professional discourse. My own opinion is that this expansion will not necessarily make ethics more tenuous or indeterminate. Though there are organizational and social responsibilities that are often ignored, neglected, or otherwise not acted upon even as scholars make such instances plainer, in the long run the decision to act, at least in the positive sense, will continue to be undertaken by individuals who understand and respond to concerns somehow larger than their particular organizations or societies, and somehow greater than their individual selves. Unfortunately, the inverse will also continue to be true in the negative sense—regardless of the ethical intentions of organizations or of individuals, these aspirations will continue to be undone from time to time by individuals making key decisions. A host of scholars point out that the current electronic environment of technical and professional communication raises new issues of ethical concern. Our responsibility as scholars in this field is to examine critically and reveal the dimensions of those potential responsibilities, to cultivate in our students an awareness of the potential for such issues, and to provide them a range of approaches for dealing with such issues responsibly. Johnson, for instance, points out that rhetoric—and with it ethics—is implicated in the way all manner 315 of technology is designed, the way it is actually used, and to some degree even the shape of the technology itself, and so technical communication pedagogy should highlight both rhetoric and ethics [56]. As he writes, The knowledge and awareness that students gain is certainly important, but acting through that knowledge is an equally important goal for technical communication pedagogy. Learning how to use communication media in the service of social action is central to nonacademic communication curricula. Further, it is the ability for students to learn how to act with a sense of responsibility, with an awareness of the ethical dimension of their actions that becomes a central issue in curriculum development. [56, p. 155] Porter, as another example, explains how the use of new internetworking technologies presents entirely new ethical and rhetorical issues, as well as new forms of old issues. Owing to the newness of this situation, laws cannot be relied upon as comprehensive guides to the issues that technical and professional communicators face. For this reason, it is incumbent on technical and professional communication academics to cultivate a sense of ethical responsibility for this environment, for the sake of the students, but also for society generally. While hard and fast rules cannot be prescribed, certainly a critical awareness can be cultivated and a general stance can be articulated to anticipate ethical dilemmas after graduation [57]. In addition, Freeman and Peace’s book Information Ethics: Privacy and Intellectual Privacy, recently reviewed in this TRANSACTIONS, covers a range of topics from ethical decision-making to parasitic computing, including the complexities of the post-9/11 environment [58]. Even among the most technology-minded thinkers, we see an increasing awareness and sense of responsibility—even alarm—over the emerging influence of technology in all forms on our world and our being. Though apprehension about letting a genie with powers greater than our own out of the bottle is not new, I think we will continue to see more and more conscientious concerns such as those voiced by Bill Joy, the co-founder of Sun and co-inventor of Java in a Wired magazine article in 2000. Joy’s article entitled “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us,” explains that the latest technologies such as robotics and nanotechnology hold the potential Authorized licensed use limited to: Dalhousie University. Downloaded on March 16,2021 at 12:24:41 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. 316 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 50, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2007 to evolve themselves with complete indifference to humanity. Joy’s concern is essentially ethical: The experiences of the atomic scientists clearly show the need to take personal responsibility, the danger that things will move too fast, and the way in which a process can take on a life of its own . We must do more thinking up front if we are not to be similarly surprised and shocked by the consequences of our inventions. [59, p. 262] For Joy, the metaphysical world of ethics is as important as the 1s and 0s of the technology he created. I think the same frame of mind will pervade our field as communicators committed to technology and science will also become increasingly concerned about the ethical or values dimensions of what they communicate about. This concern will include not only the manner of their communication but also the likely consequences of putting technologies into practice. Though part of the impetus for such concern will come from the legal world out of a desire to limit liability exposure, another important part of the impetus will be a keener sense of our shared humanity. This involves us as not only those who communicate, but also as the receivers of other’s communications, and as users of emerging technologies. International technical and professional communication is increasingly important as the globalization of commerce, transportation, communication, and whole societies progress. This increased interchange between nations is also among cultures, and therefore also among value systems. For this reason, an increased awareness of and sensitivity to values and ethical differences among cultures will become increasingly necessary for corporations and institutions to remain both competitive and successful. At the same time, I think this highlighting of differences will also have an inverse effect—the highlighting of commonalities among cultures and ethical systems, and also a gradual assimilation, perhaps, across cultures toward those commonalities. Useful objects of study in this direction are the European Union itself and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). There are many contemporary contexts in which the ethical dimensions of technical, scientific, or professional communication are not significant, and others in which they are clearly salient. In such situations, communicators are tasked with representing difficult, multi-faceted issues, often involving highlighting the approach of one’s own organization against the approaches of opponents or competitors. At what point, one must ask ethically, does selective representation lead to confusing or misleading consumers, stakeholders, and the citizenry? The environment is certainly one of these areas in which technical and professional communication can be ethically fraught, as the following scenarios demonstrate: • The alleged suppression or distortion of scientific discourse and expert opinion about the magnitude and cause of global warming, in which technical documents were allegedly edited for political interests. • The debate about the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a national long-term depository of nuclear waste, in which very low probabilities in the very distant future are balanced against concerns about homeland security and immediate environmental risks. • The debate about the revival of the US nuclear power industry, including the streamlining of the NRC/DOE review and licensing process, in which probabilities of risk are balanced against concerns about oil dependency and global warming. • The debate about the environmental risks of drilling for oil in off-shore fields or in Arctic wildlife refuges, in which the environmental risks of indeterminate magnitude are compared against immediate economic benefits. • Commercial and government efforts to represent the desirability of increasing the use of coal for energy production in the face of increasing demand for energy and concerns about oil dependency, which could focus largely or exclusively on the positive benefits while minimizing or ignoring the negative consequences. On the other hand, in a context in which eco-activists are portraying the use of coal for energy as an intrinsically unacceptable activity, it might be difficult to portray one’s position even-handedly. A detailed example of the application of an ethical perspective to technical and professional communication appears in two articles by Dragga (working at Texas Tech) and Voss (working at Lockheed Martin) in Technical Communication mentioned earlier [40], [41]. They argue that visual illustrators have an ethical responsibility to make salient the humanity of those involved in order to effect the proper response from an audience. For Authorized licensed use limited to: Dalhousie University. Downloaded on March 16,2021 at 12:24:41 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. DOMBROWSKI: EVOLVING FACE OF ETHICS IN TECHNICAL AND PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION example, in mining accidents, rather than solely depicting the mechanical devices involved in their spatial situation, human figures or photographs are necessary to communicate the human toll such accidents take. These two articles inspired a great number of letters to the journal editor, responses both agreeing and disagreeing. Recall that it is intrinsic to almost any substantive discussion of ethics that there will be serious and earnest disagreements, as there were regarding this pair of articles. As a practical matter, certainly no one thinks that communicators are the only professionals with ethical responsibilities. Technical and professional communicators, after all, are among the least powerful and most vulnerable professionals in a technical organization. From this status position, it is unlikely that their arguing for the intrinsic ethical goodness of a position will be heeded. On the other hand, I think it is a mistake to think in dichotomous all-or-none terms about ethics. Instead of doing all one could (and risk termination), or simply doing nothing, one could advocate ethical marketing practices, satisfying both conscience and stockholders. (Williams’ article offers a solid discussion of this approach regarding Intel [60].) We see television advertisements about the honesty of companies, the trustworthiness of the goods they market, the sense of civic responsibility they demonstrate—and these aspects are all touting the ethicality of these organizations. We see, too, companies advertising the family-friendliness of their operations and their accommodations for working moms and dads—another instance of doing the right thing also yielding business advantages. In the end, regardless of theories or critical analyses, we have only ourselves. Part of being human is having a sense of responsibility for what we do. Ethics is an old subject but not an obsolete one. In the technical and professional discourse of our times we hear resonances with ancient issues because communication has always been fundamentally about people interacting with other people, and ethical communication has always been about our responsibilities in relation to others—whether in deciding to deploy satellite imagery technology in the 21st century or in deciding how to craft sewing machine manuals in the 19th century. The words of Joseph Rotblat, the founder of the renowned Pugwash conference on nuclear disarmament, capture this sentiment neatly. In imploring his fellow citizens around the world to 317 renounce war and alter their traditional perceptions of national sovereignty, he quotes the famous manifesto drafted by Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein on which the conference was founded: We appeal, as human beings, to human beings: Remember your humanity and forget the rest. 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DOMBROWSKI: EVOLVING FACE OF ETHICS IN TECHNICAL AND PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION [53] United States Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, “Report to the President by the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident,” GPO, Washington, DC, 1986, 86-16083. [54] P. M. Dombrowski, “The two shuttle accident reports: Context and culture in technical communication,” J. Tech. Writing Commun., vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 231–252, 2006. [55] D. L. Parnas, Ethical Issues in Engineering. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1991, quoted in D. G. Johnson. [56] R. R. Johnson, User-Centered Technology: A Rhetorical Theory for Computers and Other Mundane Artifacts. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1998. [57] J. Porter, Rhetorical Ethics and Internetworked Writing. Greenwich, CT: Ablex, 1998. [58] L. Freeman and A. G. Peace, Eds., Information Ethics: Privacy and Intellectual Property. Hershey, PA: Idea Group, Inc., 2005. 319 [59] B. 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Restrictions apply. 2021/1/19 Writing a Response or Reaction Paper — Hunter College About Us | Students | Faculty | Handouts | Workshops | Online Resources | FAQ | Contact Us THE WRITING PROCESS Writing a Response or Reaction Paper Each semester, you will probably be asked by at least one instructor to read a book or an article (or watch a TV show or a film) and to write a paper recording your response or reaction to the material. In these reports—often referred to as response or reaction papers— your instructor will most likely expect you to do two things: summarize the material and detail your reaction to it. The following pages explain both parts of a report. PART 1: A SUMMARY OF THE WORK To develop the first part of a report, do the following: Identify the author and title of the work and include in parentheses the publisher and publication date. For magazines, give the date of publication. Write an informative summary of the material. Condense the content of the work by highlighting its main points and key supporting points. Use direct quotations from the work to illustrate important ideas. Summarize the material so that the reader gets a general sense of all key aspects of the original work. Do not discuss in great detail any single aspect of the work, and do not neglect to mention other equally important points. Also, keep the summary objective and factual. Do not include in the first part of the paper your personal reaction to the work; your subjective impression will form the basis of the second part of your paper. PART 2: YOUR REACTION TO THE WORK To develop the second part of a report, do the following: Focus on any or all of the following questions. Check with your instructor to see if s/he wants you to emphasize specific points. How is the assigned work related to ideas and concerns discussed in the course for which you are preparing the paper? For example, what points made in the course textbook, class discussions, or lectures are treated more fully in the work? How is the work related to problems in our present-day world? How is the material related to your life, experiences, feelings and ideas? For instance, what emotions did the work arouse in you? Did the work increase your understanding of a particular issue? Did it change your perspective in any way? Evaluate the merit of the work: the importance of its points, its accuracy, completeness, organization, and so on. You should also indicate here whether or not you would recommend the work to others, and why. POINTS OF CONSIDERATION WHEN WRITING THE REPORT Here are some important elements to consider as you prepare a report: Apply the four basic standards of effective writing (unity, support, coherence, and clear, error-free sentences) when writing the report. www.hunter.cuny.edu/rwc/handouts/the-writing-process-1/invention/Writing-a-Response-or-Reaction-Paper 1/3 2021/1/19 Writing a Response or Reaction Paper — Hunter College Make sure each major paragraph presents and then develops a single main point. For example, in the sample report that follows, the first paragraph summarizes the book, and the three paragraphs that follow detail three separate reactions of the student writer to the book. The student then closes the report with a short concluding paragraph. Support any general points you make or attitudes you express with specific reasons and details. Statements such as "I agree with many ideas in this article" or "I found the book very interesting" are meaningless without specific evidence that shows why you feel as you do. Look at the sample report closely to see how the main point or topic sentence of each paragraph is developed by specific supporting evidence. Organize your material. Follow the basic plan of organization explained above: a summary of one or more paragraphs, a reaction of two or more paragraphs, and a conclusion. Also, use transitions to make the relationships among ideas in the paper clear. Edit the paper carefully for errors in grammar, mechanics, punctuation, word use, and spelling. Cite paraphrased or quoted material from the book or article you are writing about, or from any other works, by using the appropriate documentation style. If you are unsure what documentation style is required or recommended, ask you instructor. You may use quotations in the summary and reaction parts of the paper, but do not rely on them too much. Use them only to emphasize key ideas. Publishing information can be incorporated parenthetically or at the bottom of the page in a footnote. Consult with your instructor to determine what publishing information is necessary and where it should be placed. A SAMPLE RESPONSE OR REACTION PAPER Here is a report written by a student in an introductory psychology course. Look at the paper closely to see how it follows the guidelines for report writing described above. Part 1: Summary A Report on Man's Search for Meaning Part 1: Summary Topic sentence for summary paragraph Dr. Viktor Frankl's book Man's Search for Meaning (New York: Washington Square Press, 1966) is both an autobiographical account of his years as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps and a presentation of his ideas about the meaning of life. The three years of deprivation and suffering he spent at Auschwitz and other Nazi camps led to the development of his theory of Logotherapy, which, very briefly, states that the primary force in human beings is "a striving to find a meaning in one's life" (154). Without a meaning in life, Frankl feels, we experience emptiness and loneliness that lead to apathy and despair. This need for meaning was demonstrated to Frankl time and again with both himself and other prisoners who were faced with the horrors of camp existence. Frankl was able to sustain himself partly through the love he felt for his wife. In a moment of spiritual insight, he realized that his love was stronger and more meaningful than death, and would be a real and sustaining force within him even if he knew his wife was dead. Frankl's comrades also had reasons to live that gave them strength. One had a child waiting for him; another was a scientist who was working on a series of books that needed to be finished. Finally, Frankl and his friends found meaning through their decision to accept and bear their fate with courage. He says that the words of Dostoevsky came frequently to mind: "There is one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my suffering." When Frankl's prison experience was over and he returned to his profession of psychiatry, he found that his theory of meaning held true not only for the prisoners but for all people. He has since had great success in working with patients by helping them locate in their own lives meanings of love, work, and suffering. Part 2: Reaction One of my reactions to the book was the relationship I saw between the “Capos” and ideas about anxiety, Topic sentence for first standards, and aggression discussed in our psychology class. The Capos were prisoners who acted as reaction paragraph trustees, and Frankl says they acted more cruelly toward the prisoners than the guards or the SS men. Several psychological factors help explain this cruelty. The Capos must have been suppressing intense anxiety about “selling themselves out” to the Nazis in return for small favors. Frankl and other prisoners must have been a constant reminder to the Capos of the courage and integrity they themselves lacked. When our behaviors and values are threatened by someone else acting in a different way, one way we may react is with anger and aggression. The Capos are an extreme example of how, if the situation is right, we may be capable of great cruelty to those whose actions threaten our standards. Topic sentence for second reaction paragraph I think that Frankl’s idea that meaning is the most important force in human beings helps explain some of the disorder and discontent in the world today. Many people are unhappy because they are caught in jobs where they have no responsibility and creativity; their work lacks meaning. Many are also unhappy www.hunter.cuny.edu/rwc/handouts/the-writing-process-1/invention/Writing-a-Response-or-Reaction-Paper 2/3 2021/1/19 Writing a Response or Reaction Paper — Hunter College because our culture seems to stress sexual technique in social relationships rather than human caring. People buy popular books that may help them become better partners in bed, but that may not make them more sensitive to each other’s human needs. Where there is no real care, there is no meaning. To hide the inner emptiness that results from impersonal work and sex, people busy themselves with the accumulation of material things. With television sets, stereos, cars, expensive clothes, and the like, they try to forget that their lives lack true meaning instead of working or going to school to get a meaningful job, or trying to be decent human beings. Topic sentence for third reaction paragraph I have also found that Frankl’s idea that suffering can have meaning helps me understand the behavior of people I know. I have a friend named Jim who was always poor and did not have much of a family—only a stepmother who never cared for him as much as for her own children. What Jim did have, though, was determination. He worked two jobs to save money to go to school, and then worked and went to school at the same time. The fact that his life was hard seemed to make him bear down all the more. On the other hand, I can think of a man in my neighborhood who for all the years I've known him has done nothing with his life. He spends whole days smoking and looking at cars going by. He is a burned-out case. Somewhere in the past his problems must have become too much for him, and he gave up. He could have found meaning in his life by deciding to fight his troubles like Jim, but he didn't, and now he is a sad shadow of a man. Without determination and the desire to face his hardships, he lost his chance to make his life meaningful. Concluding paragraph In conclusion, I would strongly recommend Frankl’s book to persons who care about why they are alive, and who want to truly think about the purpose and meaning of their lives Dr. Murray and Anna C. Rockowitz Writing Center website feedback: 7th Floor of the library in the Silverstein Student Success Center (212) 772-4212 | email us HUNTER COLLEGE 695 Park Ave NY, NY 10065 212.772.4000 The City University of New York www.hunter.cuny.edu/rwc/handouts/the-writing-process-1/invention/Writing-a-Response-or-Reaction-Paper 3/3 Response Paper Rubric Summary Argument Analysis Writing Style A Accurately describes the contents of the reading without errors. Summary consists of only the most important parts of the reading, logically arranged and clearly explained. B Accurately describes the contents of the reading with few errors. Summary mainly consists of the most important parts of the reading, leaving out few key points and including few trivial points. Summary is generally clear and logically arranged. Author’s argument is Author’s argument is explained clearly and explained in a generally accurately, with no clear and accurate way, ambiguity. Evidence with little ambiguity. for the argument has Evidence for the been identified argument has mostly correctly. been identified correctly. Provides a convincing Provides an analysis that and logical analysis of is mostly convincing and the author’s argument, logical, informed by informed by material some material from from lectures and/or lectures and/or other other course content. course content. Writing is consistently Writing is generally clear, precise, and clear, precise, and concise. Almost concise. Few entirely free of grammatical errors. grammatical errors. C Describes the contents of the readings with several inaccuracies and errors. Summary presents some important parts of the readings, with key points left out and/or trivial points included. Structure is sometimes unclear and/or illogical. D Summary consistently has inaccuracies and errors. The most important parts of the reading have not been addressed. Much insignificant material from the text has been included. Structure is consistently unclear and/or illogical. F No summary. Author’s argument is explained in a partly clear and accurate way, with some ambiguity. Evidence for the argument has partly been identified correctly. Provides an analysis that is partly convincing and logical. Little engagement with lectures and/or course content. Author’s argument is explained without clarity or accuracy. Evidence for the argument has not been identified correctly. Author’s argument is not explained. Provides an analysis that is unconvincing and/or illogical. No engagement with lectures or other course content. Writing consistently lacks clarity, precision, and concision. Many grammatical errors. No analysis of the author’s argument. Writing sometimes lacks clarity, precision, and concision. Some grammatical errors. The response paper is unintelligible.
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