Post 4

When writers begin to see themselves as individualistic and isolated, they can begin to take an anti-rhetorical view and start to believe that writers are born, not made. It implies that the creative capacity is within the individual and not a component of greater society. Or, as the text says, not social but eccentric.
However, within the discourse community this is seen as an error because of 1. limited range and 2. unclear context.
He states earlier that there really is no such thing as originality in writing. Quite literally, a creative writer is a creative borrower.
He dives into the history of Jefferson and the constitution, and how the vast majority of the language used in it was borrowed from other important documents of the time as well as common sayings of the mass public. Also known as intertextuality. All documents are interactive and build upon one another. To believe otherwise, to think oneself an original, is quite frankly a fallacy. There is such thing as creative modification in writing, but little else.
He argues that for a writing to be valid it needs "acceptability," or approval within a similar genre of other writings, to gain the accuracy and approval rating of a like-minded group. Texts need to be able to be validated to be worthwhile. This is an essential part of a discourse community.
We must first come to understand ourselves within a social context and learn what it means to be a writer before we can become one. Man can not be a writer on his own.