Jane Yellowlees Douglas. “Will the Most Reflexive Relativist Please Stand Up: Hypertext, Argument and Relativism.”
Douglas explores ways that hypertext can be more effective than print at presenting a relativist argument, which by nature resists a linear argument and single conclusion. She uses the example of how a sociologist’s might present multiple arguments for why a particular bridge was designed the way it was. Print would mandate that either one main argument be made or that the author prioritize the arguments to be presented. Hypertext, however, would allow the author to explore several different possible conclusions. In this way, according to Douglas, hypertext takes us from the “straitened ‘either/or’ world that print has come to represent into a universe where the ‘and/and/and’ is always possible” (155). Another advantage of hypertext is its ability to “show us that context is everything” (158). What comes before and after create context, as demonstrated in Michael Joyce’s hypertextual novel afternoon, a story.
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