Intentionality

Erin,
When I read your post, it made me think of the question that we brought up in the first (or perhaps second) day of class of intentionality. You claim that performing rhetoric is inevitable, as does Fish in his article. It seems that you and Kelly claim that the difference between the rhetorical man and serious man is that the rhetorical man is using rhetoric intentionally...which I agree with.  I think one problem that is created by Fish's two categorizations of people (serious and rhetoric), with his statement in mind of the inevitability of rhetoric, is that these categorizations propose two divisions of rhetoric: intentional rhetoric and unintentional rhetoric. If Fish is correct in claiming that everything is rhetorical, then being purposeful isn't a part of the definition of rhetoric. Before this class, I saw purpose as a huge aspect of rhetoric, but it makes more sense that rhetoric is the conversation between the maker (writer, artist, etc.) and the audience. The conversation doesn't have to be intentional to be a conversation.
You had a line in here that made me think that perhaps intentionality is correlated with the quality of rhetoric, "A rhetorical man on the other hand would put much more time and thought into such an issue, and I think they would come up with a rather creative solution." It seems that if intentionality is part of the quality of rhetoric, then a definition of "good" rhetoric is rhetoric performed with purpose. Someone performing rhetoric with purposeful awareness, definitely is performing rhetoric differently than someone who isn't. You bring up a point in your second paragraph of the rhetorical and serious man approaching a topic through a different lens. I agree that intentionality creates a different lens in one's method. The rhetorical man invests more thought into how they are approaching their writing than the serious man, who, to me, is solely concerned in what they are going to say in his/her writing.
I wouldn't consider unintentional rhetoric as bad rhetoric. I think someone can persuade without meaning to be artful in their persuasion. However, I would also say that the rhetorical man has more advantages in being intentional in his/her persuasion because I would consider purpose an important tool in creating quality rhetoric. With intention as a tool, a writer invests significant meaning into different aspects of a text, that make it a text. It also gives the writer a stronger focus on his/her writer when creating a text. Being intentional as a writer, is investing purpose to engage and persuade an audience.
I'm not 100% clear on where intentionality plays into rhetoric, but I do think that it is worth thinking about. Right now, I see it as a tool but not a necessity to be rhetorical.

Rhetorical man VS serious man

So, the "serious man" and the "rhetorical man." I think my opinion is a mix of Kelly and Jared. I think the serious man is not aware that they are using rhetoric in their everyday actions. I like what Kelly added about the "serious" person heavily utilizing ethos and logos over pathos. I imagine the rhetorical man would heavily and purposefully integrate ethos, pathos, and logos, with a heavy emphasis on pathos. A serious man would approach a problem and try to find the most practical, to the point solution. A rhetorical man on the other hand would put much more time and thought into such an issue, and I think they would come up with a rather creative solution.

I also see where Jared is coming from about the serious man as well, maybe the user is aware of rhetoric but they just do not approach rhetoric through the same lens at the serious person. If the serious man is aware of rhetoric but chooses not to see it, this may be interpreted as ignorance by some but others may see this as just a utilization of a different mindset. 

As we all obviously know, everyone uses rhetoric in everything. Serious men, however, have a different awareness level of how they use rhetoric than the rhetorical man. Regardless of if they know recognize the concept of rhetoric or not, the end point is that they do not choose to consciously integrate such concepts into their life. Rhetorical men on the other hand obviously do the exact opposite, and fully embrace the many niches of rhetoric. As Jared said, he believes rhetorical men are the eloquent thinkers and reason based, and I can understand where he is coming from with that statement. I also noted what Kelly said about the serious men, not even thinking to utilize pathos. I agree with that as well, it seems to me that serious men are trained to approach situations in a very specific way that does not quite include emotion.

So with that being said, I’m going to steer this in a slightly different direction and say that I think if you pulled a serious man and a rhetorical man in to read these blog posts, they would both approach the situation extremely differently (obviously). The serious man, in my imagination, would scoff at not only the topic of the posts but also the way we have drawn out and nitpicked at the issue. A rhetorical man would be much more likely to enjoy the topic and read into the different thoughts we have expressed, forming deep intellectual and creative thoughts while reading. Those are my thoughts on the rhetorical man and the serious man thus far. 

The choice to be rhetorical,....and emoji's? Jared's random tangents

Kelly, We talked about your line about the Serious being unaware that they are performing rhetoric, and I spun off of that to say that perhaps the Serious are those who don't care that they are performing rhetoric, or rather, that they are unwilling to acknowledge it. The reason I said that is that I think we can choose to be or not be rhetorician. I'm imagining a slew of protests from the class to the effect of "No, we are all practicing rhetoric whether we like it or not, and a rhetorician is one practicing rhetoric". What I mean by this is the right to choose rhetorician as a title, and to choose to think in the rhetoric mindset. People can choose not to participate in our rhetoricious ways (yeah I made up the word rhetoricious, you can tar and feather me for it). I also totally agree with your theory of John being a Serious representation in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and I think this supports my argument as well. What makes us label John a Serious person? John chooses to have his bike fixed by "professionals" even though he knows he could learn to fix it himself, in a similar fashion as I think the Serious person may leave being rhetorical to the professionals. Sure they still practice rhetoric (just as John is still a practicing biker) but they choose not to think about the subject further. Ignorance is comfortable. With that being said, I'm still perplexed by what lessons in rhetoric this novel has to offer. Other than being made of rhetoric, I'm still a little unclear on how to interpret it as a rhetorical analysis. While of course I see the connection to John being a Serious person and Robert the more philosophical (or I suppose rhetorical one) I feel strained to see further connections. I'm not even sure if I would have seen that as a connection had it not been pointed out, so I continue to wonder "Am I missing something?" I hope that didn't feel like I was trying to tear up your argument, because I wouldn't of had anything to build off of if it wasn't for your theory. I'm kinda piggy-backing off of your hard work and intelligence in attempt to be an intellectual parasite. ;) <-------(super random tangent, emoji's are rhetoric and arguably a part of our language at this point, so nobody judge me for using one. :P.....or two. ALSO, Based on Fish's discussion of how rhetoric has built cities and stopped wars etc. through the use of reason and eloquence, I'm starting to think of rhetorician's a bit like reasoners and eloquent thinkers. Anyone have any thought on this? -Jared

Rhetorical Man & Serious Man

Before I dig into the specifics of the prompt, I’d like to say who I think the “serious man” and the “rhetorical man” are. I feel like the serious man is someone who is not aware that they are performing rhetoric. They believe that there is an ultimate truth and one true way to go about any solution or thinking of how things are. They do not think about language beyond what they have been conditioned to believe. The rhetorical man, however, looks more closely at language and understands that “truth” means something different for different people. There is no universal truth or understanding that somehow sidesteps the constructed truths among different disciplines, and so they work on forming conversations with other people within and outside their way of thinking.

This may be a bit of tangent (but a trait of rhetorical man I suppose), but when I read a Discourse article last semester, it talked about different conversations among people in different disciplines/Discourse communities as well as people within the same Discourse community. Persig’s book made me wonder one thing: Is a purpose of rhetoric to help ease conversations between different lenses and to perhaps improve communication between people of different mindsets with respect to their varied situations?  

And if that is a purpose of rhetoric, can finding common values among different lenses establish a type of common ground in which can help make transfer of information easier during times of conflict?

As I think about that last paragraph, I’m immediately struck with a thought: I wonder if John from Persig’s reading could represent the serious man and the narrator could represent the rhetorical man. I suppose I make this distinction between the two people in the text because the narrator seemed to have a very rhetorical/multiple lens/Discursive language whenever he would try to explain things to other people. His son commented on how strange his language was in relation to everyone else and occasionally he had to restrict his way or talking (or discourse) for John and Sylvia when he felt that his explanations were too much for the situation. Also, the narrator made a comment about how John was not willing to see the rationality behind maintaining his motorcycle and because of that mindset, I wonder that could provide further evidence for what he could be the serious man in this book.

In terms of people in my own experience that could follow the serious man and the rhetorical man  … I cannot think of anyone other than instructors or myself (to some extent I think …) for the rhetorical man and so I think will speak more broadly about the rhetorical man in my life. I think the rhetorical man are people who have made the rhetorical turn. In other words, they are aware that they are actors and/or people who help get something to happen through their actions. In this instance, I think the rhetorical man could be any one of us at the end of this course. On the contrary, I think the serious man are people who do not understand the purpose of rhetoric and/or are not thinking critically about language and its relationship with the audience. I believe those people could be my non-writing major friends. They understand what they’ve learned as “truth” and probably don’t understand that other disciplines may have a different way for classifying what they’ve been taught. I think the people who are between serious man and rhetorical man are the people who are just entering this rhetorical lens of the writing major (e.g the people right now in class). They do not yet understand the basics of rhetoric or its purpose, but they’re being immersed in the language and are beginning to put the pieces together.

Response to Jared/Kelly

As I read these blog posts about everyone's confusion regarding rhetoric, I am comforted to know that I am not alone. Although this is only my first post, I feel as if my ranting’s on my rhetoric will appear redundant, but then again that seems to speak to the overall nature and tone of the topic of rhetoric. With that being said, I am more confused than ever, which judging by the discussions in class and on this blog are shared feelings. Last semester I wrote a twelve page paper in my writ 205 class on feminist rhetoric. I was hoping that this past research would be able to give me just a hint of insight into this class, but, I of course was wrong. The project I focused on last semester was solely on the conversations within the field of feminist rhetoric than anything exploring rhetoric itself. Regardless I agree with what Kelly and Jared have said, rhetoric is complicated and a hard subject to grasp. I do think that rhetoric is everywhere and it is intentionally and unintentionally in every single act we do as humans. Personal history, preconceived notions, experiences, education, location, motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic), upbringing etc are all factors that shape the person we are today. Everything we are obviously shapes everything we do, subconsciously and consciously. And as Kelly said there are no ‘facts’ or ‘truths’ that are universally accepted. If someone makes a speech to 300 people in an audience, all 300 people very well could have drawn extremely different conclusions from the text due to their personal experiences.  So while I may think I am sending out a very specific and clear the message, the receiver may draw something totally different from my comments.

I was recently thinking about the metaphor we talked about in class, about rhetoric being similar to a game of telephone. One person sets out trying to convey a very precise message but each person receives the message in a different way, and therefore the initial meaning is lost on everyone. It seems as if rhetoric is like a kid on a leash. It has far too much energy and potential to be on a leash, but yet at the same time we as humans feel the need to attempt to confine, categorize, and define rhetoric so that is easy to explain. While scholars in the field of rhetoric know that it is impossible to put rhetoric on a leash or anchor it to any specific defining values, I think that in my limited knowledge on rhetoric, am one of those people who is still trying to find an easy way to classify understand rhetoric. I realize that this class is going to do anything but simplify rhetoric and I am excited to delve into the nuances of this topic.

Ramage/Kennedy response to Ashton

Like you Ashton, I am finding my preconceived notions about rhetoric to be overly simplified. Coming into studying rhetoric, I didn't think much more of the subject than a way to label all forms of communication. It isn't a subject I've ever dived into, and I'm finding I know both more and less about it than I thought I did. The subject seems more complex, while somehow remaining as simple as I thought it was. Considering that Kennedy opens his essay with "After spending much of my professional life teaching rhetoric, I began to wonder what I was talking about" I suppose I shouldn't be too concerned about the seemingly miniscule knowledge I have on the subject. If he can teach the subject for years and still claim to have such a small grasp on his expertise, I think we'll be alright. While I'm sure we'll learn a lot in the duration of this course, I expect we may leave the course with a more muddled understanding of what rhetoric is than what we had previously, but that's just based on how I've experienced the course so far. One of the things that struck me about Kennedy's paper, was the argument of Rhetoric as an energy and his concept of Rhetoric being prior to speech. I find myself in another juxtaposition with that statement. My initial thought is that we all use energy to create rhetoric, not a form of rhetoric in itself. What I mean is that the energy is not rhetoric until it is used to make it. What complicates this for me is that we are all creating rhetoric all the time, regardless if we are saying or gesturing or emoting anything at all. At the very least, if we were to remain silent, still, and expressionless,we are at the very least communicating our lack of will to communicate. Or maybe we aren't. Perhaps it's an assumed rhetoric, an invented rhetoric created in others minds that is based on what our non-rhetorical/lifeless body is doing. So it seems that while I don't accept the idea that rhetoric is an energy contained inside us before it is expelled, I cannot reject it either. After all don't most of us strive to think about what we say before we say it? And I know I'm not alone in saying that i have had many of conversations contained entirely in my head, conversations that had no audience except myself. Is this the energy that Kennedy speaks of? I'm not producing speech, at least not with others. I'm simply talking to myself or projected versions of people with whom I expect to communicate with in the future. But is that Rhetoric or just insanity? Argh! It's only been two class periods and my own thoughts and ideas on the subject are muddled completely! While I've about reached my word limit as it is, I do need to comment on Ramage a bit. While so far I've found much of his user's "guide" to be a serious of witty ramblings that wind me in endless and unpredictable turns, I cannot lie that he has offered valid points to think about. Again, like Ashton, I was also interested in his idea of rhetoric as an "art of proving opposites". But it also seems to me that perhaps he was trying to claim that good rhetoric is the art of proving opposites. Sure, it's a great strategy for building an argument, but whether or not proving an opposite is achieved, rhetoric is rhetoric. So in order to buy into his argument, I would first have to modify his statement to good rhetoric is can be an art of proving opposites. But that sort of deflates and simplifies his concept into the obvious, so I don't see it doing much good. Perhaps I'll try rereading his strange comparison to rhetoric and slow cooked food and see if that gets me anywhere. Then again if I wanted to know the differences between fast food and a diner I might just go try visiting some. I'm off to Perkins. (if you can't tell, I think Ramage is kinda full of shit so far). -Jared

Reponse to Jared about Rhetoric

I had some knowledge of rhetoric before coming into this class. WRIT 205 was where I first heard about rhetoric and I wanted to learn more about the topic. 205 didn’t give a clear meaning of its definition (Doug said the class was an overview of the writing major) – Rhetoric felt like some great unknown that I wanted to learn more about anndddd that led me into conversing with Doug about it. All of that led me slowly into the understanding that I have today.

I agree with you Jared – after I learned more about rhetoric and thought about it more, I began to realize how complex the topic is and I began to understand why it takes people a long time to study it – And even then, they don’t fully understand it. I’m not sure why they don’t fully understand it though – I think it’s because knowledge is constantly changing in this field due to the conversations they have with other people within the field (almost like us with these blog posts). To be totally honest, my knowledge of rhetoric isn’t vast, but I think I know enough to understand why we’re required to study it before we graduate and head into our future careers.

Here is some of what I’ve gathered before this class (that I can think of right now):

* Rhetoric is a conversation and interaction between readers and writers.
* Rhetoric deals with language that could be both written and spoken.
* Rhetoric involves understanding the language (or discourse) of Discourses and Discourse Communities.
* There is never any “truth” of “facts” that is universally accepted because people have their interpretations of what those two terms mean for any given topic depending on their beliefs and values.

At one point during my conversations with Doug, he sent me that What is Rhetoric? last summer to read. When I first read that article, I was so overwhelmed because I wanted to stop and analyze everything until I understood it perfectly. As I think about it now, I think it was also hard for me to read because I wasn’t adjusted to the discourse yet. I wasn’t used to that type of writing. However, when I read the article for the second time earlier today, things that didn’t make sense to be before made more sense to me now and I found that I was able to read it much faster this time. (The first time took me almost all summer – I had to take breaks from it because it was so tiring for me)

For example, I had no idea what logos was  – That was the hardest thing for me to grasp, but now I think I understand what it is better now. I now think that instead of using morality/authority of ethos or emotion of pathos to ensnare the reader, logos uses certain procedures/methodologies that the person they’re conversing with are comfortable with.

And speaking of those three terms for persuading the audience …. :  The one thing that caught my eye this time around was regarding ethos. If texts are written and spoken, isn’t whether a text or a rhetor moral the same thing? I’m not sure where that distinction would be… I think I remember reading in the article at one point that non-verbal entities like paintings or body language can give a specific meaning to the audience. If a person is doing something that most people in society consider good (like rescuing a kitten from the middle of a highway), aren’t they giving a non-spoken text that what they’re doing is good if that is how their audience interprets it and finds meaning from it?

Wait, unless ….. Does this point toward intention, maybe? For example, perhaps rhetors are intentionally trying to be rhetorical because they’re the rhetoricians within this Discourse/lens of seeing things. If someone is performing an action and isn’t necessarily intentionally trying to be rhetorical (and/or trying to be associated within this lens), would that still count in this lens as being moral?

So much to explore and think about – I agree, Jared, I’m sure we’ll learn more as the semester progresses :).

Jared, by the way, I can/could see part of what you said while you were updating your drafts. I apologize for not waiting for you to post the entire thing – I just really wanted to get this assignment finished as soon as I could (and because I don’t know when Erin will post either). I suppose we can talk about this in class on Thursday too if we have time.

Ramage's Introduction: Chapter 1

If I understood Ramage correctly, which is questionable, method is a basic essential to what rhetoric is. He claims that the Greek word for method is "hodos," which translates into "way." He later, on page 20, defines the "way" of rhetoric as "an organized attempt to discover ambiguity and to use those discoveries to leverage new possibilities and meaning." In other writing classes I've had, I was taught that "quality" writing papers are ones that successfully pinpoint problems/confusions and attempt to bridge the gaps that those problems have created. I didn't know that this was the "way" of rhetoric. I limited rhetoric to the manner in which my method was presented, rather than my method as a whole. I assumed rhetoric only focused on stylistic factors of communication such as tone, vocabulary, genre, presentation, etc. I am beginning to understand how those qualities should be caused and affected by my paper's method as a whole. Ramage presents the idea of acts versus motion. An act, which may contain some elements of motion, is voluntary and results in something new happening. Motion is the result of an act. I am starting to see how the stylistic aspects of writing can be considered, not only acts, but motions caused by the act, or purpose, of why I am trying to communicate the paper that I am writing. I knew that rhetoric focused on the relationship between an author and his/her audience, but I didn’t think about how it can also be about the relationship between the method and manner of what I am trying to communicate.

A definition of rhetoric, that Ramage proposes and that I have never thought of, is “the art of proving opposites.” On page 27, he uses a metaphor of a judge to symbolize an author’s audience, “The quality of a judge’s opinion rests on her ability to imaginatively identify with and actively listen to all the arguments and produce an argument that goes beyond them.” I came into this class with the general idea that rhetoric is the art of persuasion. My method of persuasion has never been to persuade opposites. If I ever presented the opposite side of my argument, it was only to prove that the opposite side is flawed and that my argument is better. Ramage is saying that a part of our rhetorical method, in order for the reader to produce a “quality opinion,” should be to encourage the audience to produce an opinion that surpasses my paper’s argument. This is reached through presenting and proving both sides of an argument. Ramage proves this with his made up anti-rhetorician, who portrays the cons of rhetoric, and by doing so, he allows me, as the reader, to form my own opinion and thoughts of rhetoric.

Overall, Ramage's first chapter has taught me that have entered this class with an oversimplified view of rhetoric. The definitions that I have known in the past have limited my understanding of what rhetoric is and what it can be to me, as a writer.