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.