Kelly,
I found it really interesting how you are linking passion with purpose, "if I didn't have passion for what I am reading or what I am doing, then what is my purpose?" From the start of this class, I have been interested in how and in what ways intentionality is a part of rhetoric's definition because I think that having a purpose gives an object a reason and a foundation for quality. As a writer, I want to strive for quality and maybe that's the larger purpose in my writing, but your concept of passion is interesting. In a blog post a while back, I wrote about the role of the self-identification process playing into the definition of quality and I wonder if passion is a result of that self-identification process as well. What makes us passionate about what we do? I think my answer, that you have led my thinking to, is that passion is a result of the strong identification in the purpose of something. I identify in the purpose of writing (I'm shy and I communicate better and more powerfully through it) and therefore I am passionate about it. Claiming that passion requires self-identification, gives it a large amount of subjectivity....different people have different passions, based on their personality and experiences....This kind of leads me to another question that I think is worth investigating: Can one experience passion from an objective (logical) lens? Or is passion purely a result of emotion? To me, purpose seems more logical/objective because when a writer is defining her purpose, in a way, she perspectively zooms out to see the role that she wants her writing to play for those reading it. She is figuring the type of interaction she wants her writing and her readers to have. This seems like a logical choice. I'm trying to figure out which leads this....passion or purpose? Does passion motivate our purpose? Or does our purpose motivate our passion?
Anyways....I also agree with Nye about how stereotyping someone based on either binary (logic or emotion) is, what you say "damaging," and also very restrictive. I have a brilliant/engineer friend from high school that was checking out different prestigious engineer programs at a handful of colleges and most looked down on for being a girl, even though she thinks more logically than a lot of guys that I know...and this stereotype also applies to boys being looked down on for pursuing humanities. I guess I am also trying to figure out where rhetoric stands in these binaries that we have been continually adding to our list throughout class....in rhetoric, is emotion being guided by logic or logic being guided by emotion? I think both binaries, to some extent, exist in everything we do, I just don't know how their relationship exists in different subjects, especially in rhetoric.
I also like how you list three elements to rhetoric: purpose, intention, and argument. However, I guess I want to question your difference between intention and purpose. I think those two concepts are very closely related because we intend purpose....if we are doing something purposefully, we have to have some element of intention. I do agree that a large part of rhetoric is either intention or purpose but I would like to hear more about why you added both concepts in your definition. I was thinking today that rhetoric is purposefully using the relationship between the binaries of logic and emotion to produce a quality argument......it's definitely a working definition but I think the relationship of those binaries is important to understanding rhetoric.
I understand where you are coming from in your argument that logic is an ideological concept constructed by society. I see that with what is considered "common sense" and it is usually said that logical people have more common sense than illogical people. However, I'm struggling to see logic as completely socially constructed. I don't think that a person can be completely logical and not at all emotional or vice versa but I think that, at least from my personal experiences, people are usually one more than the other....and that is a result of their character. I think that an emotional person can choose to be logical to guide their emotions and I think that choice to be logical is more of a step out of subjectivity to see "the bigger picture" than being so subjective couldn't let them see. You can definitely challenge that because I'm not super clear on where I stand in your argument. Thanks for making me think Kelly!
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