Rhetorical Perspective

[Seth L. Kahn-Egan]

I realize a problem with the way I'm formulating my argument, from reading
Vershawn's post.  When I suggest rhetoric-as-method, I don't mean to
divorce it from its users or its purpose.  I only mean to isolate it in
this way so we can talk about it as a concept.  Of course rhetoric doesn't
just happen.

Maybe putting it in Burkean terms would help (and again, I'm not entirely
comfortable with these labels, but for convenience's sake...):
Act--rhetoric
Agent--writer/speaker/lawyer/ad exec/artist/etc
Agency--writing/speech/legal brief/advertisement/painting,music, etc
Scene--classroom/courtroom/workplace/mass media environment/etc
Purpose--many...whatever the rhetor means to accomplish

This formulation still suffers from the same problem that my others have,
namely, that I'm still labelling rhetoric as AN ACT, and hence AN OBJECT.
Perhaps that's what Vershawn is getting at.

Seth

Seth Kahn-Egan
Syracuse University
PhD Student in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric
slkahneg at mailbox.syr.edu
315-423-8042 (home)
____________________________________________________________________
"I'm as schizophrenic as a wet cat that's been beaten."--Kurt Cobain
"You are not what you own."--Fugazi
"You know, for the kids."--Tim Robbins, "The Hudsucker Proxy"
"Dave, I don't think that's a very good idea . . . Dave?"--HAL 9000
"Postmodernists don't agree with themselves."--Xin Liu Gale
"And what costume shall the poor girl wear to all tomorrow's
	parties?"--The Velvet Undergound
"I was saying, 'Let me out of here' before I was even born."--Richard Hell
"What we have here is a failure to communicate."--"Cool Hand Luke"
"It's Now that howls at nothing; it's Now that runs and hides; it's Now
	that winds its spineless coils and slithers out of sight."
	--nomeansno
"If you think you are the only one who got the joke, you shouldn't be
	laughing."--My horoscope for 1-27-99
"The objective of education is not the production of self-confident
	fools."--Jerome Bruner, _The Process of Education_

On Wed, 3 Feb 1999, Vershawn Ashanti Young wrote:

> To all:
>
> I, too, have been silent for a while, although I read all correspondances. But
> I would like to respond to CJ Jeney, who I think hit the the nail right on.
> The mistake that is made is academic discussions and undertakings of rhetoric
> is that individuals seem to extract the act of rhetoric from its user.
> Rhetoric is an embodied phenomenon.  It cannot be understand outside of its
> particular context, nor outside of the rhetor who employed the strategies that
> compose the rhetorical discourse in question.  I assume, if not all, are
> aquainted with Stanley Fish's article "Rhetoric."  I think Stanley misses the
> mark when he talks about Satan and God and the debate concerning rhetoric.
> Stanley doesn't take into account that rhetoric is a vehicle by which one
> accomplishes a specified purpose.  In short, in doesn't take into account that
> rhetoric is embodied and cannot be extracted or operationalized (as
> traditional scientific research would have us do).  It has, and must, be
> considered in context, which means the person who is the rhetor.
>
> In this sense, rhetoric is always situational, attached to a culturally
> specific context, and arises from a individual whose tastes, morals,
> understandings, etc.  must be taken into account.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Vershawn Ashanti-Young
> Ph.D. Candidate
> English Literature
> University of Illinois at Chicago
>