Reality -- what a concept.

[CJ]

For modern rhetoricians, and for teachers of written composition and
argumentation, a fundamental concept is that of Rhetorical Situation. The
classical term is "Stasis," meaning the time, place, events, background,
subject, participants -- in short, literally the *situation* in which the
writer (or the Citizen Orator) is moved to discourse.

To be entirely, inadequately, unsatisfyingly incomplete yet brief:

Lloyd Bitzer argues that a writer's duty is to observe the material (real)
world, and its situations which are *discovered* through the senses, and to
translate those observations into words as clearly, as thoroughly, and as
truthfully as possible.

Richard Vatz argues that writers do not "deliver" or even "discover"
reality; they sort through infinite sensory stimuli, and through a process
of invention and selection they create a reality with their text FOR the
reader -- and Seth, I have to (sorry) agree with your mentor that Vatz
reads Bitzer very well indeed.... he is simply unrelenting in his assertion
that Bitzer is falling back on outdated, traditional assumptions no longer
made by readers and thinkers who have been exposed to even a smidge of
semiotic theory.  I was probably more receptive to Vatz than my classmates
who had not read Hayden White's _Tropics of Discourse_.

In the end, whether it seems "postmodern" or not to say so, it is
impossible not to concede that the "reality" transmitted from one mind to
another by means of  text is going to be colored by the perceptions,
abilities, background, word choices and syntactical ideosyncrasies of the
author, AND by the experience, background, opinions, etc., of the reader.
(stasis)


We can do the rhetoric-name-dropping thing here, if we like, but Walter Ong
eloquently rounds out the discussion, when he argues from the other end...
that "The Writer's Audience is Always a Fiction."  That is, no matter whom
we write for, our ability to know for CERTAIN exactly how our words will be
perceived and received, is sorely limited.

In other words, if we go back and concentrate rigorously on the meanings
and implications of the Greek terms "Stasis" and "Kairos," we can see that
the pre-Socratic Sophists were already having the same argument that Bitzer
and Vatz present in the 1970's journals. While Platonists and Aristotelians
were arguing for the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, the great Citizen
Orator who established Ethos, Logos, and Pathos in his Appeals, and ordered
his arguments in a fashion that appeals to the Wise and the Learned, the
Sophists were mucking about in the courts and in the magistrates' chambers,
creating the Legal profession as we know it today.... because they knew
that "reality" either sucks, bites, or rocks, depending upon *whose*
reality to which you are referring. Sophistry got a bad name, because guys
like Gorgias used whatever strategy it took to alter either the auditor's
perception of reality, or his judgment of it.

We see the legacy of these arguments in our courtrooms today, and in any
situation in which two or more witnesses are asked to present a narrative
of events.

"Seth shot CJ"
"Seth killed CJ"
"I thought I heard a car backfire"

All three may narrate the same event. However, Vatz would argue that,
outside of a very narrow group of context-familiar auditors, these are
three Vastly different stories.

I think it was Anais Nin who said, "We see things not as they are...but as
we are."

Erratically and rhetorically yours,

CJ Jeney






At 07:48 PM 1/13/99 +0100, you wrote:
>Seth L. Kahn-Egan wrote:
>
>(On "rhetorical situation", Bitzer / Vatz, etc.)
>
>> ...I'd like to hear what others think (or at least
>> if anybody else is interested in talking about it).
>
>I would be interested in HEARING about it ;-) .
>I have no idea whatsoever about the issue or about
>these authors.
>
>Would the Rhetoricians Illuminate the list? ;-) .
>
>-celso
>
>--
>Celso Alvarez-Caccamo              Tel. +34 981 167000 ext. 1888
>Linguistica Geral, Faculdade de Filologia     FAX +34 981 167151
>Universidade da Corunha                          lxalvarz at udc.es
>15071 A Corunha, Galiza (Espanha)   http://www.udc.es/dep/lx/cac
>
____________________________
CJ Jeney
Arizona State University
azcacti at asu.edu


http://www.public.asu.edu/~starbuck/
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