Seth
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Laborious Rhetoric Response
The Grant-Davie article places constraints as the "hardest of the rhetorical components to define" because of its vagueness, but in my mind its the most critical. Constraints are the meat and potatoes of a rhetorical objective. Exigence, rhetors, and audience follow the constraints that are set in place. It's the fuel to a machine that will perform vastly if changed ever so slightly. The rhetoric in my blog post, final project, or debate with a friend all have hurtles BEFORE worrying about audience and BEFORE worrying about authorial voice.
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I read this post this afternoon and it provoked some questions I couldn't quite form yet, so I left it alone for awhile, thought about it, and now return. I still have the same questions, but maybe I can find words for them now.
ReplyDeleteYou say, "Exigence, rhetors, and audience follow the constraints that are set in place." I'm curious what you mean by that, because if exigence, rhetors and audience merely follow constraints, what is the point and power of rhetoric? I agree that constraints are, well--constraining--but isn't part of the point of rhetoric to recognize those constraints and find ways to weave your purpose into and through them?
I realize that by looking in one way at this, I miss several others, so I am genuinely curious of your perspective here. One way I see the constraints is as being part of the exigence, built into me as the rhetor, and encountered by me in the audience. To me, the beauty of rhetoric is in taking all those constraints and weaving meaning through them, by finding the commonalities and even in extolling the differences. Because truly, our differences from each other often make us great. Strengths and weaknesses that compliment; contrast that reveal the ways we are individually valuable: by standing near to the other, we see things about ourselves and others that only differences reveal.
I see these differences as being part of the constraint--they (audience) are what motivate me (exigence) to be the rhetor that I am. And so my knowledge isn't my own anymore, but was built into what it now is for and by those very "constraints" that hindered me, constraints that without natural rhetorical abilities I might--as you say--have to follow. (Or something like that!)
Thanks in advance for saying more about this!