So, again, here goes:
The reading I completed first for this class was the first Ramage assignment in Rhetoric: A User's Guide, referred to from here as RUG. In the first two chapters I was annoyed by the extreme binaries constructed and relied upon in the process of defining rhetoric in a way that is seemingly both/and.
The "Serious person"? What's going on there? Why are we demonizing folks who "strive for clarity and simplicity of language" (8)? Because it is the counterpart in an effective binary association between Rhetorical People and Serious People. If this book is on rhetoric, and we could therefore consider the author at least a skilled scholar of rhetoric, why can't they use a different rhetorical strategy than oppositional arguments and dualistic associations? Isn't their definition of rhetoric itself a negative one? Why not attempt a positive definition... it has been how many centuries?
I guess the binary bugs me because I am not exactly the common audience for this book. I am amazed at how desperately I clutch at my Women's Studies background, but moments like this are another example of it. Where do I fall? In the simple definitions of Serious People, I find myself! But then the book goes on to demonize this simplification so as to construct Rhetorical People as so very superior intellectually.
Aside from the dualism, I totally dug the slow-food analogy and the analysis of legal rhetoric was thought-provoking. This illustration of rhetoric, though still vague and evasive, is much more digestible for me (as an almost hostile skeptic) than many I have encountered.
3 comments:
uh, yeah, i'll post about chapter two later. just one point: how did we talk about identity formation for thirty-five pages without ever discussing the differences based on race, nationality, bodily ability, sexuality, etc?? That was quite a talented skirting around the issues!
In class today, surprising I think everyone (considering that it really surprised me as well), I became quite angry over the Serious People / Rhetorical People dichotomy. Through stubborn questioning and accusing, though, Dr. Stacey brought me to an interesting point. The Serious People / Rhetorical People dichotomy is a mirror image of the rationality/emotion, male/female dichotomy. As a dualistic association in itself it also serves the interest of other binary dualisms, like white/black, straight/gay, first world/third world, modern/backward, self/other, superior/inferior...
It's true we didn't cover very much of the chapters. That material on identify is really good if and when WE use it to talk about race and gender and etc. I also wanted to talk more about "the way."
I think it was good to talk so much about "serious" and "playful" people, although in the end I think he was invoking more of a conventional commonplace in rhetorical studies, as the Lanham piece shows. Homo Ludicus (sp?) was a very common theme or object of study in Renaissance Studies for many years (the title of a very important book), and for many years in English depts, the only folks really interested in rhetoric were the Renaissance specialists.
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