How Rhetoric Is Applicable in the Modern Setting - Research Paper Example

Rhetoric Data Rhetoric Whenever somebody has the capability of drafting or opt to use verbal medium in order to win or convince otherpeople towards their course, such kind of a person can be identified by an identity tag of a “Rhetor”. Review of rhetoric will be broad. The essay will tackle on the position and place of rhetoric in the modern culture which is becoming digital by the second. Also the essay will review how if any rhetoric is applicable in the modern setting. Rhetoric is an art that concentrates on argument and also discourse. While the people who study critical analysis of works associated with rhetoric are known as “rhetoricians”. Rhetoric is an important part of society; it all started in Roman Empire with philosophers studying the art. Rhetoric is such that, people have to agree, people have to convince each other so that there can be a head way to agreement. Ideal situation disagreement is such that, there are two options either the parties fight or they debate (Connor, 1996). These two options are applicable in either on an individual level or on a country level. Individuals can fight or debate, but a country can either solve this disagreement by taking up guns and going to war or they can create a dialogue platform where participants of common intelligence sit and ask the hard questions with a target of locating the origin of the underlying problems. The basic principal of disagreement between two individuals is that the two parties could not understand or agree on some assumptions. Hence coming to a point of deliberation means that, those in an argument forum have to do two things; the first party to try and grasp the assumptions in the other parties argument and also grasp the assumptions in their own argument. By doing this, each party argues on facts leading to a debate and then the process of convincing starts (Connor, 1996). In rhetoric there will always be shared assumptions so that the argument can be constructive. This is a situation where reader and writers agree to a certain level and only leave some debatable issues. Hence to win a convincing talk, a writer needs to struggle since it’s a tough assignment, he needs to struggle to find that point where they share a similar argument so that he can cleverly maneuver his points to win the debate. To many rhetors it should be known that a debate is not an affair that puts us against them. Hence when in rhetoric attacking another party and their points is not the most valued manner of winning an argument. The two approaches are not ethical in rhetoric; hence it is normally equated to rhetoric bad manners. Hence super rhetors have a technique of viewing a debate as a form of cooperation between the two parties. The reason behind viewing debate as cooperation rather than a tussle is that when you insult someone, that person is likely to become defensive. Defensive people are not creative; they lack the capacity to become open minded on new ideas. Hence the trick of a good writer or a rhetor is to treat criticism positively. To do this a writer has to show the listening party that they matter and their points are legitimate. The audience hence feels appreciated and they consider the rhetor as a person worth listening to (Williams, 2008). In rhetoric it is better to have a grain of politeness than a whole sack of wrong verbose. Since wrong verbose germinates conflicts, hence results in rhetoric are far better when there is a sense of cooperation, worth, and politeness. A master rhetoric knows best how to utilize such a situation and always coming out a winner. The quality of the argument matters a great deal. For instance if the parties in question decided to be men of common intelligence and respect one another that way. Party A can be given a chance to exhaust their points, the party B can be passed through the same process. At the end of it all, both parties end up changing their minds. The target is never to win an argument at all costs; those are not the principles of rhetoric. The point of achievement is honest form of discussion that is free of lies, exaggeration, misrepresented data, or logical fallacies. The result of such negative factors into a debate is that, poor answer appears strong while it actually is not; hence that is why rhetoric strives for honest conversations. In order for rhetoric to work, a rhetor needs to use the three proven and basic rules-: I. Use of induction and deduction in logical argument II. Emotional creation in audiences reactions III. Showing an image of charisma, honesty and authority. Finally rhetoric has to have an ingredient of eloquence of speech and a good speech to convince the participants. It needs to be honest and free of logical fallacy. This subject will always attract enough debate to last decades. Aristotle the father of Greek rhetoric produced a work that is used even today, he came up with five elements that he called the canons of rhetoric. They were identified as-: memory, the style, arrangement, delivery and invention (Aristotle, 1954). The above canons can be explained as follows-: I. Invention- this pertains to content and the understanding that the rhetorician has on his goals. II. Arrangement- it pertains to organization of the argument such it will have the capability of meeting the goals the writer wants. III. Memory- this is basically the ability of a person to remember what they are about to talk about. IV. Style- basically this can involve the use of gestures, which words best fit, metaphors examples and all. V. Delivery- the writer will want to ask how the body posture is, tone, effect of signs used and words chosen. Rhetoric a century ago was important; it was about writing convincingly and also about excellent public speeches. In the 18th century, Harvard University recognized the importance of compositions and targeted to grow studies of compositions on its own. It became a full effort given to writing, but this changed with the birth of a modern university. Writing became incorporated into rhetoric because rhetoric principles helped in bringing up better writing skills. Hence to date, rhetoric and composition are bed mates. Moderate and radical expressivism are part of a composition pedagogy, expressivism in moderation aims to bring out personal rather than social expression. The steps involved in drafting are more important that the ultimate work. Hence it is about, less grammar and more attention to discovery and expression of the writer. According to (Donald murray) a moderate expressivist he says that writing is a discovery journey to identify the truth (hart, 2005). In the current system, there is a shift in rhetoric and composition paradigm (Maxine). More concern currently is going towards grammar and prescriptive atmosphere. Other than teaching that is non-prescriptive. Hence a writer should not focus on the audience at the beginning of the writing but later, timing should be right so that moderate expressivism can manifest itself. Hence moderation is about building and growing a writer rather than making them show grammatical prowess on their work. Radical expressivism on the other hand has a sole purpose of showing focus to a group. This writing puts focus on the community and the experience. One expressivist (sirc) uses rap music in the study. he says that rap music harbors narratives of human heart. Hence with radical expressivism modern media and its elements can be utilized as pedagogical tool. Rhetoric is as old as man or it can be equated to be as old as the time that man has spoken. Hence great philosophers like Aristotle and Socrates identified rhetoric and came with a theory (Wess, 1996). Rhetoric is not persuasion alone, it is an art. These art looks into what was said at a particular time or what was written at a particular time and how what was said affected the person who heard that particular message. Hence the art explores the effectiveness of the language that used. The classical theory on rhetoric is that, it identified rhetoric in any form of language. The theory concluded that any form of language no matter how minor or irrelevant, will always harbor some sort of persuasion element. Hence the theory purpose was to know better on this persuasion element (Williams, 2008). The theory acted amused at the effect of language on people. Ancient Greek existed in a society that adored people of great charisma. The Greeks believed in democracy system, as such, or one to be a leader in the society, leaders had to have great and excellent skills of communication. Good oration skills on the people meant that, the best in oration among equals good favor from the people. In the current world this spirit has been brought to the modern world. All the great leaders currently harbor excellent oration skills (Muckel, 2009). Rhetoric is usually normally used even in the normal conversations of a child to mother, a child might ask the mum to buy her a cake that request alone her persuasion. The girl has taken her chances and knows that she intends to persuade the mum to buy that cake. The kid has already processes a number of likely possibilities in her head. But she expects to honestly convince the mum to buy into her course. Classical theory has the bragging rights of having all the great orators in the world who influenced masses through the use of the theory. By attracting big and big masses the leaders must have used classical theory. Theorists say that Jesus and even Buddha though they taught on a religious platform they used a persuasion element in their teachings. Masses cannot be attracted to forum where they are not influenced. Ever since the ancient times, when Greek philosophers studied the behavior of people when subjected to language. Many different changes have occurred ever since that time, and many analysts have predicted that rhetoric is dying, but how can it die when there are books being written and others that were written. We still enjoy Elizabethan era books written by Shakespeare more than 100 years after (Muckel, 2009) Each generation will always come with its own ways of doing things. Technology gets better with time and each generation will enjoy better technology than a preceding one. With this it means that even rhetoric has changed with time in a motive of adapting to modernity. Modern rhetoric has grown to be a new form of rhetoric thanks to Kenneth burke. He has come up with enough words to determine modern rhetoric. Burke said that modern rhetoric has been built on language alone. He defined language as a concept that is always changing and can be used to trigger cooperation in beings. Hence according to burke there is a difference between classical and modern rhetoric. Structuralism theories have given rise to deconstruction. This is a literary philosophy criticism combined with diverse criticism of other arts. Deconstruction philosophy brought out that, words can be contradictory in nature. Hence the philosophy brought out that words can harbor diverse meanings in nature and thus any particular statement will normally have a persuasion effect. Deconstruction presents a sophisticated side of rhetoric by saying that a presentation can be a misrepresentation as well. Better still deconstruction says that a deflection can also be reflection (Norris, 2010) Hence deconstruction renders positivity in all contexts. It will view any contradiction as a paradox; this concept is known as methodical quizzicality (Margolis, 1992). Hence rhetoric according to the philosophy, seeks not to believe in one type of argument that is why it moves out of normal linguistic nature and into asking the hard questions on freedom and equality or even matters relating to security versus liberty. In the modern world rhetoric has a future but this future has been blanketed by other forms of rhetorics. Human are no longer listeners, they no longer appreciate a good word. That is why material such as Shakespeare is read out of necessity and never person of understanding the writer and his works. Studies have shown that there is proof enough that the world has embraced presentation as rhetoric. Giving rise to rhetorics of display. This form of rhetoric has assembled scholarly teams that look into display rhetorics as a way of pervasive rhetoric. It should be appreciated that in the current world, information comes through in different forms, such as imagery, films and the literature itself. Why for example would we buy a product without a public speaker or a whole essay on its importance, why also would we visit a museum every so often to go down the memory lane on what happened and at what point. The display or the arrangement will have a persuasion element within that is rhetoric of display has evolved in the modern world. It is not expressed by a writer to a listener; it is a structure of arrangement and imagery that will guarantee persuasion when combined with a few right words. Rhetorics of display will entail, choosing what to bring out and what to keep within so that a good mix of rhetorics of display. There are specific concepts that will entail rhetoric of display and this include exhibitions of titanic, piercing of the body, images present at a casino are some of the things that will form part of rhetorical display to a certain extent if not full. Text and writing has basically been overtaken by display rhetorics, it is the new trend in the world though its sustainability will depend on what digital inventions might come next. It is yet to be for how long print can last in favor of visual communication (Prelli, 2006). The modern world, rhetoric according to theorists is dying, probably it is viewed as such because, and the language is being polluted. Sentences are being corroded with incorrect style and themes. But what the theorists do not understand, rhetoric has a future in our computers, it has a future in what we do. The world has just improved the quality of the argument instead of sticking to the same ancient argument. What the theorists want to happen is society to appreciate and follow the usual nature of rhetoric, but developments have happened all over, there needs to be a combination of visual element, element and good language. People appreciate in seeing. For example, when Obama was complaining his public show of affection on his wife and offspring must have persuaded some voters to his course. Voters chose his charisma, others chose him for the affection and others chose him because he was convincing enough. Rhetoric will not die, but literature will be thoroughly affected. Rhetoric will assume a representation of different mediums. This because technology is getting viral and mutating with better technologies than the last. Rhitorians such as (birkets) are asking if their trade is coming to an end, or will rhetoric itself adapt a self healing mechanism and try to show its head in a world that is long changed. Question is, why not improve the quality of rhetoric and view presentation and visual communication as part of the ultimate case of classical rhetoric meeting modern rhetoric to form a synergy. References Wess, R. (1996). Kenneth Burke, a rhetoric of the subject. New York: Cambridge University Press. Prelli, L. J. (2006). Rhetorics of display. Columbia, SC: Univ. of South Carolina Press. Norris, C. (2010). The deconstructive turn: Essays in the rhetoric of philosophy. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Williams, J. D. (2008). Introduction to classical rhetoric. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Muckelbauer, John. (2009). The Future of Invention: Rhetoric, Postmodernism, and the Problem of Change. State Univ of New York Pr. Connor, U. (1996). Contrastive rhetoric: Cross-cultural aspects of second-language writing. Cambridge [u.a.: Cambridge Univ. Press. Aristote, ., Roberts, W. R., Bywater, I., &Solmsen, F. (1954). Rhetoric. New York: Modern Library. Hart, R. P., &Daughton, S. M. (2005). Modern rhetorical criticism. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon. Read More