Essay Test For Rhetoric

Nobody has this blog address in my class and the test has already been handed in, so here this is!


True/ False Questions

1 True

2 False

3 False

4 True

5 False

Burke uses slaying as a “special case of identifying in general” (767). Burke believes that rhetoricians, which for Burke are anyone who practice identifying, in this case poets, used imageriy of slaying as identifying what that thing is before and after the gthing is slayed. While Burke specifically uses poets here, the reader or student of Burke could apply this concept to other instances of rhetoric. Says Zburke, “We begin with an anecdont e of killing because invective, eristic...are so pronounced in rehetoric” (764). That is, the act of identification and its correpsonding branch of slaying-imagery, is so ever present in rhetoric that it makes a very good introduction to the very nature of identification of imagery and symbols as sesssential to rhetoric. The use or value of slaying imagery is the identification of what is being slain and what has been lsain. The use of slaying as representaional of human rhetoric and conduct, to Burke, is powerfual because we can then see “how such temptations to strife” arise; as opposed to believing differently, whihch is a perversion tof reality ot Burke. I would say obvcious examples of emnity or hatred and vitriolic rhetoric aboudn in all human cultures, but a more specific “eristic” pracitice is esooused by the President of Iran.

2 Campbell says, “a woman learned the crafts of housewifery” because she was deprived of formal education and, “if the process of craft learning is applied to the rhetorical situation (and rhetoric itself is a craft), it produces discourse with certain characteristics” (901a). It seems that the basis of craft-learning as a rhetorical sturcture is the dialectic nature and how it incorporates the audience according to authority. Campbell says, “It will invite audience participation,” and, “recognition of authority based on experience” (901b).

The value of this critique of rhetoric is firstly that it describes a unique aspect of both female arhetroric and craft learning situations. While Campbell is talking about women, here this take on rhetoric has much to do with any given experts in a field. It is therefore very useful to consider craft learngin as both a way to view women's rhetoric and all rhetoric.

I think almost any commonsense rhetrocial scenario could certainly be viewed using Campbell's critical lens, but since she emphasizes the rhetorical nature of Feminism in craft learning I might note that in many of my classes taught by professional women have a more active audience role. Another example is of women such as Oprah and Ellen utilizing and fueling their audiences' excitement as ways of establishing authority.

3. Bakhtin said, “There is no theme without meaning, and no meaning without theme” (687). He therefore sees the two as inseparable. He also ses the two as complementary and built as such. On 687b he states that with very little theme a proposition is mostly made up of meaning, and something with very little meaning is mostly theme. Meaning is a particular implementation of a theme, and a theme is a given set of signs, that “attempts to be adequate to a given instant of generative processes” (687a).

The “significance of of a whole utterance” is a meaning's theme. Bakhtin uses the individual, “what time is it?” as an utterance, but its meaning in time and theme are individual and have a different theme depending upon other historical contexts. Bakhtin's point is “only an utterance taken in its full, concrete scope as an historical phenomenon possesses a theme.” (686). The point Bakhtin makes here is that the value of utterance, meaning, and theme cannot be known unless the historical context is taken into account. Bakhtin says, “A distinction between theme and meaning and a proprer understanding of thei rinterralationhips are viatl steps in constricting a genuine science of meanings.” (688).

I might use another utterance of “I'm hungry,” as an utterance, needing food as one of the meanings at the time, and the greater theme or significance of the utterance as perhaps an instance of starvation due to mass famine as the theme. This is Mikhail Bakhtin's argument that individual consciousness is metaphorically speaking a “tenant” in the house of social “edifice” of ideological signs. The argument stems from semiotics, which is mentioned in this passage, and Brummett explains is the study of how language has meaning. Bahktin believs that the esential nature of his theory is Marxist, in that it is wholly dialectical. In this way, there is an inherent nature of conflict and relolution in his work, but also that the very nature of meaaning and understanding could not exist without the dialogical nature of communication at large. By communicationg in any way, man is expressing it to another man. Furthermore, ideologies form based on signs and symbols from repetition of the meangings that words represent. Therefore, the entire dialectical nature means that no single individual consciousness is”the architect of the ideological superstructure” and in fact there is no way that it could be. If the nature of consciousness is rooted in communication and means that any communication must be dialectical and therefore ideological, any isolated individual, any person, would be necessarily misconceived.

This is essential to Bakhtin's arguments because he wishes to argue that “language is always addressed from one person to another –it is always dialogical” (Brummett 680). This is because Bahktin thinks there are unsolvable problems in any studies when it is defined as the opposite. Bahktin once argued, “In rhetoric there is the unconditionally innocent and the unconditionally guilty; there is complete victory and destruction of the opponent” (Brummett 679). He also says, “A sign does not simply exist as a part of a reality—it reflects and refracts another reality” (Bahktin 682).

Bahktin's arguments for the dialogical nature of language itself are a change from rhetorical theories that do not accommodate audiences. Although some Ancient Rhetorical theories considered dialogue as essential to teaching, almost all of the twentieth century theorists included the inherent communicative aspects of their writings. Bahktin's theory is very much similar to these later theories, but differs in important ways.

This theory has immense implications for the theory of rhetoric as a whole. Rhetoric has historically been viewed as what the rhetorician does, be it in writing, speaking, or communicating in general. Bahktin's theory of the audience as intrinsic to communication is indicative of the greater movement in 20^th century rhetoric to establish how rhetoric is even possible in the first place, let alone what it means to be rhetoric. The simplest analysis of rhetoric seems to confirm the necessity of this more contemporary evaluation. Bahktin then goes farther to say that because the nature of language is communicative as such, and because all of reality is rooted in the enjoined communication of that reality, the nature of such a previously supposed rhetoric, given by a supposed individual, could not happen, and therefore does not. While this has implications for a more Western or American Philosophy of the self, Bahktin's most fundamental point means that language itself could not exist without an audience to agent back and forth, and not simply the basic affirmation of the 20^th century rhetorical theorists that the audience matters more than the ancients asserted.

The nature of ideological signs in Bahktin's theory should not be overlooked. Ideological signs are the symbols of everyday living that all humans have access to through language. The author says, “Every ideological sign is not only a reflection, a shadow, of reality, but is also itself a material segment of that very reality” and continues, “the reality of the sign is fully objective and lends itself to a unitary, monistic, objective method of study” (682). Bahktin goes so far as to argue that the identification of ideological signs, by nature of their communication in the first place, makes these same signs objective. In other words, it is by the nature of its communication, its unity of consciousness, that the concept is objective. I agree with Brummett when he says that this is a contrast with Locke, who believes that language must conform to objects and the eloquence of rhetoric must be eliminated. In this opposition, Bahktin argues that it is necessary to conform the symbols to the material embodiment in order that we might have communication in the first place. Woman suffrage was so controversial that tis was feared it would take suffrage for Afro-American males down to defeat. As a result, in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment for the first time introduced the word 'male' in to the U. S. Constitution....During this period a major impetus toward woman suffrage came from an unexpected source – the temperance movement.”

This passage is from Campbell's works. In her works, she argues that female rhetoric has been kept down by society which pays tribute to men. The greater argument of this passage is that women had to find different ways to pursue rhetoric in order to argue for equal rights. Specifically, the author in this specific passage makes note that in order to argue for women's rights, the women's rights movement had to ally itself with other causes as a perfect example of her argument. Nevertheless, Brummett says, “Campbell is not attempting to theorize distinctly female patterns of rhetorical discourse” and therefore there are logical connections between the nature of all rhetoric as ethically motivated, and socially progressive.

The jump from the African American suffrage movement of the nineteenth century to the temperance movement of the early 1900's meant that women meant to ally themselves with these causes in order to gain the right to vote themselves. By allying themselves with these movements, women were still able to maintain their roles while covertly fighting for women's rights and eventually transcend them for greater social status. If society is against women speaking, that woman orator will not be able to succeed in engaging the audience. In order to get around this, Campbell says, “Women who struggled against [alcohol's] abuse were affirming their piety, purity, and domesticity” at the same time they were struggling against alcohol, and therefore were building and expanding their right to fight for these goals in the first place (Campbell 898). In addition, the author says that the Women's Christian Temperance Union “often grew out of existing church-women's organizations” (Campbell 898). The women's rights movement therefore was a composite of step by step expansion of rights. Each previous constituency propelled the next constituency and they expanded in that order.

The necessity of the specification of Campbell's audience here is what makes this an important study in overall rhetoric. The audience of the women's rights cause had to be built up from very little. I contended in discussion during class that women, as representing more than half of the population and also having clear leadership precursors such as Queen Elizabeth, meant that the social constraints that women needed to fight against were included in women themselves. I argue that this is part of what Campbell was arguing with her call for feminine style in correspondence with a united normative rhetorical theory. The progression of Campbell's audience here is essential, and I emphasize that especially because I think some of the women that the women's rights activists and suffragettes had to persuade were the women themselves because of their population and precursors. The way that they did this is by uniting with the African American suffrage movement and later the Temperance movement. The fact that Campbell mentions the church groups, which were certainly around before any particular temperance group united with them, probably did not explicitly support women's rights. Generally, there is an ethical motive that pervades through rhetorical literature. This is because people wish to argue for what is right at times. Campbell says, “The potential to engage another is the aesthetic or symbolic power of a piece of persuasive discourse” (Campbell 896) and that there is a benefit to this even if someone does not agree with the points argued; and this benefit is implied where she says that the engagement of the audience is put down if the audience consists of “men opposed to the very idea of a woman speaking.” By arguing about the audience to agent ratio in this way, she implies a pulpit of engagement, a position where that engagement of the audience can take place with the ability to succeed in the persuasion. In this way, it is a specification of 20^th century rhetorical theory which argues for a greater awareness of the agent to audience relationship.

Bernays and Burke differ in their trust that persuasion is moral. To Bernays, it is moral to persuade people to buy things and trust their motivations, which they might not recognize. To Burke, it is the nature of man, if he is lost in mis-identification, to err on the side of “perversion” (768). to Bernays, the uses of propaganda unite people in the way that they allow people to identify the products and then relate themselves to those products. Readers might just as easily see the identification of ideas or ideologies in Bernays' use of propaganda. Opposite this, Burke says that identification naturally implies division, which in turn is part of the process of realizing truth. Ultimately, Burke thinks that an effective understanding of true identification will lead to a moral decision, but that still does not mean people will unite in the utopian ideal that Bernays wishes for.

Bernays thinks the process of persuasion leads people to what they want, where Burke is not so quick to say such a thing. Bernays says, “Men are rarely aware of the real reasons which motivate their actions” (698), and continues in this vein, saying that man, “imagines, no doubt, that he is planning his purchases according to his own judgment” when in fact, “his judgment is a melange of impressions stamped...by outside influences.” In one example, Bernays says, “these activities of the railroad, besides creating good will, actually promote growth on its right way” (701). The point is that Bernays thinks the outside influences get the person to believe they are getting what they want. Burke says, “who is to say, once and for all, just where “cooperation” ends and one partner's “exploitation” of the other begins?” (770), which implies that there is some exploitation at some point.

Burke says, “The wavering line between the two [partners] cannot be “scientifically” identified; rival rhetoricians can draw it at different places, and their persuasiveness varies with the resources each has at his command” (771). Generally speaking, Burke thinks more “often we must think of rhetoric not in terms of some one particular address, but as a general body of identifications that owe their convincingness much more to trivial repetition and dull daily reenforcement than to exceptional rhetorical skill” (771). That is, from these two quotes, Burke sees a larger competition between markets going on, and that ultimately the purchase of a given property might not rely on the single identification of a single person to a single product, but rather social norms from a given repetition. Perhaps this is a turn from Bernays, who says, “if you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway” (Bernays 698) because, as shown, Burke does not think that the leader is the solely the one who influences outcomes. But certainly Bernays allows for this, weaving intricate patterns of salesmen, advice, events, and authorities in order to secure the norms that people need in order to identify with a product.

With this assured, large similarity between the two theorists in mind, Burke's contrast is best seen. Burke's system of complexity extends beyond Bernays in that, while Bernays allows for the use of propaganda as a persuasive tool, it seems as though Burke's system specifies what is going on when a person buys into such a deal. For the example that Burke points out, he says, “We usually take it for granted that people who consume our current output of books on “How to Buy Friends and Bamboozle Oneself and Other People” are reading as students who will attempt applying the recipes given. Nothing of the sort,” saying later that what the student “wants is easy success; and he gets it in symbolic form by the mere reading itself. To attempt applying such stuff in real life would be very difficult, full of many disillusioning difficulties” (759). Readers can take from Burke the sense that the buying of the aura of success, of easy success, is not the same as achieving success.

The void that Bernays presents as fillable is not. In the way that Bernays says a product line might answer for a product, Burke would argue that that particular need might not be able to be filled by a product or a product line. In the case of the lines of “inspirational literature,” Burke says, “It is a strategy for easy consolation” and “It 'fills a need,' since there is always a need for consolation” (Burke 759). I think Burke would say that buying this literature would not fill the need that Bernays argues it would. Critically, Bernays' theory is governed by group motivations, when ultimately reality is not that simple. Bernays' theory would suffice to say that yes, these people are buying the books to fill a need, but Burke's theory is more specific. Burke would say that the nature of the need for consolation cannot be found in these self-help books. Burke does not go into much detail about the “disillusioning difficulties” but readers can imagine just as well. The reason why such literature can never be made into the feeding frenzies that Bernays theorizes that they can is because people face the realities.

Burke does not believe that some things can be persuaded in the basic formulation that Bernays presents. Bernays argues that by controlling the various incarnations of persuasion on people, you would persuade them of anything. I do not think this is the case in real life, and I think Burke supports the more accurate view. When Burke talks about “disillusioning difficulties” with the self-help literature, he means the myriad of identifications that also include the difference between when an attitude is appropriate and when it is not. Burke supports the idea that people will certainly buy products to suit a given belief at the time, but inevitably when these difficulties arise, people will not be satiated by the counterfeit of success.

Personal experience from my life supports both Bernays and Burke's rhetorical theories, but ultimately agrees more with Burke's. For a personal example, I think of fads that have gone in and out of existence as full support for both of these theories and my ultimate support of Burke's greater theory. Examples of fads in my life have been tickle me Elmo dolls, Pogs, television shows such as the biker mice from mars, and yo-yo's. In each of these cases, there seemed to be an application of some of Bernay's theory. That is, these products attempted to sell the happiness, the status, or something else that was not in the product. Tickle me Elmo's attempted to sell happiness to children, pogs attempted to sell their own originality as a new game. Yo-yo's were sold as happiness, perhaps for parents to buy in reminiscence of their own childhood. Biker mice from mars were sold as a television show and an action figure line, as if directly out of Bernays' theory of implementing daily life with propaganda. Did it work at the time? The answer is a resounding yes. Over time, however, these fads ran their course because people were able to identify the greater principle of happiness, originality, or other concepts from their actual products. In Burke's terms, perhaps the product, while “consubstantial” with happiness, can never be happiness, or whatever other concept propagandists push together.