Friday, February 21, 2014
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Rhetorical Exploration #2
Rhetoric is used in everyday conversation, political statements, marketing of all kinds, and countless other ways. Although I can't provide evidence that Rhetoric is "essential to our existence" I recognize that rhetoric is used to persuade others and ourselves.
Burke outlined the necessity of "identification" in the use of rhetoric. To summarize what I took away from Burke's use of the term "identification", it means the persuader has to identify with the one being persuaded, and the one being persuaded has to identify with the persuader. So even if a speaker is known to be dishonest, the listener can still be persuaded if he or she decides that the speaker is being honest on a particular subject for some motive. The identification taking place on the listener's part is in the assessment of the speaker's motives, and that assessment might be accurate or not, as the listener's assessment is influenced by the speaker's use of persuasion.
Burke also discussed the use of "cunning" in identification. Cunning is used to consciously avoid examining unconscious motives: in other words, to willfully deceive ourselves. Burke's analysis of cunning brings to mind a lot of conversations on religion, and questions I have had about the reasons behind people's faith in religious systems. One of the worst reasons I have ever heard to believe in anything was something like "you can't know that God doesn't exist, so be a Christian and you are covered when you die". That was heavily paraphrased. But the implication was that you have to believe in something you don't believe in, due to a fear of death, eternity, etc. I have seen the use of common religious beliefs to shield "believers" from fears about death. One friend of mine baldly acknowledges this; he said that he chooses to believe in a God and afterlife because the idea of returning to the void when he dies terrifies him. To me that is the opposite of belief. But somehow that fear becomes hot-wired to the use of logic, and the true believer's conscious mind tells itself that it is simply inconceivable, that his or her religious belief is not true. The true believer is surrounded by evidence confirming his or her belief.
Burke outlined the necessity of "identification" in the use of rhetoric. To summarize what I took away from Burke's use of the term "identification", it means the persuader has to identify with the one being persuaded, and the one being persuaded has to identify with the persuader. So even if a speaker is known to be dishonest, the listener can still be persuaded if he or she decides that the speaker is being honest on a particular subject for some motive. The identification taking place on the listener's part is in the assessment of the speaker's motives, and that assessment might be accurate or not, as the listener's assessment is influenced by the speaker's use of persuasion.
Burke also discussed the use of "cunning" in identification. Cunning is used to consciously avoid examining unconscious motives: in other words, to willfully deceive ourselves. Burke's analysis of cunning brings to mind a lot of conversations on religion, and questions I have had about the reasons behind people's faith in religious systems. One of the worst reasons I have ever heard to believe in anything was something like "you can't know that God doesn't exist, so be a Christian and you are covered when you die". That was heavily paraphrased. But the implication was that you have to believe in something you don't believe in, due to a fear of death, eternity, etc. I have seen the use of common religious beliefs to shield "believers" from fears about death. One friend of mine baldly acknowledges this; he said that he chooses to believe in a God and afterlife because the idea of returning to the void when he dies terrifies him. To me that is the opposite of belief. But somehow that fear becomes hot-wired to the use of logic, and the true believer's conscious mind tells itself that it is simply inconceivable, that his or her religious belief is not true. The true believer is surrounded by evidence confirming his or her belief.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Rhetorical Exploration #1: Mission Statement
::::::::::::::My Plan::::::::::::::
Record my reactions to how views are presented, phrases used on this page.
::::::::::::::How to be a Rhetorician in the World::::::::::::::
-watch tv: news, "opinion" shows.
-listen to people, including overheard conversations.
-listen to myself, how I use language to analyze things internally and communicate opinions to others -pay attention to advertising, offering my opinions on effectiveness
-challenge myself to argue a position that I instinctively do not "feel" is correct, afterwards assessing whether I successfully changed or expanded my feeling on the subject. If not, why not.
"Internal Rhetoric" is the title of my BlogSpot page. It will be used to reflect on how I use language internally to convince myself what I think or "should" think on issues, problems, and other people's opinions that I encounter.
Record my reactions to how views are presented, phrases used on this page.
::::::::::::::How to be a Rhetorician in the World::::::::::::::
-watch tv: news, "opinion" shows.
-listen to people, including overheard conversations.
-listen to myself, how I use language to analyze things internally and communicate opinions to others -pay attention to advertising, offering my opinions on effectiveness
-challenge myself to argue a position that I instinctively do not "feel" is correct, afterwards assessing whether I successfully changed or expanded my feeling on the subject. If not, why not.
"Internal Rhetoric" is the title of my BlogSpot page. It will be used to reflect on how I use language internally to convince myself what I think or "should" think on issues, problems, and other people's opinions that I encounter.
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