Hey all. I'm Dani Karaszkiewicz (you wish you could pronounce that!). I'm a junior Professional Writing major, Literature minor, Procrastinator extraordinaire... and I think I fell asleep at least three times trying to get through this book.
Although I am a fan of definitions, I am okay with Ramage's lack of one, and I'm glad he told us that we aren't getting one. However, I am not okay with this book. For the most part, I don't get it, and I had trouble get into it.
"Little wonder that rhetoric has become the refuge or last resort for those seeking to justify the unjustifiable or to render the impossible plausible." ...what? I've read that statement over and over and I think I die a little inside every time I try to comprehend it...
Maybe one of the only things I did get in the reading was the "Rhetoric panders to the masses" section in chapter one and the sentence "What matters is not the truth of a statement but its effect on an audience." Also, Ramage's examples in this section about selling traveler's insurance to an audience who believes the world is flat incase they were to sail over the edge of the earth... yeah, I would totally do that. But the bigger thing is that I actually understand what rhetoric means in that sense.
Alright, so I don't know if I fell asleep through the rest of the chapter, or if I just didn't grasp it... but either way I'm HOPING that chapter 2 will help clear some things up... but I have my doubts.
And finally, onto the kairos...
"...the urgency and currency of a situation demands action in the form of lively rhetorical exchanges about an issue. But if an issue has lost its immediacy, then the rhetor must not only deliberate the issue but make a case for the issue's relevance." Thank you, Crowley and Hawhee, for putting it in a way that I understand. This was a much easier read than the book. By far.
Okay, I'm done with my first post on here... now I have to get that 2-3 page paper done...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Post a Comment