As I read the first chapter about rhetoric, I felt as though it is an overwhelming subject, but one that produced perspective. It seems as though the subject has so many views, and Ramage was aiming for exactly that. However, what struck me the most was how Rhetoric is something that everyone comes across some way or another in their life, no escaping it. Now I can’t decide if that is a good thing or a bad thing since I’m not sure I like the whole idea of Rhetoric just yet. I’m aware that we all persuade one another of something we believe in at one time or another in our lives, but it is the fact that Rhetoric exploits false ideas or theories, is what I find to be sneaky about it. The audience isn’t aware that the rhetoricians are doing this.
However, I’m sure Ramage is simply trying to get to a perfect description about rhetoric, so on to the next comment. Although I’m not completely sure about Rhetoric just yet, I do think it is interesting how, as said in the book: “Rhetoric rejects the idea that the world consists entirely of true things that are real and untrue things that are illusory and that reason is the process by which we sort them out and rid the world of error and illusion.” What I got from that passage was that rhetoric doesn’t follow any specific idea of right and wrong, but goes deeper into finding out what answer is most effective to the audience. The ability to do that seems somewhat hard, especially when speaking to an entire audience. The audience tends to lean simply towards fact and their own ideas rather than what partial truth relates to them the most.
-Meg Campbell
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