Anything spoken or written is rhetoric? What are the implications of this? To say that persuasion and interpretation are involved in anything I say or write is, of course, quite logical. Complete objectivity? I have long seen this notion as an ideal more than a practice. However, when one stops to consider that one is using rhetoric rather than just, say, thinking out loud or writing a pretty poem… Well, I questioned what my identity was. What is my rhetoric? What am I authoring here? These questions were quickly followed by, “Perhaps I should be more careful in what I say. Maybe I should watch what I write.”
However, I reminded myself that I was reading a textbook for class. There was no need to take self inventory. Read the assignment. Take notes. Answer the questions. It was a simple process, really.
Yes, but then the chapter turned to concepts of relativism and pluralism; coercion; propaganda. My thoughts jumped back to two specific statements Ramage made earlier in the chapter. First, that “the process of identity formation is largely about the struggle to control [one’s] meaning, to construct an identity consistent with [one’s] values, and to defend that identity against the misinterpretations and misappropriations of others” (69). Second, “[one’s] capacity to resists, oppose, and entertain divergent beliefs—to understand [one’s] ways of talking about the world ‘in terms of’ alternative ways of talking about the world—is a fundamental expression of [one’s] humanity” (70). Both these terms are full of action!
What am I authoring if I don’t construct or defend my identity? What does it say about my humanity if I don’t consider alternative ways of talking? What if I don’t take an active role and I just take the path of least resistance? What would I be authoring then?
It would still be rhetoric, I suppose. Just with the tools poorly wielded.
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