Ramage Chapter #3

I completely loved chapters one and two, but chapter three, not so much. I guess I enjoyed the examples and stories Ramage cultivated to help grasp one's own opinion and conclusion on the occurences of rhetoric, and also its definition. The third chapter presented fewer examples, and the ones that it did address, such as the President's State of the Union Address were difficult for me to read, understand and I am not much into politics, or the President for that matter, so to read anything in correlation to either of those two topics, I become distracted, feel stupid and am almost instantly lost within the subject and use of political words.
One of the lines I greatly enjoyed and agreed with was when Ramage states, "How I go about defining and defending my sense of self is not significantly different from how I go about defining and defending my sense of 'justice' or 'the good.' In fact how I define justice and the good is a remarkably good indicator of my self-definition. And my capacity to resist, oppose, and entertain divergent beliefs---to understand my ways of talking about the world 'in terms of' alternative ways of talking about the world---is a fundamental expression of my humanity." I could not agree more. How one talks about different cicumstances, objects, events, propositions and beliefs shows what this person is about, clearly lays out the "essence" or characteristics defining every aspect of this person's being. When a person states an opinion or a belief, another individual is able to interpret how this person feels, what is working in their mind, how this person would react to other events similar in nature. A person can learn and determine a lot about another based upon body language, words and facial expressions.
I also liked the sentence which states, "By forcing ourselves to accomodate divergent views, even if doing so forces us to challenge beliefs and assumptions of our audience, we are focused to engage our creative powers and enrich our arguments." I agree completely once again. If we do not challenge others beliefs and assumptions, if we do not see all sides to arguments, if we do not see outside of our own limited bubble, we are not fully allowing ourselves to view and understand others and the opinions of others with an open mind. In order to strengthen one's own beliefs, one must be challenged by opposing beliefs in order to become entirely resolute on the belief of oneself. An individual can possibly change their mind and reasons for either disagreeing or suddenly agreeing to a differing point of view, but one must take the time, have the patience and listen with an open mind in order to do so.