Assignment #1 Musings

As I live near the Gulf Coast, I've seen a considerable number of texts dealing with the Gulf Oil Crisis. This oil spill clearly created significant economic and environmental problems that will affect these areas to varying degrees for some time; as a result, BP's response has been met with considerable criticism. There are times, however, I wonder if any reponse would be met without considerable attack.

So for my first project, I thought I would try to analyze some of the responses BP has put forth and the foundations in which they base their responses to assure the government (at all levels), business owners, and "locals" that the company is acting responsibly to the accident. In particular, one commercial (which is also run in a print form) seems to root its rhetorical basis in Cicero with his strong emphasis on knowing the audience (I think more so than Aristotle) and eloquent delivery.

http://bp.concerts.com/gom/Communities_20082010.htm

I'm not so sure that they meet Cicero's moral and ethical requirements, yet, but hopefully the project will help sort that out. Additionally, I think much of what BP puts forth is based on enthymeme--they presume the audience starts from the same premise as they do or assume that we will make the jump to the same conclusion with them. At Dr. Rice's suggestion, I'm also exploring how the Toulmin Model may help to illustrate the basis for BP's claims.

If this project goes well, I hope to build a dialogue between competing opinions on the handling of the crisis. BP obviously views this as an accident--unfortunate, but a risk of the type of business they conduct. Others view this as an act of irresponsibility. So, tentatively, if the first assignment survives, I'd like to create a diagloue between these two opposing views.

Rhetoric and Audience

I’m struggling this week trying to define what “good” rhetoric is versus “bad” rhetoric (“cookery” for Plato).

Aristotle defines rhetoric's function as "not simply to succeed in persuading but rather to discover the means of coming as near such successes as the circumstances of each particular case allow" (Herrick, p. 77). So that means that rhetors do not necessarily have to win people over, but they have to do the best they can given the situation to achieve this success. But where is that line? Who determines whether the situation only allows for a near success or that the rhetor is simply ineffective?

I keep mulling over the role of the audience and the expectations that are placed upon it; they should be engaged, thinking, participatory. Yet the assumptions Aristotle seems to make about an audience’s abilities don’t appear to give them that much credit. In Chapter 1 of Rhetoric, Aristotle discusses four reasons for the usefulness of rhetoric. The first two, however, seem to address assumptions about audience:

• 1) all things equal, truth will prevail, but since all things are not equal, rhetors are important to "advocate" true and just ideas
• 2) knowledge of audience is crucial as even true and just ideas will not be received if the audience's frame of mind does not match that of the rhetor

When the rhetor begins an argument, he or she has a goal-- to persuade the audience--and it seems to me that Aristotle sees the audience as less enlightened; it can't see what is "true and just" without guidance. Additionally, Aristotle's second point, that the message must match the mood, implies how easily an audience can be persuaded when the rhetor is in tune with his or her listeners. I suppose this should be obvious as only an elite few were trained rhetoricians in Aristotle's day, but I keep thinking about how we use rhetoric today and how the audience, in many circumstances, is as empty as many of our contemporary rhetors. But maybe it is not because people have become less “engaged” or less “enlightened;” from Aristotle’s viewpoint, the audience has always needed to be shown the way.

As an instructor, I have always recognized the importance of rhetoric and used it to “persuade” my students. And I make assumptions about these students, my audience. I assume they won’t see the truth without my guiding them. I do my best to “sync” our moods and divine common experiences to win them over. So I guess that just confirms my own assessment that I am more Sophistic than Platonic, but may Aristotle is too.

Are you more platonic or sophistic in the context of your belief systems and professional practices?

Tough question. When I was a master's student, I had an incredibly dynamic Shakespeare professor who was simply immersed in Plato. In everything we read, we saw the "Allegory of the Cave," and "The Myth of the Charioteer" could be applied to any protagonist's struggle with his soul. And I have to admit, I loved it. The idea of perfect forms and philosopher-kings was very appealing. However, the more removed I became from Dr. Warr, the harder it was to maintain the level of excitement and, quite frankly, buy-in of the Platonic ideals.

Today I have to say that I find myself much more pragmatic. Although I still like the ideas Plato puts forth in the "Allegory" and "Charioteer," I don't think that the Forms and perfect control are attainable, nor something worth striving for to the level Plato would approve. I guess I'm much more caught up in the practical--I think we need to do the best we can with what we've got.

In Plato's discussion of the four true arts of health, he states that the healthy soul resides in the people (or legislators for him) who have true knowledge of virtue and vice while the "unhealthy" soul resides in sophists, or people who are only concerned about themselves or their own interest groups. But I think Plato paints this picture too black and white; there's a middle ground that may not make us saints, but it does not make us self-serving either. This middle ground is determined through interaction and response to our audience.

As an instructor, if I followed Plato's teachings and only sought out his Truth, Forms, and Dialectic, I'd be talking to myself. By responding to my students and making adjustments for both their needs and the standards and benchmarks to which I am held accountable, I think we do okay. Do I adjust my teaching to be self-serving? I do like my job and I want to keep it--but I like to think that on most days, I make adjustments and accommodations because I like teaching, I enjoy students, and I want to make a difference. I wouldn't exactly call it virtuous, but I don't think that I need to be "restored" to health either.

So, although I am drawn to Plato, I have abandoned my infatuation with his ideals for a philosophy that can make a practical difference in the real world.

Rhetoric and Responsibility

This week's readings provided a framework for terminology and ideas that we will cover this semester. Even after a great class discussion, it's taking a bit of time to digest all we covered, but I think we did lay a solid foundation for future discussion. In addition to discussing the origins of rhetoric (or maybe acknowledgment or recognition of rhetoric) and the quick outline of rhetoric's evolution, one idea that stuck with me is how we use rhetoric and why the concept has such a negative connotation at times.

Just this morning while watching a news program, the talking heads were critiquing a politician's view as "empty rhetoric." They felt that his message had no real content, no value, yet the politician was successful. Is it the politician's fault that he knows what his constituents want to hear, and relying on ethos (but more likely pathos) delivers a message he has crafted to be well-received? On one level, the politician may be "abusing" rhetoric--turning it into the "foul and ugly" craft Plato describes. But our reading in Herrick points out the importance of looking at rhetoric as more than one-sided. He cites Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca who believe that

"audience has the major role in determining the quality of argument and the behavior of orators." That is to say, an ignorant or noncritical audience can be one cause of weak or unethical rhetoric, while a well-informed and critically minded audience demands that the rhetoric addressed to it be well reasoned and honestly presented (10).

So, although we may dislike the politician, if he is unchallenged and the audience is either ignorant, accepting, or indifferent, it should be held as responsible for the poor content as the rhetor. The audience, therefore, must have an active role in determining the content of the message, and, in the case of a politician, direction in which it wishes to be led or how it wishes to be represented.

This idea of responsibility and rhetoric may be a little too narrow-minded considering the vast amount of information we flew through this week, but I've always thought that the creator, the rhetor was the one in control of the message. Clearly he or she is the one who selects many aspects of a message, but the audience has (or should have) a much larger role than I would have thought. Rhetoric is clearly not a solitary endeavor.