Last blog!

I had studied both Toulmin and Foucault before, and I think they're both really interesting and made important contributions to rhetoric.  Toulmin introduced the logic of argument rather than the logic of the proposition which I think is really important because I think that the media demonstrates frequently that a proposition doesn't have to be logical to be an effective argument.  For example, I just used an article on Sarah Palin in one of my other classes that was on how she calls herself a housewife and how she is clearly not a housewife.  After reading the article, it made me think a little more about Palin and I really think that millions of Americans think that she stays at home with her kids.  However she obviously doesn't, she was a governor and ran for President.  Foucault is interesting as well because he talks about how society defines a lot of things.  I feel like panopticism is really interesting as well.  I think it's definitely true that society defines a lot of things and that we create barriers to prevent change, especially in the case of sexism.  Going back to Palin, she wouldn't be a viable candidate if she wasn't married with children.  While there's no real reason for this, society has defined a role for women, and while it has changed a little, there are a lot of barriers still up.

Blog 15

The reading in RT this week was very interesting.  First, I thought that bringing up Virginia Woolf was interesting.  I know she's considered one of the best female writers of the 20th century, but I can't stand her books.  I haven't read anything that she's said about rhetoric, but I have trouble imagining she had anything spectacular to say about it given her novels, which I can never really understand or find the point of.  I always wanted to like her, but now I've read to of her books and continue to be lost as to why people love her so much.

The second point I thought was interesting about the beginning of rhetoric in the 20th century was that they mention African American rhetoric as well as Black English being considered a dialect.  This whole section kind of made me mad because I don't really understand why African American rhetoric should be categorized separately from other rhetoric, I mean there isn't a section for American female rhetoric or American lower class rhetoric.  I feel that everything should be included in rhetoric coming out of the United States, at least in my opinion separations like that reinforce racism and people will never change if we continue to be grouped based on race when it comes to every single thing.  People are always going to be racist when we're used to dividing people based on race which genetics prove is not a legit way to categorize people, and in rhetoric it should be no different.  People don't feel the need to teach Southern English or West Coast English or any other accent and combination of slang usage, and I think most people view the teaching of ebonics as a failure.

Blog 14

ARCS Ch. 12 brought up a lot of what we talk about in DTC all the time, including things like the rhetoric of typeface and how that's a major component of delivery in print and web media.  Obviously, you don't want to use huge, bold text to make a small point.  The rhetoric of typeface sort of gets into usability which is hugely important in what the book refers to as new media.  There are even more decisions to make when you get into web media that make a huge difference on whether your audience is going to stay to read/watch/listen to your point or navigate away from the page.  I feel like it's much harder to make a rhetorically successful website than to make an amazing speech or write a successful essay.  There's much more to consider and logos, ethos and pathos as well as style, arrangement and delivery become much more complicated.  Everyone knows what a bad website looks like.  On the bright side, it's easier to create basic rules for the web that help people avoid making a truly horrible website, where I think it's really hard to pinpoint exactly what the problem was in a bad speech or essay.

Blog 13

I thought it was really interesting that African American women were speaking up in the 19th century, it seems almost more than white women at the time.  I thought that was really awesome.  I don't know if it was because they thought that they had nothing to lose, or if it's a difference in personality.  While the book does discuss some white people speaking out against slavery, the more famous outspoken women of the time include Frances Harper and Sojourner Truth.

I also thought it was interesting that Nietzsche said that all language is rhetorical which to me is an important change towards current events.  I feel like every ad is clearly rhetorical and so are many news stories and especially photojournalism.  I think he was really onto something, when you think about it almost everything is rhetorical according to modern standards.

Blog 12

In ARCS Ch. 11 they discuss memory and how important it was to rhetoric in ancient times.  While I would agree that memory is not as important to rhetoric in modern times, it is essential to school.  With all the exams we take in high school, all students do is memorize information.  In addition to memorizing so called facts for exams, we also have to learn how to look information up.  While you don't have to remember things that you read because you can usually find it again, you do need to know what you read or where you found it.  Additionally, when writing essays or speeches or other forms of rhetoric it is important to remember information that may be useful to your argument.  I feel like we've talked a lot about how the skill of memorizing things is gone, but the more I think about it, the more I think it isn't.  We memorize a lot of things, and now it's not just information, but instruction manuals for thousands of things that we need to do every day.  I think memoria is still important, but we just use memory a little differently.

Blog 10

Elocution and delivery were focused on during the enlightenment I wonder if that is an issue at all today.  There's appropriate tones considered for business letters, academic papers, etc. but I don't know that anyone would agree on one "proper" way to talk.  We have rules for grammar, but I don't think it would be fair to consider one accent or vocabulary to be the standard for everyone.  The world is getting more and more casual about the way we talk as we become more and more efficient.

I also thought the section on Locke in the introduction was interesting about how he divides the mind into the understanding and the will and how "tree refers not to a particular tree but to the idea we retain from reflecting upon many instances of seeing particular trees and abstracting their common features."  We've been reading Burke in my other rhetoric class and he discusses symbols and I feel like a big part of his feelings on symbols are the same as Locke's.  It's always interesting to me to think about how we can take information and form a picture our head about what whatever we're talking about is like even if you can't see it.  The word tree can talk about the plant in general or a specific plant, but also conveys family or environmental consciousness or wilderness and nature or a map or many other different things.

Blog 9

In Chapter 10 of ARCS I thought it was interesting how they really started breaking down writing into sentence structure and such.  I find it difficult to analyze writing so much, especially as you're doing it.  I also feel that style is somewhat less important once we get to written culture.  There are very clear differences between a good speaker and a bad speaker and there are also clear differences between a good writer and a bad writer, but bad writing is easier to overcome.  For example, Kenneth Burke is not a very good writer but is considered the most influential rhetorician of the 20th century.  Also, Stephanie Meyer who writes the Twilight books is a really horrible writer and has written one of the most successful series of fiction ever.  While there's a difference between a good story and successful rhetoric, I think style is much more important in oral culture.