Booths Rhet Of Rhet Notes

Wayne C. Booth The Rhetoric of Rhetoric Blackwell Publishing 2004 Xi “In short, rhetoric will be seen as the entire range of resources that human beings share for producing effects on one another: effects ethical (including everything about character), practical (including political), emotional (including aesthetic), and intellectual (including every academic field). It is the entire range of our use of “signs” for communicating, effectively or sloppily, ethically or immorally.” (Booth 2004 xi) Riff: fantastic definition Xii “Unless we pay more attention to improving our communication at all levels of life, unless we study more carefully the rhetorical strategies we all depend on, consciously, unconsciously, or subconsciously, we will continue to succumb to unnecessary violence, to loss of potential friends, and to the decay of community.” (Booth 2004 xii) Riff: see about using this in the 5364 paper; the importance of being engaged immediately and in a variety of communities; in performing rhetoric where people think that it does not, cannot, or should not traditionally occur. 4-8 Multiple definitions of rhetoric, but traditional/classic and contemporary 17-8 “What has been too often overlooked or understated in rhetorical studies is that when our words and images remake our past, present, or future, they also remake the personae of those of us who accept the new realities. You and I are remade as we encounter the remaking. And that remaking can be either beneficial or disastrous. In short, rhetoric of all three traditional kinds creates a fourth kind: the character, the ethos, of those who engage with it. This is why the quality of our citizenry depends on whether their education has concentrated on the productive forms of rhetorical engagement.” (Booth 2004 17-18) People, even rhetors, often ignore or do not pay attention how our very practice of rhetoric impacts and reshapes our selves, our lives, and how we operate. Because our rhetoric helps to determine how we are shaped and how we view the world, the less trained we are in it the less in control of shaping our own view and reality we are. In short, if we do not know how to change or view our experience differently, then we are not very aware of how to alter our reality. 30-33 List of potential forces that helped shut down rhetorical studies; Booth sees the first three as unquestionable Scientism secular humanism reducitonismlogicism individualism historical determinism