"Rhetoric" is a powerful word, invoking the connotations accumulated over thousands of years. It kind of reminds me of the powerful wizards of legend, whom are often said to have mastered the accumulated knowledge of an entire lineage of predecessors in that particular school of magic. Not only did these wizards master their school (or schools) of magic, but they also expanded that knowledge into new possibilities and greater realms of power, almost always following the fundamental principles of their discipline very carefully.
However, unlike this fairly linear path of development, rhetoric has been employed to an unknowable number of ends and means, from ethical to genocidal, trivial to crucial. It's difficult to define rhetoric because preceding rhetoricians have changed the uses and social views of rhetoric. Classical rhetoric holds a different set of connotations compared to the rhetoric used by modern politicians. Rhetoric is in the design of candy wrappers, stop signs, UI design, sidewalks, paintings, and poems. Most people learn about rhetoric only in composition courses. Even then, many students seem to internalize it only as far as being forced to ride for a semester or two the Rhetoric Horse that their instructors have beaten to death.
To me, rhetoric is the strategic, sometimes tactical, art of communicating well. While most people associate rhetoric with writing, I associate it with all the ways in which we interact (read: communicate) with reality, both internally and externally. It's the path we choose to take when crossing the boundary between self and other, regardless of whether we are mindful or not of the steps we've taken. When I want to take some introvert time in public places, I make a rhetorical choice to put some earbuds in and tuck the other end of the cord into my pocket. But, it's also the way in which we interact with ourselves. If we view ourselves and respond to ourselves through aggression or negativity, we often suffer in the long run. Rhetoric is not just choice. It is not freedom. Rhetoric is the way in which we recognize and navigate those choices to achieve a specific end.
My goal for this semester is simple: to learn more about the different ways that rhetoric has manifested in our field. However, this is just a means that I hope will equip me to figure out how I might best communicate knowledge and the value of knowledge to students. In terms of a humorous, if not cynical, metaphor: I hope to be well equipped to, like a virus, effectively replicate my knowledge and value system in others, ethically of course. Figuratively speaking, that is what I want.
