The Business of Rhetoric

“It’s not that we haven’t always been here, since there was a here.  It is the letters of our names have been scrambled when they were not totally erased, and our fingerprints upon the handles of history have been called the random brushings of birds.”  (Royster & Kirsch, pg 10)

Throughout the talk that we have given and the ideas that we have proposed about what rhetoric is, and what a feminist idea of that rhetoric could be, this phrase from Feminist Rhetorical Practices stood out to me because of the simplicity and the “true-ness” of the statement.

We’ve talked a lot about what the definitions of what rhetoric could be and what we think they are, but to actually observe a working theory, form a specific group of people, in a specific lens, really creates a sense of power and a sense of purpose for the argument of rhetoric in a specific sense.

While the phrase above has been used in a feminist perspective, think about how many people, groups and cultures could imprint themselves upon that statement.  It’s not that as a white, European, masculine society we don’t see legitimacy in other forms and practices of rhetoric, but rather it’s that we often times become isolated in our own ways of thinking, in our own ways of thought, and we so many times lose the cultural narrative that binds, not just our society, but our world together. 

There are so many angles, so many sides to the other forms of rhetoric and by giving legitimacy, in this case, to the feminist perspective, we give legitimacy to all forms of rhetoric.  This is especially important because by giving legitimacy to other forms of rhetoric we allow our own use and mastery of the language, ultimately of rhetoric, to grow and actually flourish. 

It’s not that we have to wake up and all of sudden think, “Hey this is the right way.  I’ve been doing it wrong the whole time.”  Rather, if we are able to think about newer and varied ideas, we are forced to reexamine what it is that we believe in and ultimately force us to find new ways to defend our positions.  This is not a bad thing, either.  It forces us to think, causing growth, and this is where we are ultimately going to succeed.  Suddenly our world isn’t so large and scary anymore, but close and dare I say, familial?

p. hill