Rhetoric

Scene I

Plato: Dude did you just see that plane?

Aristotle: Plato you must be delusional, its 360 B.C. man how would there be planes?

Plato: No man that was definitely a 727 or something like that, trust me man.

Aristotle: What?! What is a 727, dude have you been, you know, hitting the stuff again?

Plato: I dont see what that has to do with planes...

Aristotle: Dude forget it man.

Rhetoric, the art of arguing ones point of view, maintains a pivotal process of our everyday lives. Whether its arguing about something we saw or how to properly govern our country, we attempt to convince and enlighten others to accepting our intellectual insight. Some may condone the very idea of arguing a negative act at the least, however it proves a vital aspect of life itself. Upon entering my ENC1102 class, I possessed an idea of what rhetoric was, however, now after composing three major pieces for the class, I can truly reflect on the matter and establish what I believe has impacted me the most. In fact I am currently using rhetoric as you read this post. The act of arguing can be applied to all scenarios involving writing or speaking. We begin with call to action, also known as our rhetorical situation. What has brought us to reason a certain subject or explicate a specific material? These are both fragments incorporated into the idea of rhetoric. According to Lloyd F. Blitzer, "rhetoric is a mode of altering reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects, but by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action." I feel that we all attempt to alter reality when we employ the use of rhetoric, though, we intend not to adjust the reality of our own, but the realities of others.

Scene II

Plato: You know sometimes I wish you weren't such a jerk man.

Aristotle: You know sometimes I wish you weren't such a imbecile.

Plato: See what I mean, you think you know everything, OoOoOo look at me I wrote like 9 books...pff

Aristotle: Your just still in the cave man

Plato: Your moms a cave.

Why do I place such importance upon one simple word? Because I value the influence of rhetoric, After reading Steven Johnson's why we write, he clarified the need to speak out ones ideas when he stated, "Good ideas may not want to be free, but they do want to connect, fuse, recombine...they want to complete each other as they want to compete." Voicing ones opinion ultimately stems down to a competition of sorts, which person can orate their voice allows one to have swayed more audiences. Isn't that how we decide on our President, by putting faith in their beliefs and values? However, before even committing a voiced statement we reflect upon what we know and want to say. Reflecting much in this ENC1102 class I agree with Yancey in that "Reflection is both process and product." As we speak and write, we constantly reflect back upon our work to visualize our text and reasoning to see if it is sound. Reflection involves a large portion of rhetoric in that it improves our credibility and appeal to others. As you can see, rhetoric involves a majority of our actions and thoughts. Consider rhetoric like the air in which you take every breath, without it, ones writing can simply not have life.