Kenneth Burke, of course, was a card-carrying communist before McCarthyism forced him to turn his theoretical work towards "dramatism" and other much less radical-sounding paradigms.
Probably the most important article on the ideological turn in rhetorical criticism is Wander's "The Ideological Turn in Modern Criticism," Central States Speech Journal 34 (Spring 1983): 1-18. Wander refutes both neo-Aristotelianism and postmodern criticism in that article. Most good rhetorical critics today think we have a responsibility to point out the lies of those in power, even if that forces us into a problematic (but very defensible) ontological dualism.
stannard
In a message dated 11/27/2004 12:14:08 PM Mountain Standard Time,
furuhashi.1 at osu.edu writes:
Carrol wrote:
>But in this post I'm going to assume that in most, perhaps all, uses
>of the term (not just on this list but by, e.g., Kenneth Burke,
>Deirdre McCloskey, or Wayne Booth) its original senses still operate
>powerfully -- and all those original uses of the term (Aristotle,
>Cicero, Quintilian, Renaissance rhetoricians) make two assumptions:
>(a) that speaker (usually speaker, not writer) and listener
>(audience rather than readership) directly confront each other in a
>framework agreeable to both (e.g., a parliament) and (b) that there
>is _almost_ complete agreement on all the important issues between
>speaker and listener. The "almost" is of great importance, for the
>difference is of course the reason for speaking; but the "[nearly]
>complete agreement" is the context within which the persuasion
>proceeds. The whole of the art is directed to demonstrating that
>this large shared agreement dictates that the speaker's position on
>the small area of disagreement should prevail.
In other words, rhetoric is about narrowcasting, rather than broadcasting. Think about each rhetorical situation* first of all, and then present the ethos, pathos, and logos of your persuasion accordingly.
* <blockquote>Some elements of the rhetorical situation include:
1. Exigence: What happens or fails to happen? Why is one compelled to speak out? 2. Persons: Who is involved in the exigence and what roles do they play? 3. Relations: What are the relationships, especially the differences in power, between the persons involved? 4. Location: Where is the site of discourse? e.g. a podium, newspaper, web page, etc. 5. Speaker: Who is compelled to speak or write? 6. Audience: Who does the speaker address and why? 7. Method: How does the speaker choose to address the audience? 8. Institutions: What are the rules of the game surrounding/constraining numbers 1 through 7.
<http://rhetorica.net/kairos.htm></blockquote>
I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down, Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town, I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime, But is there because he's a victim of the times. - Johnny Cash, Man in Black -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20041127/bc7738a2/attachment.htm>