lilyrhetoricblog

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Final Reflection/Self-Evaluation:

In this post, I am supposed to argue that deliberate rhetorical awareness played a role in my blog writing. I am supposed to self-consciously assess the rhetorical dimensions and moves I have prioritized in this blog. Hmm. when I first read this week’s prompt, I was a little surprised at the reminder: this blog was supposed to demonstrate deliberate rhetorical awareness, this blog was supposed to be intentional. Hmm. I scrolled through my posts, back in time to January 13, when it began. “I think rhetoric is what happens when one focuses their words or maybe even actions as well to convince somebody of something,” I wrote that day. My associations were filled with various mediums of communication and images of “toga-swathed Romans.” Now, my definition of rhetoric has definitely changed, as have my associations. I now know so much about rhetoric that I know how much I don’t know, and feel that I cannot give an adequate definition. My associations are now full of images of class in our sunshine-filled Nethery classroom, laughing at some joke, nervously scratching pencil to paper on quizzes, doing class activities - full of panicked Friday afternoons trying to come up with an artifact to analyze for this blog - full of the endless Smith and Foss chapters - full of zoom presentations...

To be honest, this semester, for me, has not been deliberate. We’ve faced death and taxes, but that’s about all that’s been certain. To have awareness has been overwhelming - there is so much to be aware off. Bitzer had a metatheory - think about exigencies, audience, and purpose, he said. Let’s do that. For this blog, the exigencies included my life in general, the stresses which shaped my time, and the assignment prompts for the posts. As I observe, the theme of this blog became what my life has been this semester. As I scroll, I see that I chose my subject matter mostly in a stream of consciousness manner, picked from the media I consumed and things I learned about this semester. I learned about the horrors of Monsanto, and wrote about it. I was comforted by Lin’s sonnet; I wrote about it. I saw a cool mural depicting the struggle against covid - I wrote about it. Vaccines against that which ravages us emerged, the Review commented on it, and about that I wrote. My blog turned into a journal on my life as a college student trying to survive the pandemic. My life, composed of flickers of media, flips of pages, flights of fancy, is the exigency my blog responded to. Realistically, my audience consisted solely of you, Dr. Davis, (and I suppose random people who may have accidentally stumbled onto my blog), so as I go through my blog, I notice that my blog posts don’t contain a large amount of background knowledge about rhetoric. My purpose, oh goodness - what a thing to have to sum up! - my purpose was originally to document was life was like as a college student during the pandemic. I suppose I achieved that goal smashingly, since I made the blog into a journal. 

This is a blog. Blogs do feel a bit like blowing a dandelion into the breeze, since you can’t be sure who will see, who will read it, and what will come from it all. But as it was a blog, it was sometimes a fun race against time to see if I could improve my posts after posting before you graded them. I often lost:) The freedom we had to choose any artifact we wanted is what allowed me to make this into a scrapbook of my semester. 

So. Deliberate. There’s a short story by Virgina Woolf about a moth dying, and at one point she says, about the moth, “what he could do, he did.” And I believe that is a great way to understand the deliberate rhetorical awareness of my blog. I understood that there was only so much I could do, and I wanted to document this semester. I turned my blog into a reflection of what this semester has been. On January 13, I wrote “I anticipate creating this blog about rhetoric,” and today, I can write that I did, I created a blog about rhetoric. What I could do, I did.

[lilyrhetoricblog]

Feminist Rhetorical Act (Part 2): Do You Feel Safe On Campus At Night?

Last Tuesday, around 11 am, I marched out of Lamson Hall equipped with red and white acrylic paint, a plastic plate, a handful of paintbrushes, and a plain white poster with the question, “Do you feel safe on campus at night?” written across the top. I stationed myself outside of the campus center building, at one of the wooden tables. 

I mixed the red and white to make a swirl of pink paint, then put my own handprint on the poster to start the conversation. As friends, acquaintances, and strangers moseyed and skedaddled past, I stopped them and asked them a set of questions that quickly emerged as the act continued: 

1. Do you feel safe on campus at night? 

2. How do you think your race and gender contribute to your feeling of safety/lack of? 

3. Do you feel safer on campus than you do where you’re from? Then I invited them to continue the conversation, and ask one other person, “Do you feel safe on campus at night?” 

By around 1:30 pm, my poster was practically full of handprints, signatures, and smiley faces, and my mind was full of stories, confessions, suggestions, and further questions. 

I took notes after each conversation, but the answers were not the main focus of my act. My main goal was to get people thinking about this question, asking it to themselves and others, and to continue the conversation, breaking out of hegemonic consciousness and getting to how real people operate in their everyday lives.

However, some interesting takeaways included an almost constant and consistent assessment that the campus needs more lights and lampposts. I started to notice differences in answers that seemed to stem from the makeup of the group - if I asked the question to a group of guys, not one would say that they felt unsafe. However, if I asked a man by himself, he would be more likely to take the time to think through the question. Across the board, women were absolutely more likely to say that they felt unsafe. Some mentioned that they simply don’t go out at night, while another said she carries pepper spray. 

As I stood in the strengthening March sun, smelling the pungent scent of Gazebo fries and acrylic paint, I was reminded of the theoretical framing of my actions. Sonia Foss offers many definitions of feminism, and the one that I think aligns most with my act is “‘ a movement towards creating a society where women can live a full, self-determined life’” (Foss 141). An integral ingredient for a full, self-determined life is an assurance of safety. Sonia Foss offers many definitions of feminism, such as “ ‘ a movement towards creating a society where women can live a full, self-determined life’” (Foss 141). However, not just women felt unsafe on this campus, and race was an important part of how several people formed their answers.  Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw and bell hook’s calls to pay attention to intersectionality remind us to note “ ’interlocking and intermeshing oppressions’  and points to how gender and race interact ‘in unique and plural ways’” (Foss 142). 

After I’d gone back to the dorm and mostly washed up, I was walking to class and reflecting on how effective my feminist rhetorical act was. I still had some acrylic paint smeared on my arm when I fell into step beside a friend. “What’s that on your arm? Oh wait, is that the safety thing they’re doing? My roommate came in and asked me if I felt safe on campus at night,” she disclosed. AHA! The conversation had continued! - if only to one more person. I excitedly informed her about my act, and encouraged her to continue the conversation. 

Did my act prompt a campus wide demand for better lighting? Did it ignite an international commitment to improving safety across the world? I don’t quite think so. However, I know that my act started a conversation that continued, and maybe it’s those sort of acts that do end up changing the world.

[lilyrhetoricblog]

Feminist Rhetorical Act (Part 1)

Imagine it’s 11 pm. You’ve just finished a lab, and now you need to walk across your college campus to get to your dormitory. Your route is not well lit, and the campus seems abandoned. Do you feel safe?

I am curious about how safe women at Andrews University feel on campus at night. I want to increase awareness of the fact that some people do not feel safe, and start conversations that might improve conditions, in the long term, perhaps leading to better street lights. To do all this, I will do a Feminist Rhetorical Act!

On Tuesday, around 12 pm, I plan to position myself at a table outside between Nethery and Buller, and have the words “Do you feel safe on campus at night?” on this piece of poster board. I will invite people, especially women, to tell me about their experiences and thoughts. If the person I am conversing with is alright with it, I will record highlights from these conversations. To encourage people to continue the conversation, I will ask them to either put a paint handprint or to use a paintbrush to sign their name on the sign. 

In my act, I will open the conversation by sharing a personal story, to show the person I’m conversing with how I am approaching the topic. As the conversation goes on, I plan to pay attention to terms that are consistently mentioned, common approaches to the questions, and frequently occurring questions that the participants might ask me.

I chose this project as a reaction to recent Twitter threads about women feeling unsafe at night in public, as a way to bring the conversation to my local college space. My audience is primarily the Andrews University campus, especially my Intro to Rhetoric class, as they are the ones who will hear about the end result. 

To frame my act, I look to the writings of bell hooks, some ideas of standpoint feminism, and the Marxist idea of redeeming consciousness. 

bell hooks writes on the intersectionality of oppression, describing how prejudice against both race and gender can create different sets of challenges for different women. I want my conversation to investigate whether there are different perspectives from different races. Since I am a white woman, some women of color may feel uncomfortable introducing the fact that their experiences were different than mine, so I will try to be intentional about showing that this conversation is a zone of me listening, not me telling others what their experience was. 

Stand-point feminism endorses empirical studies of local narratives constructed at the margins of society. In my act, I’m not looking at the campus safety official safety report. I’m asking individual women about their personal experiences. 

My goal in hosting this conversation is to personally discover the various attitudes regarding safety at night on this campus, and to encourage people to continue the conversation with their own groups, to bring awareness to the issue, and rid us of the false consciousness of believing that safety at night is a simple, uncomplicated issue. 

[lilyrhetoricblog]

Marxist Theory and Monsanto

In 1980, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that life can be patented.

Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty had developed a genetically-modified bacterium that consumed crude oil, and Sydney A. Diamond, the Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks, said that the US did not provide patents for living organisms. But the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Chakrabarty. This decision, about one small bacterium, had applications that now affect almost every single agricultural venture in the world. 

There is a company called Monsanto that owns patents on a huge variety of genetically modified plants. (Also they own numerous food companies, pesticide companies, pharmaceutical companies, high positions in government, you name it, they probably own it). Previously, many farmers saved their seed: they would plant year 2 crops from seeds from their year 1 crops. However, if you buy seeds from Monsanto, they “own” the future generations. If Monsanto plants accidentally make it into your field, Monsanto still owns the plants. So Monsanto agents will literally visit small-scale farms (I know they do this in the American Midwest, also elseware), search for evidence that a farmer is using a second generation of Monsanto seed, or has even trace amounts of Monsanto seed that they didn’t pay the license for, and these agents will tell the farmers that they need to pay a fine so Monsanto doesn’t sue them. Monsanto, through this and other quite morally interesting maneuvers, has become an extremely wealthy and powerful company.  

I will use the Marxist critique idea of false consciousness to analyze the cartoon below. Specifically, I will point out how the farmer on the right spreads knowledge to clarify the left farmer’s false consciousness. Craig Smith argues “Marx believed that social identification determines consciousness” (Smith 329). In this cartoon scenario, we can assume that these farmers occupy the same community, and would identify themselves as being socially similar. The left farmer expresses what is probably the common sentiments of their farming community: there isn’t a lot of profit in farming. However, the right farmer must be from a slightly different community, one that provides him access to the information he is sharing here. This farmer knows that there IS profit, it just doesn’t go to the farmers. The right farmer shares information that can change the left farmer’s paradigm, and free him of his false consciousness. 

[lilyrhetoricblog]

Argumentative Fallacies in Comments from The Adventist Review Article on Vaccines

https://www.adventistreview.org/church-news/story15816-covid-19-vaccines-addressing-concerns,-offering-counsel

In the Topica, Cicero’s work to help lawyers generate arguments, he reduced Aristotle’s 28 topoi to 16 categories to recreate arguments for speeches (Smith 116). He listed various fallacies so that lawyers could learn how to avoid them. 

The Seventh-day Adventist Church has several defining characteristics, such as a tendency to establish parallel social institutions to the ones of the larger world, to passionately explore eschatology, and to create fake versions of the foods we aren’t supposed to eat :). 

The Adventist Review, a prominent publication of the church, published an article on December 18, 2020 addressing concerns regarding the COVID-19 vaccine. This article attempts to “answer questions, allay fears, and resolve some of the prevalent myths and rumors, thereby bringing peace to the hearts of our members as they make health decisions guided by their health-care providers.” I believe this article does a commendable job in framing questions and answers regarding the vaccine in a way that many Adventists will appreciate. However, the comment section underneath the article proved to be a veritable garden for argumentative fallacies.  

There were too many to address all, but I can mention one specific one that appeared more than once. Here is an example: 

“Vatican CDF says use of anti-Covid vaccines “morally acceptable” A note from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which was approved by Pope Francis, gives the green light during the pandemic to the use of vaccines produced with cell lines derived from two fetuses aborted in the 1960s.” 

Many in the comment section were referencing other religious groups and leaders’ approval of the vaccine as an argument against getting vaccinated. This is a demonstration of both the ad hominem and guilt by association fallacies. Ad hominem is “an attack on the person in order to undercut the truth of his or her statements” (Smith 117), and guilt by association “implies that an argument is bad because bad people support it” (Smith 118). This commenter was arguing that because the Vatican has approved this vaccine, the vaccine must be bad. He believes that the Vatican is bad, and therefore cannot make good decisions, and any decision they do make is tainted by their badness. 

To believe that one must disagree with absolutely everything a group that you disagree with on some things makes relating to others or holding any beliefs difficult. Ad hominem and guilt by association obscures the actual disagreements happening, and often excludes important, often sidelined voices from conversations. If we demand that someone measure up to our own standards before we listen to them, then we do ourselves, others, and our communities a disservice by discontinuing communication. Even if you disagree with a person, it may be important to listen to what they have to share. Maybe more of our disagreements are misunderstandings than we realize. 

[lilyrhetoricblog]

Roman Theory of Style and Lin Manuel Miranda’s 2016 Tony Acceptance Sonnet

Roman rhetors adapted Greek rhetorical traditions and added their own changes. Cicero and others lead the Romans to center their rhetoric on decorum, to use certain major figures of speech, and to pursue the sublime. 

Even and especially now, public speakers (and writers) use figures of speech “for the same reasons Roman orators did - to help meet or create audience expectations when fashioning a speech” (Smith 125).

The 70th Tony Awards took place on June 12, 2016. Hosted by James Corden, the event occurred in the shadow of the Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting that had occurred in the early hours of that same morning. Many attendees showed solidarity with victims of the tragedy by wearing silver ribbons, speaking out their sympathy and commitment to restoration in their speeches, or even altering their performances to reflect their acknowledgement of the tragedy.  

That night, Hamilton won 11 Tony awards. Lin-Manuel Miranda, the brilliantly talented lyricist, composer, and author, accepted many of these awards. When Carole King announced him as winner for Best Original Score, Miranda declined to follow his tradition of freestyle rapping his acceptance speech, stating he was “too old.” Instead, he read a sonnet he had written that day. 

My wife’s the reason anything gets done She nudges me towards promise by degrees She is a perfect symphony of one Our son is her most beautiful reprise. We chase the melodies that seem to find us Until they’re finished songs and start to play When senseless acts of tragedy remind us That nothing here is promised, not one day. This show is proof that history remembers We lived through times when hate and fear seemed stronger; We rise and fall in light from dying embers, remembrances that hope and love last longer And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside. I sing Vanessa’s symphony, Eliza tells her story Now fill the world with music, love and pride.

This sonnet and his delivery were stunning examples of several of the major figures of speech espoused by Cicero and others. With respect to the figure of triplets, where one shapes their lists based on the number three so important to Western civilization, I choose to analyze how his sonnet reflects three of the figures outlined in Smith: aposiopesis, paromologia, and epanaphora. 

Please watch this video to help you understand some points I’m going to make: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jehrbUGdlE

Aposiopesis is “a figure of speech whereby speakers are so moved by their own words that they break off speaking for [a] moment” (Smith 129). While saying that “love is love cannot be killed or swept aside,” Lin-Manuel chokes up, but powers through (around 2:30 in the video). His display of emotion adds powerful emotion weight to his words; viewers can have intensified sympathy for his sorrow, and will believe him when he says we can still move forward and have hope.

Paromologia is “a tactic in debate where a speaker concedes minor points to solidify his or her position on major points” (Smith 131). Lin-Manuel’s main objective, in my interpretation, was to grieve the loss but also to encourage people that there was reason to have hope. In the lines “When senseless acts of tragedy remind us “ and “We lived through times when hate and fear seemed stronger; / We rise and fall in light from dying embers...” he acknowledges that there are some very negative things about the current situation. In yielding this acknowledgment, he seems more believable when he says we should have hope. 

Ephanaphora is “a figure of speech that uses repetition for emphasis” (Smith 129). Lin-Manuel repeats his simple statement - love is love - again and again and again. The effect is strong - the audience begins to cheer, and we are lifted on the power of those repetitions to believe his last statements: love is love cannot be killed or swept aside, and we can fill the world with music, love, and pride. 

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s use of these figures of speech made his sonnet a beautiful and powerful tribute to the lives lost and encouragement to those who remain. 

[lilyrhetoricblog]

Aristotelian Artistic Appeals and Oat Milk

Clearly, from the title, most people even vaguely aware of the Super Bowl know that I am going to wax eloquent on that stunning, innovative, brilliant piece of cinema that was the Oatly 2021 Super Bowl Commercial. 

Did Oatly use up their whole advertising budget on buying the airtime and have approximately 5 dollars left for producing the actual ad? Is this ad what happens when everyone laughs at the CEO’s jokes too much?  Or was this ad an absolutely stellar demonstration of using logos to not only sell a product, but to deliver an inspirational message that speaks beautifully to our turbulent times?

This bold work of art begins with dulcet chords bouncing from a small keyboard, while the CEO of Oatly soaks in the sunlight and accompaniment, then starts to sing. Though the aesthetics are stunning, the power lies in his lyrics - “It’s like milk / But made for humans” Toni Petersson sings twice. 

In Rhetoric and Human Consciousness 5th ed, Craig Smith thickens our understanding of logos, one of the three pillars of Aristotle’s artistic proofs. On logos, Smith writes ”Aristotle explored two kinds of arguments in the Rhetoric: deductive arguments, which he called enthymemes, and inductive arguments built around telling examples, specific cases to general conclusions by comparing things in the same category” (Smith 80). 

Petersson’s lyrics are an audacious demonstration of a categorical deductive syllogism. Smith argues, “the categorical syllogism draws a true conclusion from two true premises if a valid placement of categories is achieved” (Smith 81).

Here is the syllogism:

It’s like milk. 

(but) It’s made for humans.

Therefore, milk is not made for humans. 

Through this categorical syllogism, the ad argues the case for viewers to replace nefarious, not-for-human-consumption milk with their oaty beverage, made with “no cow.”

This ad powerfully speaks to our moment in history in more subtle ways than suggesting we change the type of milk we drink. This man is standing alone in a large field, surrounded by darkening clouds. He does not have specular levels of musical talent, obvious access to impressive and expensive equipment, or connections to sparkling celebrities to endorse his product. He really could have been any of us. And yet, as this ad contends, for all this simplicity, he can be a bearer of truth. 

Perhaps we too can be like this lone man in a field singing about milk made from oats for humans. Perhaps we can share the truth that we know just as bravely as he did, even if we can only do it simply. Wow.

Now, please bask in the glory of the song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCaRjiyXtI8

[lilyrhetoricblog]

Engage Plato’s Conception of Truth: Absorbing the Light

Welcome back to my blog!

In 2016, artist Anish Kapoor bought exclusive artistic rights to the color Vantablack. Vantablack can absorb 99.965% of visible light, making 3-D objects appear flat - obviously, it’s very desirable for many artists. But Anish Kapoor bought the rights. There’s a whole debate/feud going on about that, but that is not our focus today. The point is Vantablack absorbs almost all light.

Here is a sculpture by Anish Kapoor, painted with Vantablack. Notice how the paint absorbs so much light that it appears flat, rather than 3-D!

In many poems, songs, and metaphors, truth is characterized as light. (For one example, see John 3:21). If truth is light, is it possible for humans to be like Vantablack? Is it possible for humans to fully absorb, to fully know truth?

Plato, like many people who take the time to think about it, had specific ideas about the nature of truth.

Plato believed in a noumenal (outside of human perception) world, where things existed in their true form. Our world, according to Plato, is one step removed from the ‘real world’ of these forms. Parmenides believed in permanence and Heraclitus believed in change, but Plato believed that while things do change in the world we live in, in the perfect world of forms, perfect things exist permanently (Smith 53). This perfect world is the world “from which our souls came and to which they will return” (Smith 53). 

 According to Plato’s perceptions of truth, “the ideas and objects of the world that we experience through our senses are imperfect imitations of noumenal forms, but they have sufficient resemblance to give an impression of reality” (Smith 53). 

Plato believed that an individual’s highest aspiration is “the attainment of true knowledge from the noumenal world” (53). We are anamalia metaphysica, Plato argued. Our souls came from the perfect world, and our senses can remind us of this world. We can transcend our temporary human condition and know truth. 

If truth is light, Plato believes that humans have the potential to be like Vantablack, absorbing and knowing truth from the world of forms.

[lilyrhetoricblog]

Sophistic Thinking: Subjective Truth and and Jacob Collier’s Fans’ YouTube comments

                                have a listen as you read! 

if you want to be calm as you read- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXc0m9uv0p4. 

if you want to be excited as you read - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzQKID8AUHM

if you want to be in the middle - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_76FD62uN0

Welcome back to my rhetoric blog! Today, the assignment is to examine a shared idea that multiple sophists advocated, and to engage this idea with some rhetorical artifact from the contemporary world. 

Sophist thought grew out of mystic thought which grew out of naturalist thought. Sophists had many beliefs in common, though many thinkers had their own distinctive opinions. 

One idea that many Sophists supported was the idea of knowledge being subjective, and while objective facts may exist, “our individual sensations of these things are all we can know of them” (Murphy, Katula, and Hoppmann 37). Gorgias specifically argues about this in this work On Not-Being. He states that nothing exists, and if anything exists, it is inapprehensible to man, and if it is apprehensible, it is still incapable of being expressed or explained to the next person ( Murphy, Katula, and Hoppmann 41). Antiphon slightly differed, since he believed that “experiences were real” (Murphy, Katula, and Hoppmann 45), Lysia’s idea of Ethopoeia adds to the idea of knowledge being subjective to the individual, where he supports “capturing the ideas, words, and style of delivery suited to the person for whom the address is written” (Murphy, Katula, and Hoppmann 49). Democritus combined different takes on this signature Sophist opinion in his summarizing statement that ‘either truth does not exist or it is hidden from us’” (Smith 44). 

This idea of truth being subjective to each person has been batted back and forth with various motivations for generations. Recently, I have noticed see questions about what truth is and the degree to which it is subjective in YouTube comments on Jacob Collier’s music. People speaking about why they like Jacob’s music bring up, often indirectly, the idea of the truth about something being subjective to the individual’s experience. 

Jacob Collier is a musician. His genre and style are basically neo-everything. His songs are marked by an otherworldly understanding of harmony and its effects, and an incredible command of music theory. 

Many of his fans are musicians themselves, attracted by Jacob’s musically complex and technical compositions. Other fans are more in the line of musical civilians. Both the very knowledgeable, and the ignorant of the names and theories behind what they are hearing enjoy Jacob’s music. 

Some believe that what makes his music great is understanding how complex it is, while others believe that it is the emotional effect, while others have a different take on what the truth about his music is. I have compiled some YouTube comments from several of his videos that explore this musical debate about appreciation. These comments remind me about debates of to what degree truth is subjective. The bold words are words that remind me of discussions about ‘what is truth’ and the degree to which it is subjective. 

washablecrown1 year ago (edited)@Mahogany it feels like he already lived several lives as a musician and knows perfectly how to touch us right in the heart. This requires so much maturity and experience 

Hunter Burnett1 year agoHis talent is unreal I never knew how much emotion music can have. And I am so glad Jacob is here to make me feel something 

Nuclear Media Entertainment1 year agoDear Universe... Please keep Jacob safe in all of his travels. The human race cannot afford to lose him. We need people like him more than ever to remind us of the beauty in all things 

OneMondBand1 year agoI can only imagine. Non-musicians have no clue what they're hearing. Mind you , most musicians also don't have a clue what they're hearing, but they know they don't have a clue. Non-musicians don't have a clue that they don't have a clue... 

RaAc1 year ago@diulikadikaday i guess that is because all of them hear it for the first time, also everything shifts so quickly. If you repeatedly listen to and watch this video you kinda get it, except for that last part, this has to be magic

epSos.de9 months agoBeautiful how obsessed he is with music. The level of this obsession to profession is what makes a genuous in his industry.

omoya7 months agoCame here for a break from crying over current events...and wound up crying over this sublime music. But what a wonderful way to ease my mind and soul..

Haukur Þórsson9 months agoThe word "musical virtuoso" doesn't even begin to describe the utter phenomenon that Jacob Collier is.  Every music instrument I've seen him touch just becomes an extension of his hands.

Loretta Chiara9 months agoListening from Italy, also quarantined at home, it's like 6 weeks now. Your songs keep us company every day, because my one year old is fascinated by you and your music. Thank you for being so special. We love you ❤

Jacob Collier’s fans have lots of ideas about what makes his music great, and many of them have to do with personal experiences. The Sophists believed truth was subjective to each person. The comments on Jacob Collier’s YouTube videos convey a Sophist understanding of musical appreciation. 

[lilyrhetoricblog]

Blog Critique Using Bitzer’s Metatheory of Rhetoric

Welcome back to my blog! This week, the assignment is to choose a blog I find engaging, and explore one of the elements of rhetoric from Bitzer’s Metatheory in relation to the visual elements of the blog. 

Lloyd Bitzer synthesized various theories into a metatheory of rhetoric, explaining how rhetoric as a whole works. He said that in a rhetorical situation, the relevant variables for a speaker are exigence, audience, and constraints. 

An exigence is an imperfection marked by urgency. 

An audience is an individual or group of agents of change. 

A constraint is a rhetorical strategy a speaker can use to motivate the audience to action. 

The blog post I have chosen is from boredpanda.com. Here is the link: https://www.boredpanda.com/the-siege-a-contemporary-illumination-about-covid-pandemic/

The post begins with a short paragraph introducing the piece of art. This artist, Agathe Pitié, combined her perceptions of the COVID pandemic and medieval manuscripts to create a giant illumination. The blog post then shows a picture of the whole mural, then zooms in on various parts to show detail. 

I chose to explore the constraints. Constraints are the limitations placed on the speech by the situation, as well as the means of shaping an appeal in a situation. The situation that Agathe Pitié’s work speaks of is a complicated one. Currently, our world is experiencing a global pandemic, in which virtually every country, culture, and human is affected. Many people are calling for unity in a commitment to following advice from scientists and healthcare workers to combat the ravages of this virus. Pitié does not specifically state her point in making this piece of art, so we have only the art itself to judge by. 

Her illumination is a dense piece of art. Upon first viewing, I was overwhelmed by the amount of detail, but encouraged to look closer. I saw that every inch of her work was covered with extremely intricate action. This first impression and later realization of intricacy reminded me of the extremely complicated nature of the pandemic. The way people are effected depends on so much: their previous health, their race, their socioeconomic status, the country they live in, their job, their level of access to media, etc, and her details are a constraint meant to express that complexity and intersectionality. 

Her artwork features figures of people dressed in blue scrubs, handling and working with various forms of modern medical equipment. It also includes characters that appear to be suffering from both respiratory conditions, or bodily attacks from the covid warriors or illness deities.  The medical personnel figures and patient figures have many different skin color shades and hair textures, again expressing the diversity of experiences with COVID. 

In contrast, soldier figures with COVID virus shaped heads that she describes as evil covid warriors are mostly homogenous, wearing metallic armor. There are leopard-bodied, covid-headed characters fighting with them. This could be a constraint meant to make the audience feel united against a common enemy. 

Modern medical equipment, such as ventilators, medical masks, and IV tubes stand out in contrast with Medieval building styles, such as castles, and Medieval weaponry. This contrast can be way of reassuring her audience by reminding us that we have modern science and tools to help us in the fight. However, the medical workers also do need to use brute force and swords, reminding viewers that some are resistant to the answers and solutions modern science brings us. 

The painting also has figures of several deities appearing to be inspired by deities of various cultures. For example, a covid warrior has harnessed a giant chicken, and uses it against the healthcare workers, while a cyclops with half his limbs fights against the covid warriors. The diversity in shape, species, and side of the deities reminds her viewers of the larger powers at work in this pandemic.

I believe that this work is absolutely excellent, and illustrates a way of using constraints to inform and convince an audience of the artists’ view of the pandemic. 

[lilyrhetoricblog]

Welcome to my blog!

Hello everyone! This blog is for a class called Intro to Rhetoric. For the class, we need to make a blog where we interact with rhetoric, so here is mine!

How did I define ‘rhetoric’ on January 13, 2021? 

“I think rhetoric is what happens when one focuses their words or maybe even actions as well to convince somebody of something. It has to do with knowing your audience, knowing different approaches you could take, choosing an appropriate approach, and adapting as you go to create the most impactful delivery”

What associations did I have with the word ‘rhetoric’ on January 13, 2021?

“When I hear the word 'rhetoric,' I think of speeches given by politicians, from an inaugural address to the Declaration of Independence. I think of arguments, such as televised debates, or even Twitter clapbacks. I think of advertising, both colorful logos to detailed pamphlets. I also think of sermons, conversations with friends about what we should do to hang out, and articles in the news. From what I remember from high school, I associate rhetoric with logos, ethos, pathos, and kairos, and having to write brief works using those elements. Historically, I have images of toga-swathed Romans or maybe Greeks debating some topic that we still speak about today. I think of how I anticipate learning much more about rhetoric in this class! Last, I anticipate creating this blog about rhetoric. 

How do I think my definition / associations will change?

I think I will learn more theory about debates surrounding what rhetoric is. Is all human communication rhetoric? Or just communication meant to convince? Is all communication meant to convince? I will learn more technical words to define elements of rhetoric. I believe, as I take this class, that I will thicken my associations with rhetoric with new names of famous figures, famous speeches, and famous schools of thought surrounding rhetoric. 

Again, welcome to my blog!