Painted GrayBeard, a novice rhetorician

Howdy! Y’all ever hear about threshold concepts?? no?? that’s okay, let’s learn!

First, what even are they and why do they matter? The book Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies, edited by Linda Adler-Kassner and Elizabeth Wardle, is where I first really learned about this jazz. You should read it too if you want more info after this post. 

Now let's talk about them! There are five of 'em and they’re pretty neat. To begin, we’ve got Transformative! This concept is about how writing changes the way you think and view the world. Which is true. We read to learn and write to share, communicating all sorts of rad stuff. We write for people to read, meaning we create our audiences as well as our text. You can’t have readers if you don’t share! SHARE! (concept 1.2 for those interested) Your voice is important and interesting! Your words change the world! Isn’t that cool!?

Next is Irreversible. Nothing you say or write publically can be unsaid. Which means you need to think about what impact your words will have. Some of us are better at this than others. (personally, i recommend being kind and accepting of people and writing for everyone to enjoy. I'm only intolerant of intolerance) What we write is a representation of ourselves and the world we live in, from thoughts to emotions and events(concept 2.1, friendos). You gotta make sure you’ re sharing what you want to share and how you want it to come across. 

Integrative is number 3, and it’s all about how writing is a way to understand and learn. Everything you write will be informed by your prior experience(3.3) and it’s linked to your identity. Every writer is different because we’ve all lived different lives. Writing is deeply personal and dependant on the individual writer’s experiences. 

Concept 4 is that writing is Bounded. This kinda ties into the last one. There is always more to learn(4.0). Authors are limited in their knowledge and ability and are often told to write what they know for this reason. To get better, they practice, revise, edit, and are constantly learning. This also means that you can increase what you know through reading/speaking/doing and the like, therefore giving you more to write about! Also, good encouragement to get out there and try new things! Travel, try cooking something new, study a new topic, read a new book series, work on what you’ve been writing, etc.

The last one is... Troublesome. No, really!!! People resist learning if the ideas shared with them are not compatible with their own. Writing is a social and cognitive act(5.0), so it makes sense that in a social situation with many people, not all will agree with each other fully. It’s unfortunate, especially when it comes to big topics, like global warming or misogyny or homophobia. Instead of trying to understand, people trap themselves in incorrectness by thinking about what they think about, but that is not real cognition, real learning (5.2). That’s a person convincing themselves that they are correct, even when they’re not by having mental conversations with themselves. 

Anyway, these are the writing threshold concepts! I hope you learned something. I know I did! If there is anything you don’t understand or think is incorrect, let me know! Let’s learn together! Let’s hope tumblr doesn’t completely end, right? haha. oh well. 

Hello again, friendos!

Y’all ready to mcfreakin learn again?

Good!!!

So, have you heard of the philosopher, rhetorician and technophobe Kenneth Burke before?

If not, no biggie. I’m learning about him too. He’s pretty important though. He wrote absolute giggle-fests like  Definition of Man (aka Definition of Human (Gender inclusivity is rad, folks)) and about things like terministic screens.

You probably don’t fully know what I’m talking about yet, but fear not!! I’m gonna explain. I’m also gonna use Roxane Gay’s Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body to help me explain parts of Burke, especially the terministic screens bit.

So, let’s start!

Burke’s definition is pretty basic, so we’ll start there. There are five parts, beginning with

1) Symbol User: This is the most important one to Burke, bc he saw that humans create their reality using symbols and that we use symbols more than anything else, making everything we do and say symbolic.

2) The Negative: Negatives do not exist in nature, therefore humans developed the negative with our symbol systems and learned our morality with the negative.

3) Separation of Human from Nature by Tech: Burke did not like tech much, believing that the unknown consequences of tech outweighed the advancements.

4) Hierarchy: Humans are drawn to the organization of a class system, but agreed with Karl Marx that it this was also the source of disagreements and war.

5) Rotten with Perfection: Too much of a good thing, amiright people??? no? okay. Well, actually, yes. Motive is not present in nature, other than the one for survival, so what drives us? Being better, of course. This is… problematic though. We may get a lot of progress done in our strive for perfection, but we out ourselves and others in a lot of danger while on the path. Burke used the example of Nazi’s and their goal for a ‘pure race’(fuck nazis). They murdered millions of people for their goal of perfection (again i say: fuck nazis).

So… that’s what it means to be human, according to Burke.

Let's talk about it! I’m gonna use Gay to help illustrate now.

Symbol: What do you think of when you hear the word ‘police’? How about the word ‘work’? What thoughts come to mind when you think of those things? Perhaps donuts? Police brutality? Pigs? Heroes? Or maybe, for work, you think of monotonous, dream job, money, boredom, capitalism, ‘getting this bread’, etc. See how every word means something more than just it's basic definition? Everything has a weight to it, a different complex meaning, and it can change from person to person. We live different lives, giving different meanings to the same things. Pretty cool, right? This is pretty much what terministic screens are too, the way we hear words and their divergent individual meanings and the way we can use them to communicate better. This can be negative though, my friend.  

More on terministic screens before we move on!

Two kinds: Scientistic & Dramatistic

Scientistic is the actual definition of a word, describing what it is and isn’t.

Dramatistic is the action that guides the taken meaning of a word, so context and current meaning in the moment.

Now back to your regularly scheduled content (lol as if i has a schedule) (i cri)

2. Negative: Roxane Gay writes in her memoir Hunger, “Sometimes, people who, I think, mean well like to tell me I am not fat. They will say things like, ‘Don’t say that about yourself,’ because they understand ‘fat’ as something shameful, something insulting, while I understand ‘fat’ as a reality of my body. When I use the word, I am not insulting myself. I am describing myself”(201).

Sometimes we give basic words negative meanings, like fat. Fat is not inherently bad, but we treat it as such. Diets, doctors, offhanded comments, lack of accommodation in public and in fashion… Being plus size is not easy, especially when you reach past a certain size. The negative connotation of fat is deeper than just a linguistic meaning, it's embedded in racism, patriarchal ideals, and economics but language is a part of the issue. Our morality and ideals are sculpted by the language we use. If we use certain words in a nicer way, they gain nicer definitions and vice versa. Language and morality are constantly changing.

3. Separation of humans from nature by tech: Yeah, I’ve not got much to say for this one. I love tech. Running water? A+, my friends. Electricity? Heck yeah. Sorry, Burke. Yeah, there are issues with tech, but we are benefitting from it far more than we would without it, in my opinion.

4. Hierarchy: Gay has to deal with a lot of b.s. from assholes who think they are better than her because she is a queer, POC, fat woman. Online trolls target her, strangers make rude comments, all because people often judge her based on appearance alone instead of actually taking the time to know her. Humans can be jerks. We are often looking at others to see where we rank among them, conscious or otherwise. Sometimes it's about size, like with Gay, or it's on a much larger scale like religion or race. This hierarchy drive causes a lot of problems, but don’t worry! We can work together to make this better. When you find yourself judging someone on trivial stuff like looks, stop. Take a second to recognize your thought. Then correct yourself. “I know nothing of my fellow human being over there. I don’t know what kind of person they are. They could be the nicest person on the planet, but I’m afraid because of the way they look/worship/love? Heck nah, self. We’re gonna be kind today. We’re gonna wish that person well.” Judge people by the words they say and the actions they take. Are they tolerant, kind, funny, sweet, etc? Neat! Are they a raging jerk who hates for the sake of hatred? Gross!

5. Rotten with Perfection: There is no such thing as perfection, not for humans if we follow the sophist train of thought. We are inherently flawed beings, beautifully so. Unfortunately, we really love the idea of perfect and are often working towards perfection with little regard for our own or others safety. Burke’s example of the Nazi’s was useful, but we can relate this to Gay too. Gay developed an eating disorder for a while, like many people, and while her ed was not the usual, it still was. Many people starve themselves in the hopes to reach some standard of perfect beauty they feel they either aren’t at yet or hope to maintain. There is no such thing as perfect beauty. There is no such thing as perfect. Not here. Not for humans. And that’s okay. Our goal to improve the world for each other is good. Our goal to improve ourselves is good too, as long as we do so in a healthy way, not by starving or harming ourselves. Improve your relationships with the people in your lives, with yourself. Take your time. Seek assistance as needed. You’ve got this. We are perfectly imperfect and it’s wonderful.

Yup! That’s all I’ve got for this one. Message me if you see something that looks incorrect or if you have a question! I may not have the answer right away, but we can figure it out together. Until next time, check out Kenneth Burke’s work and Roxane Gay’s.

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Sources:

“Definition of Man.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Aug. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_man.

Gay, Roxane. Hunger: A Memoir of My Body. HarperCollins, 2018.

“Terministic Screen.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 21 May 2017, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terministic_screen

Y’all ready to mcfreakin learn?? I hope so. Let’s begin.

Raise your hands if you know what rhetoric means.

Okay, great. Now put’em down.

I’ve got some unfortunate news for you. You're probably wrong. But don’t worry, even Google gives you the wrong definition, so how were you gonna know, right? I gotcha, friends, don’t worry.

Rhetoric, as defined by our favorite search engine, is a persuasive but ultimately manipulative way of speaking. But that’s just plain wrong, folks. Rhetoric is actually so much more, like every form of communication we as humans use. Ya know, just that little thing we all do every day, all day to do what we want, get what we need, share the details of our lives... It is not just that negative, political word meant to make someone’s speech seem manipulative or untrue. Well, technically it is, but rhetoric is everything we say and write, so yes and no. In short, rhetoric does not equal a bad false thing.

Rhetoric has two major parts you need to know about right away. They are the Heuristic process and Hermeneutic theory. Heuristic processes are the strategies used for the creation of something. Hermeneutic theories/ methods are the lenses used for the interpretation of things. (There’s more to say about these things, but we’ve got a lot to cover. I can hit these heavier in another post if you ask.) Okay, not too hard yet, hopefully. Now let's talk about the Rhetorical Situation!

There are three main parts: exigence, audience, and constraints. Exigence is the problem being spoken about. Audience (pretty self-explanatory) is whoever is hearing the speech or reading the text. Constraints are the context and literal limits to a situation. It's important to remember that you can’t have rhetoric without there first being a situation.

Cool! Now we should have a pretty good idea of what rhetoric is. Let's jump into that good nitty gritty jazz now!!!

First, let's start by naming the three schools of thought of Rhetoric in order of oldest to newest: Sophistic, Platonic, and Aristotelian. Yay! Now, all three of these things have pretty different epistemologies(def: the study of knowledge), lots of sub-drama and chaotic b.s. no one has time for, so let's keep it simple, yeah?

Okay, so, the sophistic epistemology isn’t that hard to understand. Basically, we as humans have senses that are too flawed to allow us to know the absolute truth. Therefore, the absolute truth doesn’t exist, and if it did, we couldn’t understand it. Even if we could understand, we wouldn’t be able to communicate it. Neat, right? Because of this denial of an absolute truth, that means that sophists question the existence of gods, afterlife, and authority. This got the biggest name in sophism, Protagoras (c. 485-411 BC), in hot water. He was agnostic and got banned from Athens for it. He was a proponent for democracy in Athens and is heralded as the father of debate. Another important rhetorician is Gorgias (c. 485-380 BC) who saw the use of rhetoric in politics and recognized its uses as a tool. He helped build the foundation for great speech writing by teaching that speakers should know how to speak rationally and imaginatively, which rhythm(aka kairos(timing)), animation(aka delivery) and coordination(aka kosmos(aka proper length)) developed from. He also saw rhetoric as a tool for uniting humanity. Gorgias also taught Isocrates (c. 436-338 BC), who went on to teach his students to speak ethically with civic duty in mind. He inspired Aristotle (Everything is connected, my dudes).

First one down! Let's talk about platonic epistemology now. So, according to this school of thought, there is an absolute truth, but it’s otherworldly. We can attain this truth, but we have to work for it. Our souls came from the noumenal (new-men-al) world according to this thought, a place where everything is perfect. When we took mortal from, we forgot that perfection and truth and now have to study and work hard to remember what we knew before. Plato and Socrates thought Socratic dialogue (if you wanna be fancy ‘dialectic’) was a good way to work towards remembering the truth. Plato gets really into this whole thought in his Allegory of the Cave, which is pretty cool, you should go read it for more info. So, clearly platonic and sophistic thought don’t agree well. Plato freaking hated the sophistic school of thought. He hated it so much he wrote a fanfic burn-book called the Gorgias in which his man crush, Socrates, totally destroys Gorgias with his superior intellect in a debate. You should read this too. Plato believed in an absolute truth, and sophism did not. He couldn’t let that stand, so he helped tear down sophism’s standing along with rhetoric so that people wouldn’t trust it. He believed sophism and it's rhetoric were too manipulative and ethically wrong. Later in life, he got a bit more tolerant and saw some value in it, but the damage was done. He wanted people to speak and teach ethically, to save their souls and know absolute truth. His work to destroy the credit of rhetoric and sophism has had effects that last well into today, as shown by Google’s dictionary definition. He also didn’t like writing because he felt it couldn’t defend itself well and could end up in the hands of the wrong audience. lol.

Finally, we’ve got Aristotelian thought. Aristotle (c. 384-322 BC) kinda dials back Plato’s thought and believes that the absolute truth does exist, but that it is here in this world with us and can be observed and proved with science. As for rhetoric,  Aristotle saw it as an art that was vital for human survival and taught rhetoric as the sophists did. He saw rhetoric as a counterpart to Socratic dialogue too and came up with the three audience appeals: ethos (credibility), logos (logic), and pathos (emotion). He also developed/named the three types of speech: ceremonial, political, and legal. Aristotle studied under Plato and also tutored Alexander the Great, which is pretty cool. It’s all connected, folks.

So, now you know a little more about rhetoric and the main schools of thought. It's pretty cool, right?!  Which one do you agree with the most? Is there more you want to know? Send me a message with a question and let's figure out the answer together! See something you think is incorrect? Message me and we’ll figure it out together. Let’s keep learning!

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Sources

Bizzell, Patricia, and Bruce Herzberg. The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present. 1990. pp. 80-84

Lee, Rory. “Aristotle (Overview).”

Lee, Rory. “Plato (Overview).”

Lee, Rory. “The Sophists (Overview).”

Lee, Rory. Lecture, August 30-October 10, 2018.