I think we can parallel this with: "Things are not simply objects"

That the space between places, or the space by which/through which we arrive at places, might be a destination/home/dwelling in that of itself.

I'm thinking back to that video you showed us of the girl who hugs a (water heater, was it?)...is that what Bay and Rickert are getting at here? I guess I'm wondering what this time would look like, in which we would recognize new media as having their own, non-human (or I suppose, post-human) agency?

Or behind us...

@ all baby boomers...

So...technology isn't just a product; it's an extension of us and the very way we communicate and interact...am I getting that right?

Is this not, in a way, the whole "point" of McGuire's "Here"?

Might the distinction between network and ambience here be parallel to the same distinction that Bitzer makes between context and situation?

At this point, after we've encountered "ambiguity" with Burke and now "ambience" with Rickert, I think it's worth noting that in Latin, the stems "ambi-" or "ambo-" have the following meanings: 1. "around" 2. "both"

This ties in nicely to the first Rickert article we read:

"...it might be more accurate to think about rhetoric as engaging in a sort of historical materialism. It’s a model that allows for multiple points of so-called origin; centered around how and why rhetoric has been manifested in a certain form, how and why it has been continuously reproduced and repurposed, and the extent of the role of historical interactions on its production and function. In some ways, this is a model that Rickert adopts with his “bottom-up” approach, claiming that rhetoric was formed, and is still constantly reformed, as a gradual coalescence of cultural, historical, and evolutionary factors. Therefore, rhetoric can be (and perhaps should be) understood as an active non-linear network of various multi-dimensional and interdisciplinary beginnings."

From my microresponse (1/26)

Burke's "moltenness"

Re: my microresponse from 3/11 regarding Perelman, Burke, networks, community, and social fabric

“I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me” -Emerson, Nature

Or, in the words of Bitzer, "soil for roots" or "situation, circumstance"???

Also UGH I love reading Rickert

"Observers said Mr Trump's comments that America was "right on track" appeared out of place as the annual children’s event [the Easter Egg Roll], in its 139th year, is not known to be a political one."

I wanted to highlight this whole sentence starting at "So" but hypothesis wouldn't let me...

Essentially, a rhetorical situation is what makes a particular kind of rhetorical discourse appropriate and powerful.

How would an utterance "unnaturally" participate?

Again, why "invites" and not "compels" or even some other word?

How can we read Rickert in this?

Re: "What is a rhetorical situation?--is not an idle one" (page 2).

Each utterance is uniquely derived from that particular situation and is actively engaged in that circumstance.

Could we also maybe say, "...the situation which compelled the orator's application of his method and the creation of discourse" ???

This almost seems redundant...almost. I guess I usually think of the word "situation" as being inherently pregnant with an assumed "presence" or "place" and that it wouldn't be necessary to indicate a situation's existence or appearance. I think this reveals Bitzer's conceptualization of situation as not only mobile (in that a "situation" can be present or absent) but also conditional.

I like thinking of "the street" as a space and not just a means between spaces. That things (streets, roads, sidewalks, etc.) which are typically used to transport other things (cars, people, etc.) is actually much more definitive of a space than a mere conduit.

Austin has been everywhere in these readings over the past few weeks...

What, then, is the distinction between a "speaker" and "audience" if the audience acts collectively as their own kind of "speaker"...? The "speaker"(in the traditional sense that we have understood it in this class) becomes something of an "audience" in this context, right?

This could also be an alternative definition of "historiography"

Nice, this takes me back to Rickert's theory of rhetoric that takes on a kind of historical materialism

Idk what this is or who it is by but THIS is a title

(Fish, take note).

For some reason the use of "situated" is really impressionable here. For me, it echoes not just "context" and "situation" but also connotes a kind of "decision"

Okay, so the exact opposite of Derrida, right?

Note: "her French" as if Cixous has crafted her own dialect of the French language...

And I also think that understanding what "Cixous' French" consists of can be important in helping us understand Derrida and his theory better, too. Especially when we consider that both of these writers come from similar cultural/ethnic/religious backgrounds (being French and Algerian and Jewish).

Important to pause here and take note that Cixous has consciously called her "non-hierarchical" writing practice "feminine." Can we relate this in any way back to the very frequent association of "rhetoric" with the feminine?

Still alive yo!

Nice, I like the appearance of "network" here in this musing about "code", especially after our last class discussion about ambiguity ("code" is inherently ambiguous...) being entangled with itself, and ultimately supported by "spider webs" and "nets" and "molten masses" of various communications, à la Burke and Perelman.

I like the inclusion of the original French words throughout this piece, because I think they add more depth and dimension to Derrida's argument. For instance, "dessiner" can be translated into English as "depict" but it's more direct translation is "draw." I'm actually curious if the inclusion of the original French was something that Derrida insisted upon in the English version (and that's just me assuming that he wrote this text in his native French...) or whether that was an decision made by the editor(s) of this version? Anyway, these alternative French words and their alternative definitions/English translations have got me thinking here about Byron's earlier annotation, when he undertook defining polysemy...

I mean, yeah, isn't Derrida basically saying that language establishes our reality?

This was actually a major point of contention in our senior seminar class a few weeks back, when we were reading J.L. Austin's speech-act theory in How to Do Things with Words. Particularly when we discussed how the similarity between performative and constative (non-performative) statements begins to increase when evaluating their infelicities (lack of success; failures):

“In order to explain what can go wrong with statements we cannot just concentrate on the proposition involved (whatever that is) as has been done traditionally. We must consider the total situation in which the utterance is issued—the total speech-act—if we are to see the parallel between constative statements and performative utterances, and how each can go wrong."

Austin urges us here to seek out context as a way of identifying how both performative and constative statements can go wrong (or become "infelicitous") in distinct ways. Though performative and constative statements may appear similar without proper context, Austin argues that they become clearly different when considering individual situations.

Donald Trump’s Campaign Says PTSD Comments Were Taken out of Context

Hm. Thinking about the word "ineffable" here (a word meaning: "something that cannot be expressed or described in words") and how Derrida would react to the fact that the word "ineffable" is a comprehensible concept that has an effable definition...

Which leads me to thinking about Kant's explanation of "the sublime" here as well...

So, language does not reflect reality, but rather, language is reality.

Speaking as an attempt to overcome the obstacle of language...but what if something else is obstructing expression besides language? Thinking back here to Douglass, and how his identity as a black man and former slave inhibited his ability to be received as a "legitimate" speaker...in fact, he turned to writing as a way of legitimacy.

I like the use of "adherence" here. Especially because in this context, I might normally use words like "credence" or "ethos" or "authority," and "adherence" suggests a kind of magnetism between, or unity of, the speaker and audience.

This is an awesome visual. Fantastic, actually.

Thinking back to our list of "black boxed terminology" on the tumblr...

A bit of a side note, but I think it's interesting how much Burke relies on "motive" in part to determine the "who, what, when, where, how" of an act. In a court of law in the U.S. judicial system, the only facets of guilt that a prosecution is required to establish are: means (person had ability to do a crime) and opportunity (person had the ability to be at the time and place of a crime). Motive (person had a reason to commit a crime) is something that juries like to hear, but is not legally required to establish guilt. Just an interesting comparison, I think. That our legal system puts so little weight on the "motive" of an act and so much more on the "facts" or the "who what when where and how" of an act--as if they exist separately from one another. Whereas for Burke, "motive" cannot really exist apart from the answers to those questions.

This harkens back to both Muckelbauer and Rickert for me, also thinking about Burke's rhetoric as a kind of social and historical "bundle" à la Hume.

I mean, yes... But is this not true for other societies? Like, literature and art wouldn't serve as propaganda in, say, a communist society? see: socialist realism

This is new. Finally deviating from formally discussing rhetoric as either speaking or writing.

This is almost reminiscent of J.L. Austin's "How to Do Things with Words" and his theory surrounding performative utterances v. constative utterances. Language as direct action, or "speech-acts" and not mere nonsense.

Thereby implying that "ineffective literature" can be a thing and that the absence of rhetoric in literature can also be a thing. Which, idk, I'm not sure if I buy this. But I suppose that depends on my definition of rhetoric and also my definition of effective.

Language as action, not just description; rhetoric is not only reflective, but also integral to formation and motivation. Interesting to think about when considering Burke's historical context i.e. the early 20th century was marred by intensely violent acts such as wars, revolution, and genocide. Perhaps the physical omnipresence of violence contributed to a conceptualization of words as a kind of violence.

etymology of concept: 1550s, from Medieval Latin conceptum "draft, abstract," in classical Latin "(a thing) conceived," from concep-, past participle stem of concipere "to take in" (see conceive). In some 16c. cases a refashioning of conceit

Nietzsche's equation of anthropomorphic with empirical is actually really clarifying for me (in so much that it helps me understand his theory better).

definition of columbarium: a structure of vaults lined with recesses for cinerary urns

So, basically, all that we actually know about these laws of nature is...nothing. Because what we ourselves bring to them (time and space and succession and number) are constructs, right? If I'm following Nietzsche's argument correctly?

Okay...but how can we forget this? I'm reminded of earlier on in this piece, when Nietzsche says that humans should resist dreaming... Like, are these things that we can consciously, or even unconsciously, do? Can I forget that I am an artistically creating subject? By consciously acknowledging that I should forget that, aren't I also reminding myself of that fact?

This actually reminds me about something I read in Karl Stern's book The Flight from Woman, in which he argues that man began his primal existence in a state of “prater-rational thinking." Basically, he argues that man’s original identity was a unitary reality in which all knowledge was apprehended outside of consciousness; it was incorporated through an intuitive, experiential bond between the senses and nature. Not sure how much Nietzsche would get on board with in terms of that half of the theory, but then Stern says that the declension into modern thought, or what he calls “cogito," is the intellectual process of self-raising consciousness; an unincorportated version of the praeter-rational mind. Man is now aware of his ability to think and analyze, and so his ego confronts the world as a separate object from himself.

Essentially, it is not a truth because "it" does not exist outside of our (man's) constructed world. It exists materially, or exists within our understanding of human qualities, but not in abstraction. (Actually, now I have a question, does this mean that Nietzsche thinks that real "truth" only exists in a vacuum, or does he just think that it exists beyond our own capacity and faculties?)

Nietzsche's language in this piece is really interesting, he uses words like "manufacture" and "build" and "construct" and "calculate" and it all comes off as very mathematical and also as very industrial.

This could actually be read as a really fascinating criticism, or I suppose observation, about the relationship between man and society and religion. In that man carefully constructs, or calculates, truth and god(s) and heaven and all other ruling social concepts. It's a weird mix of math/science/logic with religion/heavens/abstraction.

I wonder what Nietzsche would think about the Trump Administration's rise to power. The "success" of D. Trump and his cronies (Spicer, Conway, etc.), who lie time and time again, seems to contradict this comment?

definition of metonymies: a figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of another of which it is an attribute or with which it is associated (as “crown” in “lands belonging to the crown”

Does this almost harken back to Plato's Theory of Forms, or the idea that a perfect and original realization of a thing exists in a higher form beyond our grasp? Can we only see and know shadows of a thing (in this case, a leaf) and mere copies of our perception of that thing?

Locke identifies a similar problem in his own writing, but unlike Nietzsche, refuses to address it further: "Words having naturally no signification, the idea which each stands for must be learned and retained, by those who would exchange thoughts, and hold intelligible discourse with others...Those [words] which are not intelligible at all, such as names standing for any simple ideas which another has not organs of faculties to attain; as the names of colours to a blind man, or sounds to a deaf man need not here be mentioned...for if we examine them, we shall find that the names of mixed modes are most liable to doubtfulness and imperfection."

Although Locke doesn't delve much deeper into this, I do like how he notes that some words are used to describe "mixed modes" like music and color. Nietzsche addresses this concept below, saying that although a man might be deaf, he can still "feel" music (via vibrations) and therefore might understand sound in a way that is divergent from the conventional manner. I'm also reminded of Rickert's piece, in which he noted that Homer could never identify the color "blue" as we understand it today, instead calling the color of the sea "purple" or "wine red."

Pretty rad that Nietzsche was already dismissing the concept of gender as a construct as early as 1873.

What is Nietzsche suggesting about the agency of human beings here and the extent of our mental faculties? He says that man "permits" himself to be deceived by dreams every night, but I mean, has anyone ever tried to resist dreaming, using nothing but sheer will and while unconscious? Is there no difference in resisting some physical habit like snoring and some "internal" habit like dreaming? Or would Nietzsche consider both habits (snoring and dreaming) to be controlled by the same faculty and therefore both able to be resisted? This is just wacky to me.

This is a fascinating concept; to think of rhetoric as being intentionally invented, or crafted in a certain way, to exclude others in an effort to create societal division and establish hierarchy. I suppose I've typically thought of rhetoric as something that occurs naturally in the world on multiple social levels of understanding and manifestation (and also as something that exists in a relationship of mutuality between the "author/speaker" and the "audience" see: rhetorical triangle), and not as something that was deliberately created as a tool to subjugate others. In fact, as we've discussed in class, the participation or reception of an audience is actually a sometimes necessary contribution to the "rhetoricity" of a speech/text/artwork/etc.

Grimké repeats over and over again in this text her belief in the complete moral equality of the sexes (i.e. what is right for man is right for woman, if women have lost it then so have men, etc.) but I wonder what she has to say about meaningful distinctions between the two sexes? The reality is that even outside of social, cultural, political and religious structures, there are some basic and fundamental distinguishing characteristics for both men and women. Namely, a woman's ability to carry, bear, and feed children. Does Grimké consider any of these distinctions (or this one in particular) at all? And would this ability perhaps in her mind make women actually superior to men?

panoply

Grimké's distinction between "female" and "woman" is really fascinating here. As if "female" appeals to the baser, more primitive nature of humanity and "woman" is a more refined, idealized, God-envisioned version of the sex.

Changing my email signature to this

This is badass and actually had me loling. Basically, Grimké says: "That little poetry bit was cute and all, but frankly, I find your comparison of the female body to a beautiful (but still frail and dependent and clingy) vine as fancifully out-of-touch, demeaning to my faith, and personally offensive to my sex. P.S. The metaphorical tree of masculinity that women supposedly lean on for support and protection (anyone catch the underlying phallic reference here?) is actually either a weak twig or a weapon that impales us. So thanks."

When I read this line by Grimké on the earlier page (what is right for man to do is right for woman) for some reason I instantly thought of it's contrapositive, tried it out in my head (what is wrong for woman to do is wrong for man), and knew instantly that syntactically Grimké had crafted something really clever. Knowing that her opponents use phrases like virtue in man is vice in woman Grimké borrowed that same kind of phrasing and manipulated it for her own ends; mirroring her opponents by using their own language against them. Also, isn't this a certain kind of literary device? Isn't there a name for these short, little, turnabout phrases that Grimké has crafted? Or am I just having some semi-hallucinatory flashback from high school AP Lang?

Grimké, essentially: This document is invalid (or perhaps "dubious" is a better word) because the group that edited it and compiled it was homogenous (and therefore biased) in their construction and translation of certain passages. Sameness in identity (or "exclusivity" I suppose) for Grimké is inherently tendentious.

The development of an alternate women's rhetoric (one that is separate from the male-dominated political hierarchy) might include an alternative spelling of the word "women" altogether. For some contemporary feminists, "womyn" is the new preferred spelling. Whereas the traditional spelling implies that a woman’s identity is inherently reliant on man, spelling the word with a “y” acknowledges identities and roles of and for women that are not defined by their relationships to men (or dictionaries). In essence, this spelling marks a kind of rhetorical severance with the male establishment. Which is pretty rad.

Thinking here about Whateley when he admits that logic alone may not always be enough when forming an argument.

"Are emotions not part of human decision? Do we not often seek to persuade ourselves to choose a course of action by representing to ourselves appropriate thoughts and feelings? It is legitimate and necessary, Whateley says, to stimulate emotions such as hope, fear, and altruism because they lead to worthy aims."

It's almost as if the Grimké sisters operate in the kind of rhetorical duality that Whateley imagines between "logic" and "passion" but do so in a physical sense by literally sharing the stage. Sarah acts as the "logic" when systematically presenting evidence and justification, and Angelina acts as the "passion" by motivating the audience into action by supplementing the evidence with feeling.

Newsweek Article: Playing Telephone with the Word of God

I think this article nicely complicates the concept of "the truthfulness of testimony about the life and teachings of Jesus" in that it suggests that no *true" witness assertions about Jesus that could constitute a historical record actually exist: "No television preacher has ever read the Bible. Neither has any evangelical politician. Neither has the pope. Neither have I. And neither have you. At best, we’ve all read a bad translation—a translation of translations of translations of hand-copied copies of copies of copies of copies, and on and on, hundreds of times."

Definition: plural of Greek topos meaning a convention or motif, especially in a literary work; a rhetorical convention; a standardized method of constructing or treating an argument

But think about how this creates a divide in rhetorical understanding between class (and other socioeconomic divisions i.e. gender and race), especially in regards to the question of rhetorical definition. If one group of people is learning about language, philosophy, religion, etc. in the Classical sense and another in the vernacular sense, then will they end up having the same understanding of rhetoric? I would guess not. It would seem that rhetoric at the end of the eighteenth century (and onward) cannot be properly examined without considering a certain dimension of economic influence, especially in regards to class tension.

The etymology of "rhetoric" that Whateley is referencing: early 14th century, from Old French rethorique, from Latin rhetorice, from Greek rhetorike techne "art of an orator," from rhetor (genitive rhetoros) "speaker, orator, teacher of rhetoric," related to rhesis "speech," rhema "word, phrase, verb," meaning literally: that which is spoken.

...could we also use this distinction to support the existence of alternative facts?

"Frederick Douglass' Early Education: A Story of Pedagogy and (Un)Intentionality"

Thinking back to Sheridan, who would probably disagree: "But tho' all who are blest with the gift of speech, by constantly associating the ideas of articulate sounds, to those characters which they see on paper, come to imagine that there is a necessary connection between them, and that the one, is merely a symbol of the other; yet, that it is in itself, a manner of communication entirely different, and utterly independent of the other..."

Further down in the paragraph it is suggested that this blurred line between written and spoken rhetoric could possibly be attributed to Douglass' blending of African, European, and American cultural elements, beyond just necessary last-minute additions of antislavery tracts. Could it then be because of Sheridan's homogenous rhetorical background that he believed written and spoken word to be distinct?

What sort of rhetorical implications does this have regarding the relationship between ethos and medium for the author and their audience?

But isn't this all knowledge, according to Locke's tabula rasa and Hume's empiricism?

Okay again back to Lorde... Her concern was that feminist theorists had coalesced around a consensus that left out the very voices of those whose difference was essential to the project of overturning the patriarchy. Lorde asked, “What does it mean when the tools of a racist patriarchy are used to examine the fruits of that same patriarchy?” I guess I see a similar flaw in the white abolitionists' dismissal of Douglass, in that oppression cannot be disrupted using the logic that justifies oppression, i.e. the use of Douglass as a black man as "tool" in himself and the exclusion of his very relevant experience from their dialogue; are these not other forms of bondage? Also thinking about how "tool" can be interpreted here, i.e. tool as logic, rhetoric, government, Christianity, whiteness, Douglass himself, etc.

For some reason I keep thinking of the famous Audre Lorde line, "For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house," even though I think it's application here is fairly flawed. Garrison wanted abolitionists to work outside the politics and economics of government that helped to support slavery as a way of defeating that very system (see: Lorde), but I'm lost as to how "persuading" advocates of slavery of its immorality (especially by using Christian moral tropes as his main source of appeal) is not participating within that system? I guess I'm surprised that Garrison considered persuasion as being rhetorically separate from the political, and I'm curious about what he might consider the distinction of non-political persuasion to be?

Moral reasoning thus presents a bundle of evidence rather than a causal chain via Campbell

Nay, even in those performances where truth, in regard to the individual facts related, is neither sought nor expected...truth still is an object to the mind, the general truths regarding character, manners, and incidents. When these are preserved, the piece may justly be denominated true, considered as a picture of life; though false, considered as a narrative of particular events. -Campbell (906)

"This ornamental sort of composition is not altogether to be rejected. It may innocently amuse and entertain the mind; and it may be mixed, at the same time, with very useful sentiments. But it must be confessed, that where the speaker has no further aim than merely to shine and to please, there is great danger of art being strained into ostentation, and of the composition becoming tiresome and languid." Blair (971)

So, essentially: criticism is a natural offspring of taste? If there is nothing to take issue with, then is it (i.e. the work) even "good" in the way that Blair understands it? Am I misreading this, or is Blair insisting here that in order for something to be in "good taste", it must be controversial?

Again, what is the distinction here? Do we even buy that there is such a thing as "false" (or "true") ornament?

What's the distinction here between "requisite" and "of real use" for Blair?

Lol. Why do I get the feeling that Campbell would be one of those Baby Boomers who angrily tweets about how Millennials are whiners and snowflakes and brunch-loving degenerates who are ruining all that is good and holy in the world with their "newfangled" technology; I can just picture him being appalled by my use of "lol" and how it's usage is a great detriment to language. Which actually brings me to an earlier ~debate~ between myself and Kevin about the "associative meanings" behind words in regards to their origins. How have modernity and, as Campbell says, convenience shaped language today, and have shortened words like "Lol" or "Tbh" or "Lmao" increased or decreased in their intended meaning? For instance, do we actually "Laugh out loud" when we say "Lol" or has that old meaning disassociated itself from the word and been supplanted by something else? And do we think that we are overlooking worthier occupants in our vocabulary? And how do emojis fit in to this whole picture? (Poor Campbell is probably rolling over in his grave...) Also I'm realizing just now that this is a little off topic sorry someone plz bring me back to center.

Again, one of these words that fits in with the "black box terminology" category. Though Campbell believes that history is dignified by "knowledge," the reality is that what we (I suppose both individually and collectively) "know"about history is completely dependent on who we are, where we are, and when. In fact, understanding history requires as much conjecture, if not more, than trying to understand the future. While we may "know" supposedly objective facts (i.e. dates, names, places, etc.), it's rather impossible to truly comprehend or empathize with the motivations, opinions, interactions, and social/cultural/political/economic mechanisms that drove individuals, groups, and the course of history. And so it would seem that hindsight is anything but 20/20.

@realDonaldTrump

This is odd to me; that Campbell seems unconcerned with any possible etymological or symbolic importance behind the words that describe the concepts he is discussing. As if the concepts can exist in the same manner without the words used to describe them? That the words have no symbolic meaning or importance in themselves, or that they might even contribute to understanding the greater concepts they represent? Is it really possible to divorce a word from "things" and still be able to understand those "things" abstractly? Idk man. Sounds like some "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," kind of bullshit to me. Like, idk Romeo, if we stop calling it a "rose" and start calling it a "prickly red blob" then that line loses a lot of its gusto.

Can these not dispose the mind for enterprise...? I could think of several instances where they could...

I suppose Campbell would believe the same to be true for translated texts? What are his thoughts on the Bible, then, I wonder?

This is reminiscent of something I remember from Jung's Man and His Symbols: The ability to recognize and communicate with signs, symbols, and gestures was "discarded in the process of evolving the very differentiated consciousness [the emergence of language] that alone could be aware of them."

Is this not applicable for all words? I suppose I've always thought that the definition/meaning of a word as intersectional; different interpretations or significations inform one another in a kind of network of accumulation.

To jump on Kevin's earlier "Peirce bandwagon" (also learned from Juliana Chow) the search for mutual connection and understanding reminds me of this concept that Peirce calls the "commens" or the "commind." Essentially, there are three parts necessary for "signifying" something. You need an object, a sign, and an interpretant for both. Now, if the interpretant wishes to share the meaning of the sign and object with another interpretant, they must reach a level of shared context/culture/consciousness that Peirce calls the "commens." Basically it seems like Locke would agree with the theoretical model that Peirce laid out.

An important historical note here: most of the Die Brücke artists and their later avant-garde peers who fell under the various "-isms" such as Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, etc. were eventually persecuted by the Nazis, who believed the kind of art work seen above (Emil Nolde, Masks, 1911) to be "degenerate," which I think fits well into the dialogue about the "normalcy" of the body in creating socio-political standards. Artists such as Braque, Beckmann, Chagall, Dix, Grosz, Kandinsky, Klee, Matisse, Munch, and Picasso were all considered degenerate by the racially-obsessed Nazis because of the way they depicted the composition of the human body. Hitler looked to classical models, specifically Greek and Roman traditions, as examples toward which the German Volk should strive, because their ideal exterior forms embodied the inner Nazi idea of racial superiority, or normalcy. Modernists celebrated subjective and unique perspectives of reality (including, and especially the body), which, unfortunately for them, did not fit into the promotion of a singularly molded and racially uniform German state.

Die Brücke

Sure, although it was an innovative new scale of measurement at the time, I think it's still really important to recognize the fairly dangerous limitations that BMI, and even IQ, offered (and continue to offer us today). I highly doubt Galton or Quetelet ever considered the potential harm that their "scales" could inflict, but they created objective standards for qualities that are inherently nuanced. BMI, for instance, has no allowance for the relative proportions of bone, muscle, and fat in the body. Bone is denser than muscle, which is also denser than fat; so a person with strong bones, good muscle tone and low fat will have a high BMI and therefore be considered overweight. Disturbingly, contemporary institutions have still hold a lot of stock in these antiquated measurements, which leads me to this jarring middle school flashback: my gym teacher calculated the BMI of all the adolescent girls in my class and declared 1/3 of us to be approaching emaciation, 1/3 to be "normal" and the other 1/3 to be obese. In hindsight, it's a miracle that I emerged from that lesson without any serious body dysmorphia issues. Thx Quetelet.

Right; what are the socio-political "rules" regarding deviation? How does one find individuality if the goal is to approach genetic/biological/bodily uniformity?

There's something that could be said about the development of the pseudoscience of eugenics here but I'm not quite sure how to pull it out...

Austin's direction of the body in such a mechanical manner actually reminds me of the modern playwright Samuel Beckett. Both Austin and Beckett are rigorously visual and controlling of their physical environment. I'm especially thinking of Beckett's "Imagination Dead Imagine" in the spatial and temporal way that it directs the reader (if reading the original prose) or the viewer (it was later adapted into play): "No way in, go in, measure. Diameter three feet, three feet from ground to summit of the vault. Two diameters at right angles AB CD divide the white ground into two semicircles ACB BDA. Lying on the ground two white bodies, each in its semicircle..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chironomia

Even though I tutor French in the Student Success Center (shameless plug) I thoroughly enjoyed this roast of the French language.

Why is this no longer capitalized as "Truth"?

I suppose this might go with the conversation happening above, though it looks like some graduate-level inside joke and I'm not sure if what I'm about to say fits in...

I actually thought of this when first reading Astell. But I'm wondering if it's right to apply a term (and all the loaded meanings/history/usage/etc. behind it) to a person, place, situation, or time that is so far removed from the inception of that term? So, for instance, can we call really Astell "the first English feminist" if the concept and the very word "feminism" didn't even exist during her time? Is it appropriate, or perhaps anachronistic (sorry, it's hard to find a word that would work best in describing the problem with this situation) to unpack that term on a person, place, situation, or time from which it is so far removed?

This really has me thinking back to the Rickert article from last week in regards to Rhetorical Prehistory; in that rhetoric is not only a reflection of our historical surroundings but also a product of them.

Interesting to think about in a modern political context, especially as the debate surrounding "real facts" versus "alternative facts" intensifies. I think there is a strong feeling that science is objective and inarguable, and while there is obviously a lot of truth to that point, I think we should also be aware that every scientific discovery has some opinion, argument, or agenda that it pursues, whether intentionally/consciously or unintentionally/unconsciously.

It's as if the rhetorical merit of language exists precisely in its simplicity and its accessibility, and in a way this emphasizes its availability to the average person instead of the intellectual, the patron, or the aristocrat. Which for me begs the question: even beyond challenging the relationship between public-private and male-female, does Astell also challenge certain conventional socioeconomic expectations of rhetoric? Though usually thought of as primarily male and academic (read: exclusive and elitist), Astell's clear, direct, and conversational rhetoric is encompassing across various lines of gendered privilege, educational opportunity, and economic affordability. So although in a modern feminist lens this approach to rhetoric seems rather conservative (we understand "different but in no way inferior" as, well, inherently inferior), perhaps in a historical socioeconomic lens, it's actually fairly inclusive. I think the proof in the pudding on this point is how Astell thinks a woman rhetor should treat her audience (see below: "accommodate" "do not humiliate or triumph over" "don't confuse or deceive"). Essentially, she should offer instantaneous gratification and knowledge to the audience without asking them to exercise their own intellectual effort or subliminal artistic understanding. For Astell, there should be no prerequisite (i.e. gender, class, institution, money, or education) to understand the female rhetor. She should be only clear, accessible, and true; more concerned with the experience of the audience than with her own agenda. So I guess even though Astell is being kind of uncomfortably servile by saying women should essentially dumb themselves down for the sake of the audience, she's also kind of dismantling the socioeconomic establishment...? Idk, 17th century "feminism" is whack, yo.

Help each other to temporarily/permanently relieve that suffering? Help each other to overcome that suffering? Help each other to find community in that suffering? Help each other commiserate in that suffering?

Right...so maybe we should think of Astell not as the "first English feminist" but instead as a protofeminist?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protofeminism

I'm surprised by this; I think we could probably stake out several differences between, and discuss the merits of using, manual and digital notebooks--especially how they could be considered rhetorical tools that shape the kinds of thoughts/observations/reports that are being recorded.

I just want to make sure that we aren't underestimating the insane difficulty of this creative process. These cave drawings in Chauvet, and also in the aforementioned Lascaux Caves, are especially renowned for their massive scale (the largest animal in Lascaux, a bull, was measured 18 feet in length), and the supposed difficulty of ancient techniques with which it was made. These paintings would have been completed with only hands and in many cases mouths, and in near complete darkness. It is also important to note the artistic sophistication and advanced style that the cave drawings employ, because the figures are painted/sketched so they appear to be in motion, so much so that recent archaeologists believe that the animals become animated when viewed in the presence of a flickering light source, such as a primitive lamp, which would’ve been used by Paleolithic people when they entered the dark caves. Check out this sick link: http://nautil.us/issue/11/light/early-humans-made-animated-art

I'm reminded of Rickert's earlier point about the strong connection between spirituality/divinity and rhetoric. With this in mind, it's fascinating to think that these occupations would have been one in the same. Would it be possible to be a shaman without being an artist, or perhaps more interestingly, vice versa?

@Kplynch re: our earlier "bottom-up" conversation

p.s. why can I not tag people on this thing

Can we maybe understand this as "environmental rhetoric"? In the sense that local and global natural, ecological, and physical factors determine spaces and places, which in turn determine social and cultural behavior and traditions?

Rickert uses the term "bottom-up" instead of Muckelbauer's use of the word "origin" to discuss the historical emergence of rhetoric; the resulting connotation makes the "beginning" (if we can call it that...?) of rhetoric seem less like a pinpoint in time and more like, in Rickert's own words, a gradual coalescence or merging of cultural, historical, and evolutionary factors. At any rate, I think it provides more grounding than Muckelbauer's previous dive into the Greek-based "origin" of rhetoric, which seemed to suggest that the "beginning" held some kind of answer to the question of rhetorical definition. Rickert's use of "bottom-up" instead suggests that the "beginning" of rhetoric should be directive rather than conclusive.

I found it interesting that Muckelbauer engages with the historical origin of rhetoric. Do we need this? Origins can often be directive but also dangerously pseudo-decisive. (Muckelbauer doesn't necessarily use origins in that way here, but how much use are origins when discussing a concept as malleable and abstract as rhetoric, especially when he doesn't provide any true solid grounding for the term--and admits there never was any?) It might be more interesting to think about rhetoric emerging not from a historical origin, but perhaps engaging in, from the very beginning, a kind of historical materialism? Thinking instead about how/why rhetoric has been manifested in the form that it was/is, how/why it has been continuously reproduced and repurposed (for what purpose/which purposes?), and the extent of the role of certain cultural, historical, and economic interactions in its formation, production, manifestation, and function? Is this annotation coherent? Or at least semi-coherent?

Live fast / die young / bad girls do it well

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/donald-trump-budget-cuts-arts-humanities-nea-neh-npr-cbs-president-a7536741.html

Can we even call this a "debate" anymore? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

The good news is this link has a pretty rad (and by rad I mean dry) video of Fred Rogers (see: Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, PBS) testifying in front of Congress in 1969.