Fish- 9.4

The Rhetorical Man

One of the things that really stuck out to me was Lanham’s definitions of the homo seriosus and the homo rhetoricus and my sense of feeling that the serious man was created and defined as it is because it is something to be considered inferior to and is all that the rhetoric man isn’t. I got the impression in Lanham’s quote- as well as some others for Tuesday’s reading- that the serious man is someone exclusive to the rhetoric man since Lanham goes to define the rhetoric man as someone with multiple identities that are subject to the man’s environment.

It took me some time to unpack Lanham’s quote that defined the homo seriosus, I had to write it out myself and really take my time kinda “reorganizing the definition”. Then I continued reading his definition of homo rhetoricus and felt that not only did I have a fine understanding of the rhetorical man on the first try, but I had a better understanding of the serious man as well- from reading the definition of the rhetorical man. With probably a too-simple understanding of the Lanham’s argument, I felt that the serious man was being put in a sort of box of “eternal sameness” that he could never break out of because he was not the rhetoric man….For some reason, I felt the need to defend the poor guy and my thoughts immediately distracted me from the rest of my reading for a little while as I considered all the ways in which this “just can’t be true,” as I had said to myself:

No one can be just one person- we are many people to a lot of different people and in different situations. We are children, adults, students, some people about my age are already parents; we are friends, other family members such as daughters, cousins, grandchildren; we are employees, and the list can go on and on. Like the rhetorical man, our sense of identity is contingent on our environment. People don’t communicate with their parents the same way they do their friends- if they did, there could be some pretty uncomfortable conversations. If you were to go out for drinks with friends, drank too much and did stupid, it might not be something you share with your parents. This example is also applicable to Lanham’s later claim that the rhetorical man can “manipulate reality”: you just tell your parents that you went out with some friends [that] night”.

With a more personal anecdote and an attempt to apply this to a Digital Age situation: When I’m texting friends, I’m more likely to use a wider variety of emojis generally because they are more likely to understand that I carefully choose my emoji faces. 

a screenshot of my recent emojis 

Quick example:😠 and 😡 are pretty different emotions when I text my close friends. 

Same as: 😐and 😑 I think they are supposed to be really similar emojis but that's not how I use them in texts. 

When I text other people that I just met or are basically acquaintances, I usually use a select few emoji faces like 🙂☺️😞😕

And I try to avoid using emojis in all my emails.

To continue with this digital idea: people are sometimes emboldened by the anonymity that the internet can give them. They might be one of the quietest of people with strong political opinions that you’ve never heard, but once they log on as “arrow_98tgif” they feel like a rockstar that can say and do whatever they want. For me, I prefer to stay pretty quiet about certain topics on Social Media or refrain from tagging a ton of people in posts or try not to Share too many funny posts- I don't want to "clog" my accounts.... Weird thought, I know.....

Anyways!

As I decided to “land back on earth” and continue reading, I was happy to read that the serious man is an impossible style (and that I wasn’t too crazy to think I had to immediately defend this idea) and to later read that multiple rhetoric thinkers agree that rhetoric is situational, that all things are equally rhetorical, and something that is performative.

This is the first semester that I have ever been enrolled in a writing class that is focusing on rhetoric. I used to think that I had a good dose of it in high school and WRIT 101- and maybe a couple other classes in college- but I think this is the first semester that I will be formally learning about rhetoric both in this class and my Eng450, and I am realizing how slippery the idea of “rhetoric” is/can be and how little I actually knew about it and the way it can change in meaning and the like. 

It’s both frustrating and fascinating. 🤔