As I sat
drudging through the first book of Aristotle’s Rhetoric last night, the words of Dr. Stark, conductor of MSU Wind
Symphony, came floating through my mind: "Play
the form." Basically, an audience cannot hear individual sixteenth-notes at
fast tempos; they concentrate more on the form
of the music they expect to hear and notice mistakes in rhythm and tempo more
so than "wrong" notes. I think there’s something to be said about "playing the
form" in rhetoric as well.
Look carefully
at the first sentence of most of the paragraphs on page 187. These phrases
really caught my attention:
1. "the
intending speaker will need to know…"
2. "he
must know…"
3. "he
ought to know…"
4. "he
must before all things understand…"
Here, Aristotle
emphasizes the speaker’s mastery or knowledge of his subject; he also argues
that the good character of a speaker will persuade an audience of his
credibility (182). Why? We typically believe that good men are honest and, by
their very integrity, they would’ve "done their research." If we follow this
reasoning to its logical end, we may end up getting "duped" like the audiences
at music concerts—we focus more on the form
or appearance of the argument rather than the correct content. Through example, Aristotle himself provides us the "trappings" of a fine argument: exhaustive definitions, specific examples, quotes from
other sources…Not only can we "play the form" to make our (hopefully true)
arguments even more sound, but we can watch out for its deceptive uses in other
arguments as well.
The parallel you draw between an audience hearing a symphony and listening to rhetoric is very provocative. I can't help but think about the saturation of rhetoric in our society-- like musical forms, we become attuned to the 'forms' and 'rhythms' even if we're not explicitly trained in them. As you describe, this inherent expertise allows the audience to feel irregularities even if if we can't articulate them.
ReplyDeleteThis made me think about advertising today, where a constant raising of the stakes between companies and individuals has raised the 'standard' or 'expected' means of advertising to a startlingly (and at times shockingly) high level. Not only has the 'form' of what we expect in advertising in many ways desensitized us to their radical measures presenting body image, bold structures, and grabbing words, but has in fact led us as a collective to expect this. Smaller, less well-connected, or less wealthy companies or individuals without the means to foot advertising on the scale of a Hollywood-esque design are not only less frequently noted, but sometimes even subconsciously attributed with less authenticity or worth.
I think it's a great exercise to think of all these forms as a current human norm, and thinking about how that's changed from Aristotle's time to project how it might continue to change in the future.
Sadie,
ReplyDeleteThe third time's the charm!
I think it is fascinating what you were able to do with these connections of music and rhetoric. How often do we follow the form instead of listen for the content? How often, as readers, do we act like members of your audience -- "duped" by the form, as you called it. But, I wonder too, are we aware as authors of when the audience will be doing this? Do we use it as a tool? A rhetorical tool? If I didn't want them to look too closely at the content (maybe because there is a hidden fallacy, or something of the sort) how could I play the form? How could I fool them into reading something other than the content I need to present? Ohhhh, the possibilities.
I love watching the connections people make with rhetoric. Because of your connection with wind symphony, my mind is reeling in a thousand different directions. I often refer back to my Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Studio in the Writing Center last semester. How do the maps they create work rhetorically? How do they play the form? How often, when a reader looks at a map, do they only look at the image, and not bother to situate themselves with the content provided in the Key? There are so many questions!
I'm seeing a lot of connections between what you are discussing in your post and what we are currently reading about in Digital Rhetorics. For instance, we just finished discussing hyper-texts and how readers interact with e-text. It was found that people read on a desktop screen in an "F" form. Basically, we scan the top few lines, then the left side and we are done. The bottom right side, then, is the least effective place to put information. Is this how we interact with other texts? Is this how we play the form? How does this apply to maps?!? Hmmm..
Thank you for giving me brain food, Sadie!