Lloyd Bitzer presents a theory of situation in his piece "The Rhetorical Situation." I personally found this to be a nice change of pace from the material presented in Edbauer-Rice, Massumi, Brennan, etc. Bitzer writes that "It seems clear that rhetoric is situational" (3) which I agree for the most part. That is, I agree that "Rhetorical discourse is called into existence by situation" (9); Bitzer uses Kennedy's assassination as an example of the situation generating specific types of rhetorical discourse that included an explanation of the events, reassurance that the transfer of government would be orderly, etc. I think overall Bitzer presents a nice theory of rhetorical situation, although it is perhaps a little one-dimensional and it certainly doesn't involve the way we've discussed how affect surrounds us.
Instead, I want to focus in a bit on something Bitzer says near the end of his piece that "In the best of all possible worlds, there would be communication perhaps, but no rhetoric — since exigences would not arise" (13). I have to disagree strongly with this sentiment. It seems to me that communication inherently involves exigence even with Bitzer's definition of exigence as "imperfection marked by urgency" (6). Bitzer's supposed best world sounds, as Professor Davis mentioned in class, a hell. Perhaps I am being too nitpicky on a single sentence but it just seems difficult for me to conceive of any world as being better without rhetoric; I suppose things might be clearer and more direct but I'm sure that life would also be infinitely more dry and boring.
I have to agree wholeheartedly with your last point on how a world without exigence is effectively hell, or more accurately, purgatory (which is less "OH GOD THIS SUCKS I WANT OUT" and far more a collective "meh."). I think Bitzer seems to have forgotten that biological imperatives for reproduction and survival would not only make a world without exigency of some sort boring and ecologically unsustainable, but completely impossible as well so long as life in some form or another exists.
ReplyDeleteBitzer is little bit too easy for me, theoretically speaking, but I totally see your point. Not to say that I'm super pretentious and like reading dense theory (I really don't; it's exhausting). I think Bitzer provides a good foundation for rhetoric students in order to understand rhetorical situations, exigency, etc. I, personally, found Massumi and Brennan to be more intriguing, despite the language barrier--that is, the secret language of the Ivory Tower of Academia.
ReplyDeleteI, like you, found Bitzer’s The Rhetorical Situation to be an easier and less conceptually challenging read than many of the other texts we’ve read so far. While I do agree with his essential claim—that rhetoric is situational—I think he simplifies rhetoric and rhetorical practice too much. He argues for a mechanistic, almost formulaic recipe for rhetoric. If rhetoric is absolutely and necessarily determined by the situational factors (exigence, audience, constraint), as Bitzer claims, then what role does the rhetor play? The rhetor has been undermined; he has been reduced to a puppet whose sole job is to formulaically produce the already pre-determined rhetoric.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your final paragraph completely. Life without exigence would be perfect in the sense that there would be no imperfections, but it would be hell (or purgatory) in that it would be drama-less, urgency-less, and downright boring. It would be an existence with no conflict, where rhetoric would be completely nonexistent.
Your post reminds me of the song by the Talking Heads that has the line "Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens". This line has always struck me as odd, because it seems like Hell to me, which coincides with professor Davis comment.
ReplyDeleteEric, I agree that a world without rhetoric would be completely boring, but it also wouldn't work. That'd be like two little kids playing and one deciding that they wanted to play jump rope. The other child would have to agree, and so on and so on. If ever the children disagreed upon which game they want to play, which as we know happens all of the time, then there would be an exigence. But at the end of the day, what Bitzer said was just a hypothetical, so we can't be too nitpicky! ;)
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