Aristotle's Contemporary Rhetoric

Contemporary Rhetoric
Exam- Unit 1
Part I: Is there anything new under the sun? How far have we come in the field of communication since Aristotle?
To these questions I suppose I would have to say no, the basis of rhetorical theory and study is not new. However, as to far we have come since Aristotle, I would say the sheer breadth and depth of study of rhetoric and the field of communication as we know it today gives testament that there is new ideas and applications to Aristotle’s original thoughts.
The basis and ideology of Aristotle are still prevalent in our rhetoric study today. For example, the effective means of persuasion (ethos, pathos, logos) were on my very first exam I took in the Speech Communication department at UT Tyler.
His claims that we “separated by natural conditions of our own making” and we are controlled by the negative made me feel like I have no choices in my thinking or living (Burke 432). Although there are many words that are abstract and exist only in our minds, that invention is my truth in my mind, and it then becomes a reality in my own mind. For example, I have an image, symbol, for what ‘success’ is, and what it means to me. Just because I cannot literally convince others of the definition and the meaning of ‘success’, does not mean it cannot exist to me. I strive to achieve my idea, my symbols of ‘success’. If I do achieve this, I think I reached that perfection that exists in my reality. I think we all live in our own reality that we have to define for ourselves, to give ourselves identity. This is what to be a symbol-using animal means to me. My symbols are my
He says humans are goaded by the spirit of hierarchy (or moved by a sense of order) and rotten with perfection. I seem to easily put things in certain areas to rank them in order to reach perfection. In page 15 of his book it says, “man’s skills with symbols combines with his negativity and with the tendencies towards different modes of livelihood implicit in the inventions that make for divisions of labor, the result being definitions and differentiations and allocations of property protected by the negativities of the law”. I necessary do not have “divisions of labor” that I can place others in because I have no hierarchy. I do, however, have a tendency to rank things in life to achieve perfection. I do have a problem with overanalyzing my speaking, and also always having to be in respectful submission in order to appear perfect. I work with the public in the service industry with people who think they can say anything to me and I am supposed to happily oblige and fulfill their every wish; does this make me strive for perfection? Do I have a tendency to a different mode of livelihood, or strive to reach a different level of hierarchy? There is a strong possibility that I have a desire to reach a certain status and this desire is motivation of my communication style (but nowhere near the God-like status he proposes). I have never dealt well when it comes to perfection. It is probably because as Burke says, ‘the perfect’