Booth, Wayne. The Rhetoric of Rhetoric

Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Rehtoric. Balckwell: Malden, MA. (2004).

"Since we are all flooded daily with rhetoric, admirable and contemptible, we are in desparate need of serious rhetorical study, everywhere" (Preface ix).

If we are unable to recognize the "designing rhetorics" which surround and encompass us (interppelate us) then we are unable to avoid the consequences of such rhetoric. He is so right.

"To study the rhetoric of rhetoric is one thing; to work as a rhetor, as I am doing most of the time here--arguing for sometimes even preaching about, the importance of that kind of study -- is quite different. Yet we all often travel under the same term: "My field is rhetoric."

That being said, what if one studies composition and rhetoric. I mean it becomes even more convoluted as we try to explain what we study. I've finally gotten down to, my field is composition and rhetoric, emphasis rhetoric, emphasis affective rhetoric. However, this doesn't mean I have no interest otherwise.


"In short, rhetoric does not make Reality One, Unchangeable Truths. It aids us in discovering them, as it makes and remakes our circumstances and beliefs -- our temporary realities -- along the way" (14).

From Aristotle and Cicerto to Edbauer and Booth, everyone talks about how rhetoric "creates" reality and/or truth, and all come up with different ways of looking at it. Basically, I think, that the point is that reality helps to create the individual's truth for that moment. Women as individuals interpellating ideologies in the 1700's were living the truth, the truth as it stood for them.


"Augustine in the end decided that, since the devil has in his hands the resources of rhetoric, we on God's side must feel free to use it in defense" (26).

"One of the saddest forms of LR-d comes when it is obviously impossible to fight back: either surrender and engage in self-censorship or die. 'I must say what those with power over me want me to say'" (49).

LRD is what Booth calls "surrender-rhetoric" rhetoric which persuades the listener that there is no other alternative other than to follow the dictates of the writer/author/authority. Designing rehtorics share this feature in that somehow they insinuate themselves so deeply there seems to be little alternative. I think this must be done through something like Burke's consubstantiation or through interpellation. We are absorbed into our belief systems.


"No rhetorical effort can succeed if it fails to join in the beliefs and passions of the audience addressed, and that almost always requires some 'accomodation,' 'adjustment', or 'adaptation' to the audience's needs and expectations" (51).

Aristotle's idea that one should find an emotional key into the audience.


"Any nation is in trouble if its citizenhs are not trained for critical response to the flood of misinformation poured over them daily" (89).

"Such practice of 'situation ethics'--what T.S. Eliot called a 'balance of contrarities' -- is required of us daily, quite aside from politics" (120).

If we are unable to disclose rhetoric as individuals, that "situational ethics" question becomes even more important. Transnational rhetoric and things such as "Save the Children" being one that comes to mind. That situation draws people in through their desire to be able to see themselves as caring and giving, and yet at the same time gives them misconceived notions about people in certain geographies.