This week I kept thinking about Lloyd Bitzer’s “The Rhetorical Situation.”
Who is he and what is the rhetorical situation?
Loyd Bitzer’s “is regarded as ‘one of the most respected rhetoricians of the latter half of the twentieth century,” and his piece “The Rhetocial Situation” is the ‘single most influential piece by a rhetorical scholar in the communication discipline during the second half of the twentieth century” (University of Madison-Wisconsin memoriam).
Reflecting on this week’s historical insurrection and attempt to overtake the United States Capital and the democratic principles we hold as a country – the Constitution of the United States; the words in which we use today will define and form tomorrow.
We are responsible for that. Just as we are responsible for every word we use.
I encourage you to read the whole piece – at least the first few pages.
Why am I pulling this out of a hat?
Read on:
Rhetoric:
“Is a mode of altering reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects, but by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action.
The rhetor alters reality by bringing into existence a discourse of such character that the audience, in thought and action, is so engaged that it becomes mediator of change. In this sense rhetoric is always persuasive” (4).
“We need to understand that a particular discourse comes into existence because of some specific condition or situation which invites utterance” (4).
Comes into existence – we create our own.
Bitzer quotes, ‘Each utterance is essentially bound up with the context of the situation and with the aim of the pursuit . . .
The structure of all this linguistic material is in extricably mixed up with, and dependent upon, the course of the activity in which utterances are embedded.‘
“Language functions as a link in concerted human activity, as a piece of human behavior. It is a mode of action and not an instrument of reflection.”
Our thoughts and language create our future. We know this –
Language has no link to reflection; in its current present state existence.
Next point is super important as I keep thinking about this insurrection solely:
“Let us regard rhetorical situation as a natural context of persons, events, objects, relations, and an exigence which strongly invites utterance;
this invites utterance participates naturally in the situation,
is in many instances necessary to the completion of situational activity,
and by means of its participation with situation obtains its meaning and its rhetorical character” (5).
The rhetorical situation means:
1) rhetorical discourse comes into existence as a response to situation, in the same sense that an answer comes into existence as a response to a question, or a solution in response to a problem; (emphasis added)
2) a speech is given rhetorical significance by the situation, just as a unit of discourse is given significance as answer or as solution by the question or problem;
3) a rhetorical situation must exist as a necessary condition of rhetorical discourse, just as a question must exist as a necessary condition of an answer; (emphasis added)
4) many questions go unanswered and many problems remain unsolved; similarly, many rhetorical situations mature and decay without given birth to rhetorical utterance
This is our responsibility –
5) a situation is rhetorical insofar as it needs and invites discourse capable of participating with situation and thereby altering its reality; (emphasis added)
6) discourse is the focal insofar as it functions (or seeks to function) as a fitting response to which needs and invites it;
7) Finally, the situation controls the rhetorical response in the same sense that the question controls the answer and the problem controls the solution.
Not the rhetor and not persuasive intent, but the situation is the source and ground of rhetorical activity – and I should add, of rhetorical criticism” (6).
I have to remark on three constituents of any rhetorical situation :
Exigence, audience, and constraints.
“Exigence is an imperfection marked by urgency; it is a defect, an obstacle, something waiting to be done, a thing which is other than it should be.
In almost any sort of context, there will be numerous exigences, but not all are elements of a rhetorical situation – not all are rhetorical exigences” (6).
What does that mean?
There are a lot of utterances many of which are meaningless. Really up to us to make them so.
Important:
“An exigence which cannot be modified is not rhetorical” : death, winter alike.
“An exigence is rhetorical when it is capable of positive modification and when positive modification requires discourse or can be assisted discourse.”
Positive does not necessarily mean – in positive ways or in a positive mode or words or intention. One hopes – but is not always the case.
It means positive as it is not of permanent state of existence.
Example:
“An attorney whose client has been convicted may strongly believe that a higher court would reject his appeal to have a verdict overturned, but because the matter is uncertain – a science of information enabling precise analysis and certain judgement- because the exigence might be rhetorical – he elects an appeal” (7).
Not absolute.
One last point –
“Rhetorical discourse is called into exigence by situation;
the situation which the rhetor perceives amounts to an invitation to create and present discourse” (9).
Rhetorical situation called into exigence –
The insurrection to overtake American democracy and the rhetorical situation that follows, marked by the climatic exigence is on us.
How we use our words to define and describe in our smallest utterances – is ours.
Bitzer writes about the assignation of President Kennedy – “the historical situation was so compelling and clear that the responses were created almost of necessity” (9).
“Although rhetorical situation invites response, it obviously does not invite just any response; it invites a fitting response” (10).
Our words must be a part of that fitting response –
Remember Elvis Presley shooting his TV? Not a fitting response.
Remember him posing with Nixon:
And then Elvis wrote a Letter to him to act as an undercover agent, an informant for the President?
He was acting on perhaps his personal exigence – a feeling he could let go.
And it is a response to his frustration and his anger. But I would not describe it a fitting response.
Elvis’s words and actions remembered years later. Time wrote about their history – super interesting.
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We as citizens of this Great nation have to accurately and according respond fittingly to insurrection and attempt to over-throw our democracy.
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I want to share the first two lines of Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life :
It is with a kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my life. I have, as it were, a superstitious hesitation in lifting the veil that clings about my childhood like a golden mist.
Stops you in your tracks.
Much love to you and you and you –
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Work cited:
Bitzer, Lloyd. “The Rhetorical Situation.” Philosophy and Rhetoric, vol 1 (1968) pp. 1-14. http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~raha/309CWeb/Bitzer(1968).pdf
Bitzer, Lloyd https://commarts.wisc.edu/lloyd-f-bitzer-1931-2016-in-memoriam/
Keller, Hellen. The Story of My Life. New York. Doubleday, Page & Co. 1903.
Waxman, Olivia “The Story Behind That Famous Photo of Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon. Time. August 15, 2017. https://time.com/4894301/elvis-president-nixon-photo/