eureka, meandering

okay, so after reading all of the assigned texts from last week i began thinking about what i thought rhetoric was and where it belonged in the world. i wasn't able to come up with a definition or anything, but allow me to think aloud here.

in the booth article there was mention of rhetoric being once considered by scholars and teachers to be worthy of being at the top of the arts. ahead even of the "three primary arts: logic, grammar, and dialectic." the notion that rhetoric might rule over all other human arts appeals to me as i begin to theorize in my head what rhetoric is. follow me here. i am thinking that all things, all persons, all decisons, etc. are influenced by the environment. likewise, all these things are able, in turn, to imprint themselves on the environment. a sort of give and take. the inability of scholars and teachers to come up with any uniform definition of what rhetoric is, etc. provides me with some room to think of rhetoric as all the things ascribed to it.

perhaps rhetoric is the facilitator for all study of all things. it is the process in which one goes thru in which they can analyse, create, make, or do. maybe it isn't just 'persuasion' or the other side of the coin where psychology lies, but is more like the natural human way in which we conduct our lives. the basic element that allows us to do all things, and to do all things well.

i am not sure it is an art, science, or academic subject. i am thinking that what people are recognizing as rhetoric is just a thought process; it is just like fire in that what we see as fire, or flame - that red-orange and blue-white colored, moving 'thing' is just a visual of a chemical reaction. fire isn't a 'thing' at all it is a consequence, and in that way, i see rhetoric as a reaction or response to the environment interacting with all things within it, including us and our minds, and our spirits, our entire outer and inner worlds, which can be seen, heard, felt, smelt, in all dimensions, with all senses.

or something like that