The first time I was supposed to define rhetoric for this class, I didn’t realize that was the assignment, and I turned in something completely different. I will try very hard not to make that mistake again. The word that I chose to associate with rhetoric in that first class is “discourse.” Certainly at the time I knew that discourse didn’t encompass rhetoric, but its only now a week or two later that I see better exactly how rhetoric encompasses discourse. Rhetoric, I’ve learned, is architectonic, it’s the foundation for everything. Any time communication happens, or is intended to happen, that’s rhetoric at work. Discourse is communication obviously so is thus rhetoric in action.

When I talked about discourse in my first assignment, I referenced it most often in it’s political aspect. The words and plans from the candidates mouths, that was the discourse I was interested in, the kind that I felt closest to rhetoric. I was closer to the mark than I could have been. Rhetoric is inherently for the public, and has been studied and explained as such since the time of Plato. The citizens of the polis would speechify and argue over what was best for their pure democracy, and through this rhetoric, come to a consensus on how things should be done. Now this is a far cry from the political debates of today, but I’m happy that with my chosen term of discourse, I was able to strike back to the roots of the matter.