“Sustainability” vs. Sustainable Ambiguity

Have you noticed the proliferation of phrases like “sustainable product” or “sustainable business” or “the sustainable university”?

It seems everyone and everything nowadays is aiming to sustain itself as if it were intrinsically a good thing to be sustainable.

But “being sustainable” is not necessarily the same as “promoting sustainability.”

In this post, I discuss the way in which the overuse of the simple word  “sustainable” without the “-ity” at the end can be dangerously ambiguous  and can actually hinder sustainability-thinking, sustainability education, and the  sustainability movement.

This rhetorical practice may, in fact, promote sustainable ambiguity.

 

Fear of public speaking — a worn-out cliche?

from Munch, "The Scream," Wikipedia Commons

How many times have you heard or read the claim that the average person fears public speaking more than they fear death?

If you search online for “fear of public speaking,” you will not be likely to stumble upon articles from psychology journals in the first few pages of hits.   This is what you will find — web sites that are providing advice or coaching on public speaking.

In such essays and speeches, it stars as an introductory strategy.  The fear is often vaguely cited from hearsay, and often involves a misinterpretation of the usual survey methods and results.

When a speaker fails to back up specific claims about the “fear of public speaking,” it becomes a rhetorical cliche.

This article examines the potential benefits and harms of using it as an introductory cliche, and the benefits of investigating the research further.

 

Cause and Effect in Rhetoric (Part 7)

"Cassandra" by Evelyn de Morgan. The prophetess that nobody believed. (from Wikimedia Commons)

This section of the blog article “Cause and effect in rhetoric” discusses how cause and effect arguments are based on  Social Biases and have Disciplinary Power Implications.

For the introduction to the article, go to Cause and Effect in Rhetoric Part 1.

There is a bias in contemporary western society and culture which predisposes us to believe that the more likely “causes” are things to which our culture attributes power – physical matter, biology, money, science, technology, etc.

Cultural and disciplinary bias (to which most of us are subject without realizing it) makes it much harder for scholars to argue cause/effect relationships that are culturally less plausible.

 

Cause and Effect in Rhetoric (Part 6)

Clip from toon by JohnCole, TheTimes-Tribune.com

This section of the blog article “Cause and effect in rhetoric” provides a typology of cause-effect arguments in rhetoric.

It articulates parallels between rhetorical criticism, history, and pedagogy and the three classical genres of epideictic, forensic and deliberative rhetoric.

For the introduction to the article, go to Cause and Effect in Rhetoric Part 1.

 

Cause and Effect in Rhetoric (Part 5)

Clip from toon by JohnCole, TheTimes-Tribune.com

This section of the blog article “Cause and effect in rhetoric” discusses how cause and effect arguments enter into Rhetorical Praxis and Pedagogy.

It discusses the value of rhetorical cause & effect reasoning to the concsciousness of those who practice rhetoric, and to those who teach and learn rhetorical practice

For the introduction to the article, go to Cause and Effect in Rhetoric Part 1.

 

Cause and Effect in Rhetoric (Part 4)

Clip from toon by JohnCole, TheTimes-Tribune.com

This section of the blog article “Cause and effect in rhetoric” discusses how cause and effect arguments enter into Rhetorical History.

It covers some of the approaches to writing histories of rhetorical practice, showing that rhetoric’s effect on society has not been untouched as a purpose or claim of such histories.

However, it is not always the focus of rhetorical histories.

For the introduction to the article, go to Cause and Effect in Rhetoric Part 1.

 

Cause and Effect in Rhetoric (Part 3)

Clip from toon by JohnCole, TheTimes-Tribune.com

This section of the blog article “Cause and effect in rhetoric” discusses how cause and effect arguments enter into Rhetorical Criticism of public address.

For the introduction to the article, go to Cause and Effect in Rhetoric Part 1.

 

Cause and Effect in Rhetoric (Part 2)

Clip from toon by JohnCole, TheTimes-Tribune.com

This section of the blog article “Cause and effect in rhetoric” discusses how cause and effect concepts enter into Speech Act Theory, Rhetorical Theory, and Contemporary Rhetorical Theory.

Speech Act Theory provides us with language to articulate the interaction between rhetorical intention and act, and between a rhetorical act and its effects.

Rhetorical theory has provided claims that help to conceptualize rhetoric’s power to impact society.

Contemporary thought about rhetorical theory seems to be acknowledging that the discipline has wandered from its roots.  Recently, some scholars have urged the discipline to take up the courage to argue and conduct research in this vein.

For the introduction to the article, go to Cause and Effect in Rhetoric Part 1.

 

Cause and Effect in Rhetoric

by JohnCole, TheTimes-Tribune.com -- Would rhetoric be involved in the "Cheney Bomb Scare"?

In this post I am drafting a theory article about Cause and Effect in Rhetorical Scholarship.  I reveal the theories and methods used, and the situations in which rhetorical scholars mount arguments that rhetorical performance (speech, text, discourse) has an effect on audiences, society in general, and history.

This section includes the General Introduction, Causal Reasoning, and Social Constructionism.

Since this article draft is quite long, I have divided it into 7 separate posts. 

 

Thoughts on rhetorical cause & effect

"Cassandra" by Evelyn de Morgan. The prophetess that nobody believed. (from Wikimedia Commons)

Lately I have been pondering the degree to which the belief that “rhetoric has effects on the social world and therefore on history” is fundamentally an ideology or matter of faith, or at least, of theory.

Do you “believe” in the power and potential of your own rhetoric to change history (or have an effect on your family and friends), or do you question it?  Are you a skeptic or a man/woman of faith when it comes to your rhetorical agency and efficacy?

I don’t mean “do you believe rhetoric is all powerful.” No.  I mean, “do you believe that rhetoric can be influential if it is designed to fit the situation and the audience participates in being persuaded.”

If you do believe there is a relationship between what you say/write and how the world changes, then should we not be able to see evdience of that fact when looking at our rhetorical act as history?