Out of the two readings, I found the Grant-Davie piece to
be more enjoyable. I liked the way it took Bitzer’s ideas and made them a
little easier to understand, and even ripped them apart at times. The terminology
was much easier to understand, so now I at least feel more comfortable
understanding what the heck they are all talking about.
I guess the rhetorical situation that comes to my mind is
the class mid-term project I have for my NAS Food Science class. The project
theme is for us as a class to prepare a feast for 150-200 people from the
community. Since it is based on the tribal cultures, the food is meant to be as
original as we can find or make. Most of the class was all for just inviting
people off the street, but I told them that we can’t do that because of health
reasons. I had documents from the State Health Department (I was the dictated liaison),
stating what we could and couldn’t do, and wild game was off the list if we
opened it to the general public. Of course other ‘rhetors’ were mad and
spouting off that ‘I don’t have to worry about this bullshit when I have a bbq
in my backyard’. I understand that one of the constraints with rhetoric is
previous historical instances, and since this was a NAS class, history just
fueled the fire. I was basically called a ‘colonialist sympathizer’ and that
the feast would take place regardless of the punishment. Once I told the class
the fines and possible lawsuits involved, the angry tone finally shut down.
I understand that rhetoric is a great tool for discussion,
but when one side is using facts and rational, and the other side is just using
ignorance as a rebuttal, that’s where I have a problem. What really annoyed me
about this situation was the fact that the people that were getting all pissed off
were grad students that aren’t even tribal. They were attempting to use their
ethos to get everyone all pissed off about the rules. They were attacking the
State Department and anyone else in the class who supported the rules, when
they all knew MSU said ‘no’ to our group for the very same reasons.
When it was said and over, the group as a whole decided to
just invite certain people, which was ok under the state guidelines.
NAS food science? What isn't a class. In this instance I find it funny that all the people involved could do something, like have a bbq, but what was argued over was they way it was done, the "policy" concept of stasis.
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