First Blog

I find the that writing digitally with rhetoric is not that different than reading Socrates and Gorgias argue like a high school debate team that seem to ramble on and on in that syntax. I also cannot help but think of the similarities in which they are connected as a form of writing.  Then if rhetoric is committed to radical indeterminacy and thus becomes an art by making what was indeterminate determinate than such is writing the truth in the way you must think of its idiosyncrasies:  Euphemisms, I hate euphemisms and seem like such a throw back from the truth.  George Carlin once said, “White well-to-do business men have invented a language used to conceal its sins.”

Now I am not saying that rhetoric is bad but the context is what I am referring too.  If rhetoric is used to determine the truth what was indeterminable then what is so bad about telling the truth and forgo the scheme to figure this out?  The answer is nothing. What I find annoying about rhetoric is that it builds and builds like a sick avalanche of arrogance because of the lies and deceit surrounding its use.  Taking the condition “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” and breaking through the lies and the deceit surrounding the formation of that particular condition we find America in its brightest moment of hiding the truth.  My father is a Vietnam Veteran and stayed in the Armed Forces to serve an additional thirty-seven years as well as deal with PTSD.  My little brother served in Afghanistan and has been battling PTSD today.  The condition itself is when the mind has been stressed to a breaking point and it has either snapped or is about to snap and the person can no longer deal with anything even the thought of family relations is painful to them.

The condition post-traumatic stress disorder began its founding during the First World War when it was called shell shock.  Two syllables honest and direct.  Then the Second World War happened and the exact same condition then became “Battle Fatigue.”  The syllable count increased to four and the pain from shell shock has begun to now be buried under jargon.  Shortly after the war in Korea happened and the exact same condition was given another name: Operational Exhaustion.  We have gone from two and four syllables to eight and the pain is almost gone it is merely a fraction of what it was.  Then came the war in Vietnam which was buried in lies and deceit and the rhetoric used to justify the wrongness of it was not targeted to the politicians that orchestrated it but was instead used to slam returning veterans as retaliation for Washington sending them over there, it should be no surprise that the very same condition was rebranded as “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” Still eight syllabus but guess what? There’s a hyphen now and the pain from Shell Shock is now completely buried under jargon. 

With regard to my thoughts on the class and what we have gone over I did like the Plato piece because of the intent between the two in their arguing especially the one where they talk about Rhetoric being like cooking.  While I do like the idea I am still against the euphemism’s attached to the ideas of rhetoric use.