Rhetoric

I can’t say that I have thought too much about what rhetoric really meant. I thought it was a way of relaying the information given efficiently. When it comes to the business world that I am about to enter in a few months, this is a bigger word in my world than I thought.
Herrick further supported of what I thought rhetoric was and really broke down the dynamic that revolves around what rhetoric is. “The study of how we organize and employ language effectively..” Rhetoric, he is defending, is a huge factor in which we use in our everyday life and is simply just a part of who we are as human beings. The way we communicate and take part in his terminology of response making and response inviting is essential in today’s society. We respond to an already existing rhetoric, which could be a conflict between dissimilar interests but that we shouldn’t only apply rhetoric in this scenario but that we should also invite discussion towards a topic or issue as well.
Herrick mentioned that there are disagreements with what rhetoric entails and I didn’t like that he didn’t include a strong point from the opposing side. The biggest issue that he stated was using rhetoric with its association with persuasion. This could be contradictory if the motives of ones rhetoric is elusive or clearly evident, “hidden or openly admitted”. Persuasion is recognized as being an powerful tool and its misuse can string along academic stipulation but I think this can apply to many things.
Silva Rhetoricae layed a different issue on rhetoric which brought up another dynamic not discussed to much in Herrick’s article. She puts on the table the issue of how through rhetorical examination the methods can be discounted as something concerned more with style and appearance and not with the “quality or content of communication.” This is how she breaks rhetoric down into content and form. The form or delivery is a huge part of how the content or information given is absorbed by the audience at hand. The delivery is crucial and these two factors to overlap but which one is more important? The issue that she sees with this is that sometimes thoughts and ideas have been prioritized over language and the importance of the actual content can be overlooked.
Both Herrick and Silva made great points and what I got out of it is that you have to be careful when using rhetoric to its full potential that one has to keep track of ones motives and that there is much more that one should keep in mind like, your audience, your content, and your delivery when dealing with rhetoric.