Final Reflection

Recently, I had read a short paragraph that I had written at the beginning of this semester. The paragraph was composed of an answer I had given to the question, How would you define ‘composition’? Truthfully, though I like to think that my understanding of this subject has advanced in the past three months, still I do not want to be dishonest: it has got to do with persuasion, though beyond that, another’s guess is as good as mine.
My favorite definition of rhetoric (composition) is given by I.A. Richards, who said – maybe speciously – that composition is “the study of misunderstandings and their remedies.” This is a lovely little sentence, and I am certain that at another time, it may have had a good deal of relevance to a way of life far removed from our own cynical times, which, so it seems, has made “misunderstanding” –read: deliberate ignorance- a way of life, and consumption the remedy. Sadly, rhetoric has come to mean for most of us nothing other than the misleading of others for one’s own gain; I hope that in some other, more enlightened society, far in the future, we can regain the more noble meaning of rhetoric, which Andrea Lunsford defined simply as the “art, practice, and study of human communication.”
Does writing have the capacity to help the community come together? Without a doubt, many people seem to value family. “They’re my foundation,” wrote a 17-year old high school student, Kristiana St. John, in an article entitled “Youths’ stuff of happiness may surprise

parents.” The girls later commented that, though she may occasionally do something “stupid,” to be told by her mother that she was loved made her feel “very happy and blessed.” When I read these words, I was reassured by what I have always thought about communication, that is to say, it is a form that is far too vast to simply be used for manipulating or persuading others. Of this I am completely adamant. To insist that all communication is in one form or another hinged upon moving another in the direction one wants, I think, is too short-sighted. This mother wants her daughter to be as she is, no more.
Also, I have come to believe that writing and communication – particular ones – needn’t be inhibited by what are called the three important forms of communication: logos, ethos, and pathos. Let’s go to the extremes of sentiment, one on each side of our character. I think that, if we consider on the one hand tyranny and on the other passiveness, who could say that either is includes an argument? If I beat the whip down on your skin, telling you “Do as I say or the alternative is this,” what is my argument? Likewise, if you rejoined, “I had better do as he says, or I’ll get the whip,” you, as the tormented, could no more be considered to be as one who makes arguments than I, the tormenter: we simply exchange orders and meek replies of consent, which are hardly at all like arguments. Now, I do not mean to imply that rhetoric is based upon legitimacy, not in the moral sense, at least. I do say, however, that an argument must rely upon some external form of reason as much as an internal form. “Do as I say or the whip”: There is the internal reason, which, I suppose, is sound, assuming I were to follow through. But what if I was bluffing, and, instead, was only making a joke at your expense. To say, then, that my saying “Do as I say or the whip” confers the same meaning, whether I am joking or being sadistic, is not convincing: often,

communication is highly deterministic – meaning it’s controlled by the context in which we communicate.
I value writing. I have wanted to teach English for some time, though, to be truthful, I am skeptical about what possibilities writing could have in the future. I do not think that our society deems it worthy of the value it has, which has left mixed results. In a short time – maybe in the past ten years – I’ve been flabbergasted by the break-neck speed in which the culture has moved from what was once a more literate culture to one so heavily reliant upon imagery. From entertainment, to the way that we get our information to how we interact, electronics has become the dominant mode of modern life, which, to be sure, has benefits and drawbacks. Teaching will benefit from this, but somehow will be hurt by it, as is the clear case in how brief our children’s attention spans are, what, with the need to be constantly consumed with this or another gadget, like a cell phone or an i-pod. Recently, I heard that the Texas Tech library will soon begin to ship its books out to warehouses where, it was told, the books will be stored and eventually destroyed. The reason is because, supposedly, the students spend 98% of their effort in the library using computers. “A glorified coffee shop” is what the Tech library would be, said an employee. I couldn’t answer.
What is composition? In my view, it is something that I hope has a future.