Rhetoric in Our Heads: The Speaker and Audience as One

Image courtesy of Rik Hartley

Before taking this course, I had never really thought about rhetoric as an everyday tool; I pictured it as a thing reserved to political discussions, public forums, and formal debates. The realization that it is something we use in practically every meaningful conversation was the most striking concept of this course so far.

Though the definition of rhetoric we have used in class was broader than my own to begin with, that definition, upon further reflection, may have an unnecessary constraint: the existence of a second person.

We have applied the study of rhetoric to group decisions, such as deciding where to go out to eat. Each person who wishes to contribute to the decision presents their argument, and, after weighing each argument, the group decides where to eat in a way that is satisfactory for everyone involved. Those presenting the arguments use the tools of rhetoric.

What if this same reasoning could be applied to individual decisions? When someone decides where to eat, he or she goes through a similar process, weighing the perceived advantages and disadvantages of several different possible choices before settling on one.

However, weighing the advantages and disadvantages of different choices is not the same as making a rhetorical argument for or against each choice. In the absence of new arguments from outside sources, people only rarely convince themselves to meaningfully change their mind. Whatever the advantages and disadvantages of a certain restaurant are to a certain person, they will likely remain the same unless that person takes in new information or arguments.

So is rhetoric applicable at all to individual minds? In the case of opinions, probably not. However, it may be applicable to changes in behavior.

Imagine a man who wanted to start going to the gym. However, he could never find the motivation to; every night, he told himself he would go the next day, but every morning he told himself he was too tired. But then, one morning, the man said to himself, "If you don't go to the gym now, then you'll never go to the gym." And so he went to the gym.

The logic of the man's declaration is questionable, but it is a (simple) rhetorical argument in favor of going to the gym. It has a speaker (the man), an audience (also the man), and a message (you should go to the gym). It even achieves its goal.

I believe that situations like this present examples of rhetoric between a person and him- or herself. Furthermore, I believe that, by leveraging the tools of rhetoric, we can, as the man did in this situation, convince ourselves to change our behavior in a positive way.