"Think for yourself and question authority"

At a young age, we are taught to obey our parents and teachers without question, which is quite necessary due to a child or teenager's lack of life experience.  However, there comes a time when every man or woman must start shaping his/her own life.  This requires the ability to make sound decisions with the information at hand without the influence of an authoritative figure.  At our age, we must think for ourselves when making decisions that will resonate years ahead.  Otherwise, one day we'll wake up wondering how we got there.  Adhering to the status quo is fine, but not questioning it beforehand is moronic.

The title of this post is a quote by Dr. Timothy Leary which I always keep in the back of my mind.  That alone will protect our freedom of thought and speech.  Sometimes it's easier to follow the mass opinion and do what we're told, but it's always necessary to question the foundations of argument and motivation behind that authority.  For the purposes of this post, authority can be thought of as simply the sum of the ideas, messages, or ultimatums which we encounter in our lives through media or any type of communication. 

Our thoughts, decisions, and actions are influenced by inescapable external factors such as the media, but I think it's our duty as human beings to decide for ourselves what to believe.  The ability to extract truth from a statement made by a politician or in the media, I think, relies heavily on a basic understanding the tools of rhetoric.  Without that, emotions may get the better of our reason, and a decision will be made based solely on the ability of the speaker to move an audience.  We, day in and day out, are the audience of the media.  We are the ones being persuaded, and, as such must be able to guard ourselves against being persuaded to an unjust position.  This requires thinking for ourselves, almost as if we are the rhetor and the audience all in one.  Additionally, I think it's important to be able to have a rhetorical discourse with friends or whoever.  Educated decisions are made more naturally when you can take in other opinions.

In The Rhetorical Situation, Bitzer states, "In the best of all possible worlds, there would be communication perhaps, but no rhetoric - since exigences would not arise...the world presents imperfections to be modified by means of discourse - hence the practical need for rhetorical investigation and discourse."  Because the worlds imperfections won't be going away in the near future, neither can rhetoric.  Understanding how rhetoric and the tools of persuasion are used is the only way to avoid being on the bad side of that 'modification'.  Aristotle said it best in Book 1, Chapter 1: "A man can confer the greatest of benefits by a right use of these [tools of persuasion], and inflict the greatest of injuries by using them wrongly."

up and running

Hey guys this is Kyle and I'm a senior ME student.  A little about myself... I love Clemson, the outdoors, good friends, good food, good music, and a good beer.  I've never blogged before so this should be interesting.  That's all I've got for now.  See you thursday.