A New Gaze

I’m not sure rhetoric has changed, more so the agent and agency has. If the agency is language, then yes it has foregone a transformation, but the intent of rhetoric is the same: to move the audience to action. Maybe it’s how we define action which has changed. Not unlike Astell, black rhetoricians moved into what was unwelcomed territory. Their voices and purposes were/are different than that of Plato’s rhetorician. Their purpose is less about transcendent truth, and more about human equality and social indifference. In many ways this new population is redefining the usage of these rhetorical strategies; what can be used, how it’s used, and for what aims. Plato might first deem Signifying bad rhetoric due to its trickery and manipulation on the surface level. Gates, in response would argue that Signifying is a means of interpretation, a means of persuasion through clever language use. The question is if this strategy works to deliver a message, one of moral value, it challenges what it means to be a good man speaking well. What would Richards say to Gates in terms of meaning that is symbolic and cultural? Burke might argue that Holmes, more accurately, Shuttlesworth, is simply looking through a terministic screen in opposition to racial stigmas. The theory of identification is thus used in Shuttlesworth’s transforming the acronym of KKK and that which allows Gates’ interpretation of signification versus Signifyin[g]. Weaver might say it was Shuttlesworth’s passion and fire that deems language sermonic. If anything, this population moves us back to a more oral tradition in both formal and informal arenas.

  If rhetoric changed, it’s because of the gaze. The speaker has changed, therefore causing a change in how we define language. The stage (e.g. Rhetorical situation, exegesis) has changed, therefore causing a change in how we define audience. This new population has changed the guidelines which Aristotle provides. Aristotle speaks to age, but now we must speak to gender and especially ethnicity. This population has introduced a new collective, with their own shared beliefs, history, and set of motives. In terms of Rhetoric, I wouldn’t call this change, but more inclusive. Rhetoric has opened its gaze and the strategies it employs.