Lundsford and Ede make an interesting argument about the distinctions typically drawn between classical and modern rhetoric. Their biggest contentions lie in the four major distinctions typically made between classical and modern rhetoric:
1. Man as a rational animal living in a unified, stable society vs. Man as symbol-using animal living in a fragmented society.
2. An emphasis on logical proofs vs. An emphasis on emotional proofs.
3. Antagonistic rhetor-audience relationship (one-way communication) vs Cooperative rhetor-audience relationship (two-way communication)
4. Goal of persuasion vs Goal of communication.
I think they make a strong argument by saying that Aristotle's texts should not be interpreted in isolation because taking statements out of context almost always changes meaning; I think back to Obama's "you didn't build that" fiasco. I can agree with Lundsford and Ede that Aristotle's emotion and logic are probably not as distinct from each other as critics have made them out to be and perhaps believing that Aristotle thought society was unified and stable when his own country was in total upheaval seems unrealistic. However, like Jacob, I have trouble believing that the rhetor-audience relationship Aristotle describes in Rhetoric is interactive and generative with a goal of communication and not persuasion.
While writing my reflection on rhetoric, before I read Lundsford and Ede's article, I myself made similar distinctions, as I grouped classical rhetoric with one-way persuasion and modern rhetoric with collaboration and social interactions. We most recently saw this grouping also in Campbell's piece, when she discussed women's liberation rhetoric as distinctive from traditional concepts of the rhetorical process, namely the persuasion of audiences by an expert leader. Aristotle says in Rhetoric, "The modes of persuasion are the only true constituents of the art: everything else is merely accessory" (179). He also says in Rhetoric that "rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion" (181). It seems pretty clear to me that rhetoric is heavily concerned with persuasion for Aristotle. To say that it is not persuasion and instead generative communication seems like a stretch. Travis makes a point that there is a sort of consubstantiality in enthymemes as the rhetor and the audience jointly produce them. However, enthymemes have a conclusion that has been established. While part of the argument is missing, and it is up to the audience to fill in the unstated assumption, once they do it will lead them to an already determined conclusion. This hardly seems generative to me. What I consider to be generative is Campbell's discussion of the small leaderless groups of women who talk about private experience which raises public consciousness; I consider this generative. So, I think Lundsford and Ede may have a point with their contentions on the first two distinctions (man as rational being and the emphasis on logical proofs), but I am not convinced by their contentions with the latter two (one-way communication and goal of persuasion).
Pretty early in his article, Zappen characterizes classical rhetoric in the very way that Lundsford and Ede find contentions with, as a strategy of persuasion. Zappen says that dialogue occurring in new mediums challenge the view that associates rhetoric exclusively with persuasion (321). Instead of simply a mode of persuasion, dialogue could be conceived of as "a testing of one's own ideas, a contesting of others' ideas, and a collaborative creating of ideas" (320). By making this distinction between classical rhetoric and modern rhetoric, Zappen reinforces the typical characteristics that are assigned to the two: persuasion as the goal of classical rhetoric and collaboration, self-expression, and participation as the goals of modern (digital) rhetoric. Zappen goes on to further express the typical distinctions of classical rhetoric and modern rhetoric: "Studies of the new digital media also explore some of the purposes and outcomes of communication in digital spaces: not only persuasion for the purpose of moving audiences to action or belief, but also self-expression for the purpose of exploring individual and group identities and participation and creative collaboration for the purpose of building communities of shared interest" (322).
Modern rhetoric needs to be collaborative and generative since society functions in public, shared spaces more than ever because of the internet. It seems that definitions of rhetoric have evolved with historical contexts. To say that classical rhetoric was collaborative seems to be forcing an unlikely definition on the context. A few, privileged people had the authority to speak in Aristotle's time, and the rest did not. Now with the "speed, reach, anonymity, and interactivity" of digital communication, everyone can speak. While I agree with Joe that we have to let Aristotle live on because he has a lot to offer to our understanding of rhetoric, I don't think we need to stretch interpretations of his rhetoric to account for how we understand rhetoric in the present.
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