Creating Reality

In November of 1979, Barry Brummett wrote an article propositioning that "rhetoric is epistemic." By using three key meanings, methodological, sociological, and ontological, Brummett wove his way through "multiple conceptions of reality, knowledge and communication."

 

This being said, the theory that I agree with the most when it comes to looking at his article from the stand point of "Writing in a Digital Age" is Ontological. This idea that - "...rhetoric creates all of what there is to know. Discourse does not merely discover truth or make it effective. Discourse creates realities rather than truths about realities."  - fits perfectly into the 21st century and how people are communicating with one another through media outlets and new found technologies. People today are creating their own realities, their own forms of truth that they choose to believe rather than just going along with what they hear. The internet has made it possible to search for  possible truths and a way to release our feelings through public texts how we feel about them.

 

I look at the internet as a gateway to whatever we want it to be. It can be a Sunday night movie, a research tool the night before a big paper is due, a second reality through online books, or even a phone call through Facebook or Skype. It is our second realities, our second cyber worlds, and with it comes new guidelines, new knowledge or teachings, and new ways to communicate with one another. "The ontological view posits rhetoric as a dimension of all activity rather than as an activity in its own right." The internet is a dimension of all activity including communicating, learning, expressing, and arguing. So yes, I definitely can see how this specific point in Brummett's article could reflect back into our class.

 

The article was, however, a very difficult read (personally). I've only taken one psychological class here at Potsdam and a lot of the terminology was hard to follow, making my thoughts on the article hard to pin point down directly at first. I'm hoping that we stick to more hand's on things in the future and let the theories stay with the experts - this article was far from a favorite of mine.