Argument as Emergence, Rhetoric as Love Response – Blog # 3

I really enjoyed reading Jim Corder’s piece, “Argument as Emergence, Rhetoric as Love,” because it put rhetoric into a completely new perspective for me. I have always seen rhetoric as just a means to persuade people, which was an okay definition when I was in high school, but now I see how much more complex it is than that. Rhetoric is a way of making arguments, but then again, everything that we do is an argument. What’s important is to look at the way that we define “argument.” It’s not a disagreement with someone or even just “something to present or to display” (Corder 26). We are the arguments themselves.

Rather, we can think of arguments as emergence, as the title of this piece suggests. It requires us to step far outside of our comfort zone and approach a competing argument with an attitude of love or understanding. We must “learn to love before we disagree” (26) so that we can determine how people who hold differing opinions come to their own conclusions, just as they should do for us. We never have the assurance that the other person will take the same approach to an argument, but it is important that we take this step on our own. An argument is basically any assertion that we make or hold to be true, and it is inevitable that our arguments will conflict with those of other people. This is why it is so necessary that we learn to love first; too much conflict begins in this world due to a lack of understanding or misunderstandings. Rhetoric, with an eye to love, allows diversity to flourish and more complex and intelligent arguments to be made.