This is a paper I wrote for Dr. Carl Herndl’s Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine class in the spring of 2022 at the University of South Florida where I advocated for an “Integration Rhetoric” and an “integration turn” in the field of rhetoric where we spend time integrating all the fragments of rhetoric we already have. I don’t think we do enough (or any?) of that.
DISPATCH FROM THE RHETORIC BAR: LAST CALL FOR INTEGRATION RHETORIC
“It didn’t bother me too much that I didn’t understand actual narrative theory or really never quite got post-structuralism, because I had Ursula Le Guin in my carrier bag – in my net bag – and I understood that Ursula Le Guin had taught me that our job as thinkers is to somehow engage in telling and changing the stories so that they are more livable.” – Donna Haraway
1. INTRODUCTION
Donna Haraway resonates with me for many reasons. We both have a STEM background: she started her academic career as a zoologist, and I’m an engineer. We both admire and find theoretical value in the work of science-fiction writer Ursula Le Guin – she taught Haraway storytelling through her novels, and she provided me inspiration and raw materials for the utopian framework I developed for my master’s thesis. However, no matter how hard we try, we both have trouble with humanities theories and their nuance. Despite her repeated efforts, Haraway knew she was using the language of poststructuralism wrong but says she started “liking the mistakes.” I spent too many hours struggling to comprehend the meaning of paragraph-long, word-art theory sentences filled with references, tangents, binaries, and hyphenated and/or italicized words. Haraway consoles me in her quote above saying effectively that the point is not to achieve perfect knowledge of theories but to take what you can, tell your own stories, and rejoice in the mistakes that others will surely point out. But there’s something else I take from Haraway: a difference between high-level theorists with esoteric language and low-level theorists who are trying to tell stories that are “more livable.” I interpret Haraway’s “more livable” as “more practical” and “more easily understood” using simpler language and graphics more comprehensible to interdisciplinary scholars. As I see it, there’s also a salon/bar metaphor at work here: the high-level theorists occupy the members-only salon in a discipline’s penthouse while the interdisciplinary work is done on the ground-level bar with big windows to view lived reality and an open door where anyone from any discipline can walk in, pull up a chair, and find a conversation. Sometimes the elevator works. At this early stage of my education in rhetoric, there is little else I can do other than follow Haraway’s encouraging advice about making livable stories while I make mistakes and hang out in the rhetoric bar. But I like it here.
The focus of this paper is “integration rhetoric” (IR), a term I coined because it makes sense to me (engineering is all about integration, both mathematical and project design related), is important to me (I wrote my MA thesis on cultural montage and the use of mashup art as a catalyst for cultural integration), and seems a fruitful area of scholarship vital to humanity. The point of IR is to provide an umbrella term for rhetoric that seeks to bring cultures/discourse communities together, either permanently or temporarily, while also ensuring their integrity as separate entities. IR is about multicultural accommodation not assimilation which seeks only to produce a monoculture and purge all others. Further, IR focuses on the dynamics of rhetoric over time and the patterns of rhetoric used to both integrate (to respect and appreciate) as well as separate (to other and denigrate). At Octalog IV in 2021, Ryan Skinnell stated that “good men speaking well retain a position of nearly-unquestioned permanence in rhetorical theory,” but he cautions that we ignore “bad people speaking effectively…at our own peril” (1-2). Skinnell is highlighting a gap or at least an imbalance in the rhetorical scholarship that favors “good people speaking well” over “bad people speaking well.” Considering the extensive harm the latter commit and the accelerated dissemination tools the internet provides them, this scholarly imbalance in rhetoric must be addressed, and this essay introduces Robert Proctor and Londa Schiebinger’s agnotology in section 2 and Carlo Cipolla’s stupidity assessments in section 5 to propose language that may assist rhetoricians in assessing the texts and effects of destructive rhetoric.
Note that IR is nothing new – it is just a new term to highlight and refine what’s already going on. In the early 1960s, there were teams of scientists and librarians who used IR to bridge the gaps between them to effectively wrestle with the burgeoning problem of science information (Johnson 1375). More recently, IR has been used to shift away from the terminal differencing of incommensurability and move toward the integration of ontologies – called postplurality – in addressing the multivalent problem of pain management involving multiple disciplines (Graham and Herndl 110). IR also suggests that rhetoricians shouldn’t always be observers of rhetoric but may and often should be essential participants in the process. Carl Herndl in his “Introduction to the Symposium on Engaged RSTEM” proposes that rhetoricians should work “upstream of science” in an “engaged RSTEM [rhetoric of science, technology, engineering, and medicine]” that stresses the integration of rhetoricians with those in RSTEM disciplines. These three examples fit well under the IR umbrella, but all three are of the popular “good people speaking well” variety. For balance and to address Skinnell’s concerns, IR would also expect and encourage scholarship on the rhetoric that prevents or hinders integration in these three cases. If the goal is positive change via rhetoric, we must know how rhetoric is also used stop this change.
Rather than simply an interesting area for future rhetorical scholarship, IR also provides a viable response to an existential concern of rhetoric as a discipline: where is it going? So far, there have been many rhetorical turns or projects: human-centered, classic rhetoric; New Materialism rhetoric; rhetoric based on networks; and ambient rhetoric, to name just a few. Seems there has been an effort over time to diffuse rhetoric while also investigating the limits of what can counts as the smallest rhetorical effect and if any effort is necessary on the part of the rhetor; e.g., Thomas Rickert claims that even “the camouflage of a harmless butterfly that mimics a dangerous or poisonous lifeform is rhetorical” (418). In other words, rhetoric has been broken down into ever-smaller elements for analysis, which is the natural human investigative approach for both scientific and humanities disciplines. We may soon reach the limit of this differencing mode of rhetorical investigation with “quantum rhetoric” or something similar marking the logical end. Where do we go from there? In engineering, breaking down and understanding the smallest pieces is essential, but the main objective is to put the pieces back together to form a productive whole, to integrate them to create technology that benefits humanity. I believe this same approach would be productive for rhetoric – call it an “integration turn” or an “integration project” for the salon folks. IR would take what we’ve learned from the all the pieces of rhetorical scholarship and focus on effectively integrating different cultures and/or discourse communities to ensure humanity survives the many challenges we face: climate change, authoritarianism, inequalities, etc. In addition to providing myriad opportunities for research, IR also answers the ubiquitous “So what?” question that haunts the humanities with its answer emphasizing effective and productive human interactions to solve our most pressing problems while producing a harmonious, multicultural society.
In the last few years of his life, David Bowie reflected on his role as an artist in the film David Bowie: The Last Five Years and stated that “I’m not an original thinker. What I’m best at doing is synthesizing those things in society or culture, refracting those things, and producing some kind of glob of how it is that we live at this particular time.” Similarly, I don’t see myself as too much of an original thinker when it comes to rhetoric. In this essay, I’m basically going to the rhetoric bar buffet, taking scoops from different theories, and attempting to produce an IR glob that’s somewhat palatable. Riffing off of Thomas Kuhn’s ‘normal science’ which is “routine puzzle solving by which science advances steadily between conceptual revolutions,” I contend that IR is simply ‘normal rhetoric’ since there is nothing revolutionary about it (Funtowitz and Ravetz 740). What follows in this essay is my first selection of topics I believe are important to IR which will evolve along with my rhetoric studies. For now, I’m “liking the mistakes” I make just like Donna Haraway liked hers. To contextualize some of these IR topics, the main text I use is Leah Ceccarelli’s paper on manufactured scientific controversy.
2. INTEGRATE THE RHETORIC CONTRONYM
One key foundational concept in IR is to integrate both sides of the contronym that is rhetoric to ensure Skinnell’s “bad people speaking well” aren’t ignored. A contronym is a word that has two meanings that are opposites; e.g., the word ‘sanction’ means to authorize an action but it also means to condemn an action. Rhetoric also has a contronym nature in that it can mean either passive ignorance or actionable knowledge. The actionable knowledge meaning stems from the classic human-centered rhetoric that “functions ultimately to produce action or change in the world” (Bitzer 3). In this case, rhetoric is a force that elicits others to materially change reality. Then there is the opposite meaning: rhetoric as nonsensical, ignorant gibberish that is often created as justification or an excuse after an action has been taken. The common phrase “rhetoric and reality” is referencing this second ignorant meaning of rhetoric and was used in Tami Biddle’s book Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: the Evolution of British and American Ideas About Strategic Bombing, 1914-1945 that I studied as a student at the USAF Air Command and Staff College in 2009. The impression the book left on me was that the US military created ignorant rhetoric in an attempt to justify its unjustifiable terror bombing of German civilians during WWII. The nonsensical thinking was that terror bombing German civilians would somehow force them to give up which would in turn lead to the surrender of German forces. The U.S. ignored how German bombing of English civilians created the opposite effect: it made them more resolute to defeat the Germans. In 2022, we’re awash in ignorant rhetoric from conspiracy theories to fabricated digital memes to overt lies. Thus, there is a knowledge/ignorance binary inherent in rhetoric, and this ignorance aspect of rhetoric is where Skinnell’s “bad people speaking well” tend to operate.
Despite its prevalence, there has been reluctance for scholars to investigate rhetoric based on ignorance compared to “good people speaking well” research. Perhaps this is the result of a human tendency to research topics that evoke goodness. Skinnell states that much scholarship today focuses on “finding good examples of good people from widely diverse races, genders, classes, and epistemologies speaking well” (1). This is not only understandable but also essential for filling in the massive gaps in rhetorical research associated with those marginalized for centuries; however, there is also a crucial parallel need to understand how rhetoric can integrate and sustain cultures and how ignorant rhetoric will certainly be used by hegemonic forces to counter these efforts to maintain the status quo and thereby preserve their power.
To assist rhetoricians in their investigation of ignorance in rhetoric, there is a relatively recent area of scholarship called agnotology, a term crafted from the Greek ‘agno’ for the unknown, that is available to inform and complicate their analyses. Coined in the 1990s by Robert Proctor and Londa Schiebinger, Stanford historians of science, agnotology is the study of ignorance: why we don’t know what we don’t know. Agnotology is the study of ignorance meant to complement epistemology, the study of knowledge. To link the two, the Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies boldly warns on its cover that “Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance is the death of knowledge.” To generate ignorance in the public, what Proctor calls agnogenesis, a rhetor intentionally creates public confusion and/or doubt to counter the effects of scientific (or other) knowledge that would demand dramatic changes or even the demise of an entity (typically a corporation). The rhetor’s primary goal is to perpetuate a manufactured controversy so that no action is taken that would cause its entity harm; e.g., government regulation. Proctor states that “our primary purpose here is to promote the study of ignorance, by developing tools for understanding how and why various forms of knowing have ‘not come to be’ or disappeared, or have been delayed or long neglected, for better or for worse, at various points in history” and that “ignorance has a history and a complex political and sexual geography and does a lot of other odd and arresting work that bears exploring” (vii; 2). Proctor further states that “the idea that a great deal of attention has been given to epistemology (the study of how we know) when how or why we don’t know is often just as important, usually far more scandalous, and remarkably undertheorized” (vii).
Ignorance in agnotology is not a pejorative – it’s our natural state as we can’t know everything or even that much. Further, we are constantly forgetting as we age generating our own personal ignorance. In addition, some ignorance is a public good: we don’t want everyone to know how to make biological weapons or our personal data. Proctor and Schiebinger define three types of ignorance: native state, lost realm, and strategic ploy. Native State is how we typically consider ignorance, a vacuum to be filled with knowledge since we’re all born ignorant, and our lives are spent gathering knowledge (Proctor and Schiebinger 4-5). Lost Realm is that knowledge missing from the archive and is typically based on a selective choice to favor one type of knowledge over another (Proctor and Schiebinger 7). In this sense, it’s a naturally passive construct that doesn’t necessarily have ill intent. On the other hand, Strategic Ploy does have ill intent and is the ignorance socially constructed to maintain the status quo via perpetual doubt and/or confusion when scientific data would demand action for health or social justice reasons (Proctor and Schiebinger 8-9). Although “bad people speaking well.” may appeal to native state and/or lost realm types of ignorance in their rhetoric, it is strategic ploy ignorance and its agnogenesis that is their primary tool. Furthermore, agnotology is inherently rhetorical from a human-centered rhetoric perspective in that a rhetor creates a rhetorical text designed around ignorance to motivate action or inaction in the rhetor’s target audience which is often the public.
Leah Ceccarelli has accepted the challenge of investigating the rhetoric of ignorance specifically in manufactured scientific controversies; however, she curiously doesn’t choose to use the language of agnotology which could have perhaps enhanced her analysis. Ceccarelli makes only a cursory reference to agnotology in her 2011 paper stating that “Historian of science Robert Proctor invented the term ‘agnogenesis’ to refer to the use of ignorance ‘as a deliberately engineered and strategic ploy’…where doubt or uncertainty becomes ‘something that is made, maintained, and manipulated by means of certain arts and sciences’” (197). I have two issues with the quote in this paper: 1) the lack of reference to native state ignorance and lost realm ignorance which would have provided the proper context for strategic ploy ignorance and better represented the breadth of agnotology, and 2) the lack of reference to the rhetorical effect of ignorance in agnotology which is to generate controversy to advantage of rhetors and further their goals. Ceccarelli in her desire to focus on the rhetorical dynamics of controversy production lumps Proctor and agnotology with other scholars and claims they “focus on uncertainty production, rather than controversy production” (197). I tend to disagree and claim that Proctor and agnotology are keenly focused on controversy production and its desired effects on the public. Despite its lack of overt rhetorical language, agnotology is, like many fields and disciplines, haunted by rhetoric, and the Venn diagram overlap of Ceccarelli’s article with agnotology is significant.
As I see the value of agnotology and its ignorance language for investigating the contronym of rhetoric, Ceccarelli’s reduction of agnotology gave me pause, but I had more questions when agnotology wasn’t mentioned at all in Eric Winsberg’s 2018 book Philosophy and Climate Science. In the chapter on Social Epistemology, Winsberg references manufactured controversy and the use of “millions of dollars of funding to create a kind of illegitimate dissent, doubt, and controversy” (222). There was also a curious agnotology-related anomaly I noted in Biddle and Leuscher’s 2015 paper “Climate Skepticism and the Manufacture of Doubt: Can Dissent in Science Be Epistemically Detrimental?” which is key to Winsberg’s analysis. There was no reference to the word agnotology in the text of the article and thus no discussion of the ignorance triad of native state, lost realm, and strategic ploy ignorance; however, ‘agnotology’ was listed as one of the key words but ‘manufactured controversy’ was not. Seems they want their work to be considered part of the growing body of knowledge in agnotology but for some reason don’t want to talk about it directly. In a personal email, I asked Winsberg about the lack of agnotology discussion in his work. He stated he didn’t think he was aware of agnotology at the time of publication of his book. Wondering how the popularity of agnotology compares to Ceccarelli’s and Winsberg’s use of manufactured controversy, I conducted a Google Ngram of the two words and the results are presented in Figure 1.
In Figure 1, the use of ‘manufactured controversy’ has stayed flat over 12 years, but the use of ‘agnotology’ is growing and in 2019 was used nearly ten times as often. Rather than consider agnotology just another buzzword that will fade into obscurity, I argue that rhetoricians should consider incorporating agnotology into their scholarship as they conduct crucial investigations into the ignorance generated by “bad people speaking well.”
To help incorporate agnotology into rhetoric, I propose two new terms that rhetoricians may find useful: agnorhet and epirhet. Agnorhet is a contraction of agnotology and rhetoric and is used to identify rhetoric where rhetors conceal their true motives (keep the audience ignorant of their true objectives), intentionally generate ignorance via their rhetoric, or both. The term ‘misinformation’ is often used for these cases; however, it tends to cleave the rhetor and the audience away from the rhetorical text, isolating and sterilizing the text, which is undesirable for rhetoricians. To me, misinformation is a euphemism for ignorance in the same manner that collateral damage is a euphemism for dismembering and maiming innocent civilians in war. Misinformation is the language of the salon, and ignorance is the language of the bar. Agnorhet keeps the rhetorician’s gaze squarely on ignorance. Moreover, misinformation only characterizes the rhetorical text, but ignorance not only does the same but also describes the desired effect on the audience – ‘ignorance’ as a term does more work in addition to being more startling than ‘misinformation.’ The term ‘epirhet,’ a contraction of epidemiology and rhetoric, is used to identify rhetoric where the motives of the rhetor are clear to the audience and the rhetoric used is based on knowledge. The types of agnorhet and epirhet are presented in Table 1 and are based on the clarity of the rhetor’s motives and whether the rhetoric is based on knowledge or ignorance.
According to Table 1, there are 3 types agnorhet but only a single epirhet meaning that there are more options available for “bad people speaking well” but only one option for “good people speaking well.” Agnorhet Type 1 is when the audience doesn’t know the rhetor’s true motives and the rhetoric is based on ignorance. An example of this is a politician who encourages an audience to forego effective vaccinations during a pandemic and take alternative therapy if they get sick which secretly benefits one of the politician’s financial donors. Agnorhet Type 2 is when the audience doesn’t know the rhetor’s true motives, but the rhetoric is based on knowledge. An example of this is Supreme Court nominees who state that the right to an abortion right is settled law, which it is; however, their true motives – to eliminate abortion rights – were concealed and eventually come out at the first opportunity once seated. Agnorhet Type 3 is when the audience is aware of the rhetors motives, but ignorance is used in the rhetoric. An example of this is a politician who wants to go to war and tells the audience that there are weapons of mass destruction that must be found and that the war will end quickly. In comparison, there is only one type of epirhet where the motives of the rhetor are clear and the rhetoric is based on knowledge. An example of this is an altruistic rhetor who starts a food drive for struggling families who are food insecure due to rising rents. This discussion of agnorhet and epirhet for evaluating rhetors is meant to present one possible way agnotology could be a valuable addition to the rhetorician toolbox and encourage more research into the ignorance side of the rhetoric contronym.
3. INTEGRATION RHETORIC
Throughout my academic study of culture, I’ve always been troubled by the emphasis on differencing or analyzing elements of culture to identify social problems and inequalities with little effort given to putting these cultural elements back together so that potential answers could be proposed. These situations always remind of these lines from T.S. Eliot’s Little Gidding:
I have studied the works of countless scholars who did not “cease from exploring” but never seemed to return to the place they started from to see it “for the first time” and use their scholarly perspectives to propose solutions (or at least cautious ways forward) toward crafting a better “place.” It may be the case that the adrenaline rush of perpetual solitary exploration and discovery can’t compare to the drudgery and complications of trying to change society and dealing with hegemonic barriers. I look at the extensive body of work of an explorer like Michel Foucault and don’t see any solutions to the problems of sexuality, psychiatry, surveillance, and power he so well documented. Michel, how do we respond to the panopticon? He’s silent. It doesn’t help that the American academic system rewards the ceaseless exploration of its scholars but not so much their unpublished integration work. In my case, I’m uniquely predisposed to seeking solutions. Early in my military career, we were taught that if you find a problem, make sure to you have a potential solution or two when you report it to your boss. It’s unrealistic to think a boss can fashion optimal solutions to an onslaught of problems from subordinates from myriad specialties. The best solutions often come from those closest to and most knowledgeable of the problem. Further, my engineering training was always solutions focused. Writing down the problem and assumptions, no matter how eloquently, scored no points. The effort and rewards were on finding solutions. Studying an airfoil shape and its angle-of-attack limitations was essential, but it’s the integration of this shape into a wing and myriad systems (structure, fuel, controls, etc.) that solves the problem of flight. When I look at cultural studies and rhetoric, I see a common, unfortunate theme: a sizeable gap between the scholarship on problem definition (exploring) and possible solutions (integration).
It is within this context of a societal solutions gap in cultural studies as well as rhetoric that I propose an ‘integration rhetoric’ that is primarily forward looking but explores how rhetoric has been used in the past to respectfully integrate – not assimilate! – cultures to ensure their harmonious coexistence. These lessons from the past will inform potential solutions for the future. This IR will cover both the epirhet of “good people speaking well” as well as the agnorhet of “bad people speaking well” since both play pivotal roles. Fortunately, the term ‘integration rhetoric’ is not part of rhetoric scholarship (as far as I can tell) so it is available for use. IR as a term has been used in a few articles dealing with regional integration of nations; e.g., Vinokurov and Libman’s article about economic regional cooperation, so there is little chance of causing interdisciplinary confusion by using the term IR for rhetoric. To propose pathways to solutions in my human-based IR, I will develop the notion of rhetorical pentads and rhetorical buckyballs using text and graphics. In addition to noting the lack of solutions (a strategic solutions gap), I have also noted an unfortunate lack of graphics in most cultural and rhetorical scholarship (a tactical graphics gap). Despite the power of visual rhetoric to complement their work, many scholars don’t use graphics or plots and are probably concerned that this visual art will have a reductionist or totalizing effect that may render their text superfluous. It could also be that they’re better word artists than graphic artists. The implied, haunting critique of graphics is odd coming from scholars who will wax in depth on simplistic art such as the color-block paintings of Mark Rothko. For those viewing his art, Rothko stated that “If you…are moved only by the color relationships, then you miss the point” (Kedmey). Similarly, those who see graphics as superficial also miss the point: graphics and plots, like any art, are focal points to further discussion about scholarly endeavors and enhance understanding. Bruno Latour understood this and sprinkled graphics throughout his Pandora’s Hope book with some graphics better than others. Thus, plots, tables, and graphics are central to the IR approach.
In his A Grammar of Motives book, Kenneth Burke lays out his famous pentad of motivation: “what was done (act), when or where it was done (scene), who did it (agent), how he did it (agency) and why (purpose)” (xv). My intent here is to begin with Burke’s pentad, take liberties and convert it to a rhetorical pentad more applicable to IR, show how pentads may be integrated to form buckyballs of culture or discourse communities, and use this model to guide research topics applicable to IR. The translation from Burke’s Pentad to a Rhetorical Pentad is shown in Figure 2.
While Burke’s Pentad is already rhetorical and a touchstone of rhetorical studies, my intent is to make the rhetor more explicit in the Rhetorical Pentad and incorporate the elements of Lloyd Bitzer’s rhetorical situation from his essay of the same name. In this reimagining of Burke’s Pentad, the agent become the rhetor and the act becomes the rhetorical performance; e.g., performing a speech. The exigence and the purpose are closely related as both answer the question why something was done. In any scene, there are both physical and cultural constraints that inform and limit the act or rhetorical performance, so the scene and constraints are closely related. Burke also defines agency as “what means or instrument he sued” and I expand this notion of ‘instrument’ to mean what ‘rhetorical text’ the rhetor used; e.g., in the case of a speech performance, I consider the written speech comparable to Burke’s agency (xv). Furthermore, in the center of Burke’s Pentad is the general topic which includes all the elements of the pentad, whereas in the center of the Rhetorical Pentad sits the audience, the target of the rhetor. While this translation from Burke’s Pentad to the Rhetorical Pentad is not perfect, it captures and integrates elements of classical rhetoric and the rhetorical situation as seen in Figure 3.
In cleaving the Rhetorical Pentad, the top three elements are what I call the “Rhetor’s Art” and it is composed of the rhetor, the rhetor’s performance, and the rhetorical text. To these elements I have linked the general tendency each employs to motivate the audience to action using the classical terms ethos, pathos, and logos. An audience may have so much trust in a rhetor that neither of the other two element matter: what the rhetor says, the audience will do. The rhetorical performance often involves appeals to short-term emotions rather than long-term affect, and the rhetorical text, stripped of its performance, contains the reason to motivate an audience or not. This notion of a clean separation between ethos, pathos, and logos is a modeling simplification as they are all deeply related to our cultural training; e.g., many humans are culturally trained via agnorhet to “logically” devalue the Other, have disgust emotions for them, and trust rhetors who reinforce this ignorance. The bottom half of the Rhetorical Pentad holds the three key elements of Bitzer’s rhetorical situation: the audience, constraints, and exigence. Putting the halves of the Rhetor’s Art and the Rhetorical Situation back together forms the Rhetorical Pentad.
While a modeling simplification, the rhetor’s art may be qualitatively evaluated in a graphic format using trust, emotion, and reason as shown in Figure 4.
This graphic assessment of a specific rhetor’s art could be used for short term (a single performance) or long term (the integrated performances of a rhetor over time) evaluations. Considering the present state of chaotic politics in 2022 America, the question becomes what is the “balanced” rhetor’s art that is most effective at ensuring a harmonious, multi-cultural future for a democracy in peril? It is an open question.
The rhetorical pentad can also be used to illustrate a potential type of cybernetic rhetoric that highlights the feedback loops between the rhetor and the physical reality that changes due to audience actions. In Figure 5, the human-centered rhetoric flows from the rhetor through the rhetorical pentad resulting in a changed reality. This changed reality then may change the rhetor via potential New Materialism theories, but, depending on its severity, the changed reality may also alter the constraints and trigger an exigence that requires the rhetor to act. The hope is that such a system continually returns to its previous homeostasis point after each perturbation, but that is no longer the case with climate change.
A final way that the rhetorical pentad may be used is in the visualization of cultures and discourse communities as rhetorical buckyballs. Buckyballs are named for the geodesic domes of Buckminster Fuller and are well known for their structural strength – it’s difficult to break them apart. In Figure 6, a rhetorical buckyball is presented as a collection of rhetorical pentads linked together with varying amounts of “responsive discourse” occurring between the pentads.
Today, cultures are often described as fragile “bubbles” or immovable “silos,” but I prefer to think of them as tough buckyballs bouncing into each other exchanging rhetorical performances and texts which rhetors perceive as exigencies triggering new rhetorical performances and texts. The buckyball metaphor can also be used for specific discourse communities. In Annemarie Mol’s book The Body Multiple, she uses a differencing perspective in her exploring of atherosclerosis to claim her research is “a study into the coexistence of multiple entities that go by the same name” depending on whether the rhetor’s specialty is public health, general practitioner, surgeon, or molecular biologist (151). I prefer to take an IR approach and view atherosclerosis as a single rhetorical buckyball with each specialty its own rhetorical pentad, since this visual inspires me to ponder how they can more efficiently respond to each other to create a better future for suffering patients. Mol’s approach is fine for the salon, but if I told my friends at the bar I had multiple Jeeps and pointed to the orange one parked on the street, they might begin to wonder.
Using the human-centered rhetorical pentad model, it’s possible to identify the rhetorical nature of a variety of phenomena. One example is shown in Figure 7 for the work of programmers as rhetors for an audience of users trapped in their own cultural buckyballs within the virtual buckyball composed of digital pentads of social media companies. Thus, computer programming may be seen as an inherently rhetorical activity using the pentad/buckyball model.
One of the most valuable aspects of the rhetorical pentad model is it identifies pathways to integrate different pentads in a buckyball or separate buckyballs, which is the primary objective of IR. Referring back to Figure 2, the IR rhetorician seek to identify and expand common points on the pentad: similar rhetors, common performances, comparable rhetorical texts, similar constraints, and/or same exigencies. In fact, in keeping with Herndl’s “engaged RSTEM,” the rhetorician may play the role of the rhetor who links pentads and crafts the vital translations of the common points to facilitate integration. As I look back on my MA thesis, I was doing a version of this integration work in my analysis of mashup music videos hoping different cultural buckyballs would see their common humanity via art and reject othering.
4. INTEGRATE APPTRUTHS
Humans are imperfect physical sensors with extensive cultural training also impacting perception, so it is curious so much ink and so many pixels have been organized to endlessly discuss absolute truth. Controversies, especially scientific controversies, can happen in rhetorical pentads as the quest to converge on a “best answer” proceeds, but insisting on “absolute truth” would render the quest infinite. For a suitable qualifier for truth, I settled on “approximate truth” from astrophysicist Ethan Siegel who states that “there are no absolute truths; there are only approximate truths” which are only valid within a specific range. This definition acknowledges the limitations and error of laboratory instruments as well as human and machine calculations. The contraction I use for “approximate truth” is “apptruth.” As shown in Figure 8, the process of converging on an apptruth from a native state of ignorance is asymptotic and involves not just the collection of data but dedicated rhetorical discourse.
Since the apptruth found never touches the absolute truth asymptote, there is always an opportunity for Kuhn’s revolutionary interpretation that may offer a better explanation; however, for the vast majority of scientific apptruths this is highly unlikely. This asymptotic approach is so well known that Latour considers it a “tired cliché” that things “tend ‘asymptotically’ toward the true state of affairs” (94). To confirm whether an apptruth is valid is not simply a function of discourse but it must meet the requirement “that a statement is approximately true under a given interpretation if it is actually true under some ‘nearby’ interpretation” (Weston 98). For an apptruth, I consider the laboratory a “given” interpretation and the application of the apptruth outside the laboratory, for instance in some widget that integrates a variety of technologies, as the “nearby” interpretation. IR looks at a widget as a Gordian Knot of hundreds or even thousands of apptruths that all must be valid in order for the widget to function. Every operation of cellphone, a computer, a heating and ventilation system, a car, an airplane, a power plant, or any other technological system is a de facto test of the validity of myriad imbedded apptruths concerning thermodynamics, physics, materials science, transistors, fluid dynamics, etc. What this means is even the most strident critic of science in the salon is ironically conducting operational scientific experiments of the Gordian Knot variety hundreds of times per day.
Not all apptruths are readily accepted – there are vested interests everywhere that do not want any change that could impact their profitability or power. Ceccarelli documented this for AIDS dissenters, global warming skeptics, and advocates for intelligent design in her Manufactured Scientific Controversy article. Ceccarelli states that the strategy of contrarian rhetors is to “seek to promote or delay public policy by announcing that there is an ongoing scientific debate about a matter for which there is actually overwhelming consensus” (195). Referring to Figure 8, these rhetors are rejecting an apptruth or apptruths and use “strategic ploy” ignorance in an attempt to create the illusion that scientists are wallowing in native state ignorance when that is not the case at all. They want to “Make Native State Ignorance Great Again.” Figure 9 shows the relationship between agnotology’s triad of ignorance and the knowledge of an apptruth with strategic ploy ignorance intentionally making a mockery of all knowledge.
Despite the quest and attainment of apptruths, humans will always be awash in ignorance. Ignorance holds our cultures together more than we care to think. There is talk that we’re in a “post-truth” world due to fake news and conspiracy theories, but to riff off of Latour we’ll never be “post-truth” because we were never fully “truth” to begin with. Referring back to Table 1, it seems rhetors have greater options when it comes to creating agnorhet than creating epirhet. The post-truth advocates seem to forget that minorities and women in America have only recently had the history of their truth acknowledged, and there are presently massive strategic ploy ignorance machines working to eliminate those truths to make America native state ignorant again. From a rhetorical standpoint, it could be argued that agnorhet and its ignorance-drenched narratives are much more important than epirhet in holding a cultural buckyball together; e.g., America’s frontier mythology and the genocide of Native Americans. Humans and their cultures, no matter how technologically advanced, are all still haunted by and/or happily accept the “pre-truth” and agnorhet imbedded in their cultural training. Thus, it’s vitally important for IR rhetoricians to remain cognizant of the forces generating ignorance in both the sciences and in the humanities as these forces are working feverishly against IR integration efforts.
5. INTEGRATE STUPIDITY
Table 1 helped characterize the motive and rhetorical text of the rhetor in terms of agnorhet (ignorance) and epirhet (knowledge). To help characterize the results of this rhetoric – the actions of the audience – its crucial to identify who benefits. Stupidity is unabashedly a term from the rhetoric bar that may ruffle salon feathers, but it has utility in IR. In his essay “The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity,” economic historian Carlo Cipolla created a taxonomy where actions that benefit neither the actor nor anyone else are defined as stupid. In Table 2, I have translated his taxonomy for use in IR so rhetoricians can properly characterize the impact of the rhetoric.
Blending Tables 1 and 2, there are many possible taxonomy permutations. For instance, there is “stupid agnorhet” where an audience refuses vaccination during a pandemic leading to infection and deaths of themselves and their family members; however, from the rhetor’s perspective it is “selfish agnorhet” since it benefits only the rhetor by consolidating political power. The point of blending these two tables is to allow the IR rhetoricians to make first-order judgements of rhetoric and its effects using a common taxonomy.
6. INTEGRATE NEW DISCIPLINARY THEORIES
Much in the same way Donna Haraway looked outside her discipline and found Ursula Le Guin for inspiration and explanations, IR rhetoricians will also need to seek interdisciplinary knowledge to explain, for example, why an audience would follow “stupid agnorhet.” One possible answer comes from social psychology’s Terror Management Theory (TMT). Basically, humans, unlike nonhumans, know they are going to die, and this knowledge causes a type of existential dread/terror that can interfere with daily life. To effectively manage this anxiety, Greenberg et al. posit TMT with two basic components: 1) a cultural worldview, and 2) self-esteem, which form what they call a “cultural anxiety buffer” that separates us from our potentially paralyzing terror allowing for normal life activities (71). Furthermore, the audience is led to believe their if their culture lives on, then they as worthy members of that culture symbolically live on after death. Humans are seeking immortality just like Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) mentioned in his “the creation coffin” poem at the beginning of this section; however, most humans don’t have art that will live on, and they instead rely mostly on the illusion of their culture’s immortality. Ultimately, the audience will do anything, even follow stupid agnorhet to their deaths, to maintain and perpetuate their culture. For the IR rhetorician, the lesson is that their analysis doesn’t necessarily stop with categorizing rhetoric in terms of Tables 1 and 2, especially when it comes to stupid agnorhet. This is only a first-order analysis, and a deeper, second-order analysis is often required informed by both intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge to fully understand the dynamics in rhetorical pentads and buckyballs. TMT is just one of many possible explanations available for second-order IR analysis.
7. INTEGRATE RHETORIC OVER TIME
In physics and engineering, there are static and dynamic analyses. For static analyses, nothing is moving – the system is frozen, and time plays no role. It’s dynamics that involves changes with time. My impression of rhetoric so far is that it is mostly concerned with static rhetoric: isolated rhetorical events that led to a specific audience action dealing mostly with “good people speaking well.” Ceccarelli does break this pattern when she discussed how Thabo Mbeki’s rhetoric about AIDS changed abruptly after he was elected president of South Africa in 1999, but she’s researching how he was engaged in agnorhet and thus part of the “bad people speaking well” (195-6). These changes in rhetoric over time – the dynamics of rhetoric – are thus important to the IR rhetorician not just to understand abrupt changes but to track the patterns of rhetoric, both agnorhet and epirhet, rhetors use to produce engineered audience actions to maintain their cultural pentads and buckyballs.
8. INTEGRATION RHETORIC IMAGINATION
Since IR is intently fixated on a better future and how to use rhetoric, preferably in an intelligent epirhet way, rhetoricians must develop robust IR imaginations. By this, they need to envision a better future and then “engage in telling and changing the stories so that they are more livable” as Haraway states in her quote that began this essay. Scientists can tell us technical stories of changes in temperature and sea level rise due to global warming, but it is up to rhetoricians to tell and change these stories so “they are more livable.” These utopian and dystopian stories of potential futures that IR rhetoricians would tell live somewhere in the intersection of creative writing with a social purpose and poetic technical writing (similar to the poetic mode of documentary film). Putting imaginations to work for a better future is where the humanities can productively serve humanity.
9. CONCLUSION
Rest assured I’m well aware this essay is filled with mistakes and not-quite-right interpretations, but I’m “liking the mistakes” as Donna Haraway does hers. In this essay, I argue for the development of an “integration rhetoric” that embraces the contronym of rhetoric; incorporates agnotology, apptruths, and stupidity; uses pentad and buckyball rhetoric models; examines the statics and dynamics of rhetoric; and expects rhetoricians to be future-focused, imaginative, and interdisciplinary. The utopian purpose behind this laundry list is to integrate cultures to ensure humanity can realize a harmonious multi-cultural democracy in America and the world. It seems a worthwhile goal. Wayne Booth said that “Too many academics view the study of rhetoric as at the bottom of the ladder: it is merely fussing with cheap persuasion” (viii). I think an effective “integration rhetoric” would reform that view. The title of this essay states that it is the last call for integration rhetoric when it’s actually the first. My concern is that too many good ideas and terms are merely a blip in the archive; e.g., Ceccarelli’s “manufactroversy” term from 2008 died and now returns no hits in the online Ngram Viewer. If integration rhetoric similarly dies, then the title of this essay will have been prophecy. Admittedly, integration is hard work whether in technical fields or as proposed here in rhetoric. The exploring in rhetoric will continue as it must, but some of us, following T.S. Eliot’s guidance, should end our exploring, return where we started, and “know the place for the first time.” And after some grub at the rhetoric bar, grab an IR toolbox, and get to work integrating.
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