My own experience with Austin's "weird rhetoric"

After reading these articles, I can’t help but write about my own experience in Austin, TX two summers ago. Edbauer’s analysis of the “Keep Austin Weird” movement helped me see rhetoric as something more than just a situation. I guess in a word, her article helped me “encounter rhetoric” (23). But first, let me back up.

When I first read Bitzer, I didn’t totally disagree with him. Although, I was not completely fond of the idea that “so controlling is situation that we should consider it the very ground of rhetorical activity” (Bitzer 5). If the situation controls every aspect of what is rhetorical, then what about influences outside of the situation? What do we do with those?

Vatz attempts to grapple with those same questions. He makes a valid point: the rhetor is involved with choosing. Or in his words, “the facts or events communicated to us are choices, by our sources of information” (Vatz 156). I can handle that a little better than Bitzer’s retraining hold on situation. From Vatz’s perspective, we use rhetoric to create meaning rather than rely on the situation to do it for us (160).

Similarly, I like what Biesecker says in her deconstructive view of rhetoric and Derrida’s difference:

From within the thematic of difference we would see the rhetorical situation neither as an event that merely induces audiences to act one way or another… . Rather, we would see the rhetorical situation as an event that makes possible the production of identities and social identities (126).   

    

While this process may entail more work, as Biesecker notes, it could be useful for seeing how rhetoric is “becoming rather than Being” (127). Viewing the “rhetorical situation” as an ongoing process seems to make more sense if you consider all of the factors that are involved. This leads us to Edbauer’s analysis of the “shared contagion” that makes up rhetoric (18). She further describes rhetoric as a set of “lived, in-process operations” that are continually being transformed (17). From these ideas, we see the weirdness of this process. In Austin, small business owners decided to take a stand against large corporations and vowed to “Keep Austin Weird.” However, when Cingular and other groups took up the phrase, different audiences began to be reached. Additional meanings were added to the original “ecology” and thus an ongoing movement was born (19).

When I visited Austin, I saw that phrase everywhere. Nowadays, the “touristy” thing to do is to experience unique places like Congress Ave and the Congress Ave Bridge. Because I knew the city was so eclectic, my main goal was to visit all the “weird” places. I relied on the rhetoric practiced by people who had been before me and offered suggestions of places to go.  The images I provide show a couple of the things we knew were part of the “Austin experience.” The first is a photo of a food truck sign. The Might Cone is one of many food truck vendors located on Congress Ave (the street with all of the cool, local shops). The second shows my sister and me acting like we are afraid of the bats that fly out from under the Congress Ave Bridge at sunset. My own perceptions of Austin were undoubtedly influenced by the “Keep Austin Weird” mantra that was established more than ten years ago. I think that shows rhetoric can’t be contained within a situation. It is influenced by a number of “amalgamations and transformations” that are continuous (20).

*On a separate note, everyone should go to Austin! It’s awesome!