Technology Independent

A common theme that has come up in the postmodern rhetoric has been the discussion of technology in regards to agency, intentionality, meaning, and interpretation. Before this point, classic rhetoric was a human  achievement, something that stood out beyond the animal realm or other realms. “have we also initiated a shift in our understanding off the relations among human beings, things, and the world they show up in.”  Kennedy’s discussion of animal rhetoric brings startling realization that beyond our narcissistic view of ourselves, there are other mediums beyond humanity where rhetoric exists. “I suppose rhetoric is not a “substance" in the logical sense, though it does seem to me that there is something found in nature that either resembles rhetoric or possibly constitutes the starting point from which it is culturally evolved.” Each of the readings discussed an alternate form of more modern rhetoric outside the traditional forms of human discourse.

A resonating discussion was the agency of rhetoric beyond the human and the type of fear that spurns from technology connecting the world. One discussion highlights how issues become larger than their original intention through technology. “Runaway object start as small problems or marginal innovations but balloon into objects that are larger than any of the activity systems that are orientated toward them. That is, objects are no longer closely bounded or material, are much bigger than the materials in which they are instantifocated, are multiperspectical…” The traditional rhetoric does not leave room for an agent beyond the human. “Technology itself is not an agent.”  (Bay and Rickert)  Movies such as I, Robot with Will Smith help highlight the human fear that agency will be taken beyond or control by our creations. Bay and Rickert  discussed how technology is always within our control, “Technology and its artifacts appear as our objects, themselves manipulable through technical thinking, and not as object of concern in and of themselves…” Rhetoric has been viewed as something that must be manipulated and interpreted by society. The fear of occurrences like the robotic takeover presented in I Robot represent a fear that the human element will no longer be necessary for rhetoric. If the human element were no longer necessary in the discourse of rhetoric  than the thesis’ of rhetoric would be disproven. “rhetorical invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery are phenomena of nature and prior to speech.”  If technology is able to create intention from its own creation and memory, than humans are not responsible for rhetoric.