A Juicy Contradiction

Last week Megan concluded her blog with a realization that already trumps the “logic” typically scaffolding binaries of our culture’s thought in place (nice move!). She states that no two rhetorical situations call for the same hat, and she thereby automatically shuts down the possibility that we always have just two options to respond with in rhetorical exchanges. This week’s prompt asks us to draw on personal experiences that more or less crumble categories our cultural genealogy loves to prolong about Rhetorical People/Serious People, homo rhetoricus/homo seriosus, and Classical or Romantic People. I honestly don’t believe the first half of this prompt is flawlessly achievable, but I will do my best! I say this because as soon as I start trying to categorize someone, my mind automatically jumps to the ways in which they just won’t fit neatly. Buuuut, gotta get ‘er done!

I recently met a fellow student who initially struck me as the epitome of a homo seriosus. Even after a semester of an INTENSE course on rhetoric, this student persisted with notions that all meaning is constructed by language only (outdated theories of Structuralism, which Fish refers to circa 130-133 of “Rhetoric”), and that he just didn’t see “the point” of rhetoric. This young man even self-proclaims his “social deficiency,” and is always the first to deny emotional intelligence on his part because of his rather steadfast intellectual mind (are those things mutually exclusive?). Seems to fit the description of a homo seriosus perfectly, right? Well, not really…to me, at least, because I see in him a very human need of love and acceptance, something that seems a constant insecurity in his conversation though he won’t say it explicitly—he asks for it in shaded, guarded ways, like complementing someone else just in hopes to hear praise in return. Everything about that type of interaction is rhetorical, even manipulative on some level. Also, his very self-proclamation of lack of social intelligence is evidence that he is self-aware of his own deficiency, which means he is actually quite intelligent about his own emotional makeup. This guy reminds me of a classic case of what Pirsig explains “a source of trouble” because “Persons tend to think and feel exclusively in one mode or the other and in doing so tend to misunderstand and underestimate what the other mode is all about (Zen 74-75). My next example shows not only someone who I believe has this exact awareness that Pirsig describes, but also the enjoyment she gets out of life because of it.

One of my best friends, Torrey, explicitly defies self-explanatory categories in a very self-aware way. Since the first couple of days I met this girl, I had to constantly think of the Starburst slogan: “a juicy contradiction,” and before this post gets totally weird, let me explain why: I was naturally drawn to explaining her as a paradoxical person because of all my current colleagues, she is by far the most representative of someone I just want to chill with on a Friday night, despite the fact she is wickedly smart and a wonderful teacher to her Writ 101 sections. I really admire that she can be on-it intellectually, yet socially affluent enough to work a room and never break a sweat out of nerves or insecurity. She definitely embodies the paradoxical nature of existence that work like Pirsig, Fish, and Ramage illuminate about how binaries are totally insufficient; we can be emotionally-intelligent creatures and still enjoy learning theory just for theory’s sake, for example.  Torrey stands out as an instance of this to me because she is wise and self-aware enough to know she needs to be a little bit of everything: rational, logical, reasonable, but also free-spirited, flexible, and open-minded to—as she calls it— personal revision. I am drawn to people like this because they seem to live much more peaceful and fulfilling lives than people who try to live dogmatically by categorizing and labeling themselves (Just let it fucking be, yo!). Oh, and the reason why she reminds me of a “juicy” candy is just because she is so much fun to be around that we are commonly dubbed double-trouble when we are together—whoopsie. Nothing dry or too homo seriosus about that lady!