Recall when Zu discusses Confucius’s idealized social order, and the harmony which is destroyed with glib talk (p. 120 for example). As I understand, Confucius desired harmony in terms of a stable hierarchical society, which would have to be built upon some kind of community. That is, everybody would have to get along and be respectful in order to maintain a social order. To facilitate this kind of community, Confucius emphasized slow and cautious speech (two rhetorical moves), which would prompt action while avoiding aggression.
Lyon furthers this discussion, particularly by including remonstration in her argument. She discusses silence (like Zu), as well as remonstration as rhetorical moves which emphasize action while also showing respect. We see how this works to reinforce relationships and community as a cultural value with her example of a child remonstrating with a parent. “The child who remonstrates with the parent allows the errant parent to find his potential while preserving the relationship between parent and child” (141). Because the child showed the correct way rather than argued it, the child and the parent maintain their status and their connection.
Liu takes a step farther, looking at ancient Chinese texts beyond Confucianism. This analysis posits that community resulted in shared rhetorical strategies which reinforced community. Consider when Liu says, “A brief look at classical Chinese texts would suffice to reveal rhetoric’s role as the supplier of these shared assumptions, concepts, techniques, etc.” (155). Liu goes on, “No matter what discursive community one belonged to, a practitioner in ancient China was likely to subscribe to a body of basic assumptions about the nature and function of rhetoric” (156). That is, despite belonging to differing ideological groups within China, individuals shared similar rhetorical practices, simply as a result of sharing a similar culture and holding at least somewhat similar basic values (partaking in a community in a broad sense). Sharing these rhetorical practices, then, reinforces community as a value.
I agree with you that Liu shows the importance of community by sharing rhetorical practices, However, I would like to point out that this broad sense of community can occur through common resources most notably would be "the category of the terms, concepts, and distinctions...which rendered possible a wide range of speech acts and discursive activities" (159). Even from there, it can be said that there can be no community without a shared language which Liu states at the beginning and even in the title "if names are not properly defined and used, the speech can never sound agreeable" (147).
ReplyDeleteJessianne, I think this is a good way to bring together the texts we have read about Chinese rhetoric. I too found this challenging and also attribute it to my lack of familiarity with Chinese culture. I do think that this idea of community in relation to rhetoric is something we can carry into other texts and compare to other cultures. Alex, wouldn't Liu consider these other speech acts and discursive activities to be rhetorical? What I gathered was that Liu's broad definition of rhetoric was directed at doing this.
ReplyDeleteJessianne,
ReplyDeleteLiu's essay also helped me see connections that Zu and Lyon had made in their rhetorical analysis of Chinese rhetoric. I think that after discussion in class I understood more of Liu's outlook regarding Chinese rhetoric. His assertion that Chinese rhetorical texts should not be exclusively studied in it's "own terms" (147) reminded me of this quote from Lao Tzu's translation of the Tao Te Ching, “If you try to change it, you will ruin it. Try to hold it, and you will lose it.” I think that by only examining Chinese rhetoric in Chinese terms would possibly lose some of the Western audience, but then again I think that specific terms also enhance understanding of the Chinese rhetoric and culture. For instance, the terms and definitions of li and ren in Zu's essay aided me in understanding how people wrote and for what purpose.
Jessianne,
ReplyDeleteI think this mention of community is very important to our Chinese texts. We see this throughout every one of our texts in different ways. One thing I find very interesting is the different communities and different sizes of communities. We get examples as small down as a student to teacher or a child to a parent, and much larger when we look at China and Chinese culture as a whole. Community is something that runs through all discourses and it is cool to see how different cultures utilize community within their rhetoric.
You make some good points here. I agree that “a shared rhetoric ensured at least some sense of community…” and Liu reiterates this point in a few ways. Liu uses the words “divergence” and “schools of thought” frequently, suggesting that the ancient Chinese culture as a whole valued rhetoric, and even different branches of rhetoric. A “school of thought” can also be considered a discourse community, which further strengthens your idea of community-based rhetoric. While I found Liu’s chapter was a somewhat difficult read, there are some great points made. I think that as far as Aristotelian and ancient Greek goes, we often get hung up, or stuck, in just one, or maybe a handful of discourse communities, instead of seeing the concept as a whole, much in the way Liu does.
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