Response to Consigny

• 
  

Consigny and the other rhetorical thinkers give us a set of language and tools to understand rhetorical situations in general; however, these cannot always be applied to every situation. Taking Lateah's example of listening to the speech at the athletic program dinner, she was faced with exigencies that made it difficult to use the tools Consigny taught us. Even since 1974, when Consigny wrote his argument, the world has changed immensely. Lateah believed her speaker was potentially "trying to make a statement about manhood. It could be inferred from the statement that I highlighted from him earlier that men do tough out their injuries and walk off the field no matter what." The tools Consigny gives cannot apply to a situation like this, where gender roles have changed so much that it's not okay to address the situation as "man up" in today's day and age. As Lateah stated, she had a difficult time focusing on a speech she has heard countless times; however, when gender roles came into play it was different. Consigny doesn't give us the tools to defeat gender stereotypes and what it means to not be a part of the group. Many exigencies were blocking Lateah during this speech, and zoning out was her way of dealing with this. Consigny’s lack of tools meant to deal with this created a difficult situation to take the rhetoric wholeheartedly

I think knowing about constraints and the medium really plays a part in the advice I would give for Lateah’s situation. The constraint is that the same generic speech is given at every athletic function, causing athletes to zone out as they have heard the advice dozens of times. The only way I could see this constraint changing is if the medium changed. Lateah said she spaced out and wished she could have gone back to listen to parts again, yet the timing was inappropriate to ask those around her what the speaker had said. If the speech would have been recorded and posted somewhere, Lateah would have access to re-watch the speech and take in the information she missed. This would come in handy for many things, as zoning out is a problem many people face. Maybe something distracting is happening in the room, or maybe you’ve has been having a really rough day and can’t focus. No matter the situation, we, as human beings, all zone out at times, and a different medium, such as a recording that can be replayed would be extremely beneficial in a lot of situations.