Years ago I was looking at the library of my dad’s wife and I noticed a book on rhetoric. I found myself asking, what, exactly, is rhetoric? I associated it with talking and writing but couldn’t say much beyond that.

Anyway, here’s a dictionary definition:

rhet·o·ric
ˈredərik/
noun
the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the use of figures of speech and other compositional techniques.

Once I figured out what rhetoric is, I realized it’s something I do all the time. In my acid logic writings and at this blog I’m often writing opinions which I have some vague interest of convincing other people of.

But lately, I find myself wondering if it’s all bullshit, whether rhetoric is really a way of glossing over the fundamental lack of meaning to most things.

For example, I’m finishing up a piece for the next acid logic where I argue that the soundtracks of 1980s horror and sci-fi movies represented a certain dichotomy: they both embraced technology by using computer based tools and feared it as the sounds you get from synthesizers always have a certain coldness to them. I argue, with a few rhetorical flourishes, that this dichotomy was part of the spirit of times.

But is such a statement really true in any meaningful way? How would it be true? I guess if people of the era really sat around and took notice of this idea and used it to form other ideas it might be true, sort of. But something about these rhetorical arguments seems lacking. It feels like you could make any point about anything with the right rhetorical tools.

It seems like a lot of observation about the past, especially past culture, are made after the moment. They become true because the observation is made. But are they really true? Did they really describe thoughts and behaviors people were consciously or unconsciously thinking at the time? And who really cares?