It sounds obvious, “the core discipline of the humanities is rhetoric.” However, I would never have considered that until it had to be said aloud.
But it is true, the more I think about it. It is nothing new how art, literature, music, etc., all have something to say, whether intentionally or not. The foundation of “rhetoric” isn’t as focused on as it is when we talk about these subjects as a whole. We can talk about the history of a piece of classical music. Maybe the use of brush strokes to infer a painting’s message. Even analyze a book for themes and whatnot. It’s all rhetoric when you dig at least six feet under. But we’ll never actually name it to give it its “distinct identity”.
STEm vs HUmanities: who cares?
So, when one (let say, a Communications/English student) gets into a fight with a bunch of students studying computer science and informational technology. The latter cannot see that their own academic discipline is composed of rhetoric through and through. Because they don’t think about the procedural rhetoric that comes with designing algorithms and security systems. They’re focusing on how to make software work and how to create attractive interfaces. So, in their minds, it’s trial and error to get a program to work with their intended goal in mind, and how could they focus on the rhetoric when programmers have the minutiae to worry about?
I personally don’t understand the work that goes into what they do, the same way they wouldn’t understand the complexities of rhetoric existing in the digital sphere. When I posit that what they’re doing is rhetoric, of course they’ll fight back and say “nooooo, what??” But they’re the builders of human-computer interaction, and really, that isn’t so far from what any humanities major sets out to do when they want to create media of any kind.
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