One of the biggest criticisms that America faces is the idea that our society is too materialistic. There is always a nicer car, a new phone, a bigger house etc. Wealth was and still is dependent on the amount of property a person owns. However, according to Richard Lanham, the truly valuable commodities are changing. Instead of putting stock in “stuff” as we used to, Lanham believes that within an informational society such as ours, the new and valuable commodity is human attention.
This idea that the meaning of value is changing drastically, as “stuff” becomes less important and information, knowledge, and design (“non-stuff”) become extremely important can be hard to swallow:
“We see this synthetic reality everywhere nowadays, from TV commercials, to scientific visualization, computer games to military training. In this world, every element has been created from specific information keyboarded by master illusionists. Made objects, from buildings to airplanes, find their beginning and central reality in computer-assisted design and manufacture. The life-giving act inheres in designing the object on a digital screen”(5).
What used to be classified as artificial is now replacing the value we used to afford the “real” world. We would like to think that we are well connected to the physical world; however, in an age where information is king and the Internet is the source for more and more knowledge and information, we have to admit that our values and perspectives have changed.
In a world of many distractions, rhetoric needs to attract and persuade.
How much have we changed? Is the way that we learn and interact really all that different before this time of information overload? Thinking in terms of growth and knowledge, we haven’t changed where it counts. Rhetoric is still a vital part of social interaction. It still can be defined as “the art of persuasion”; however, it has adapted. There are more outlets for rhetoric. In this age of information and technology, more and more methods of expression are utilized everyday: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest to name a few. These methods of expression are necessary as the amount of information continues to grow. According to Lanham, these modes of expression are necessary to keep up with the flow of information: “the kinds of information vary, as do the kinds of expression, but the one will continue to demand the other”(19). All of these things create and build upon the “cultural conversation” that Lanham refers to.
The art of rhetoric, I believe, has always been a “cultural conversation.” All of new types of social media thrive on people’s attention and their reactions to them. People build off of others creativity as everyone fights for attention. The creative are competitively inspired by others. This is no different than the rhetoric that Lanham describes: “Rhetorical invention was this kind of organized creativity. It coaxed chance, planned for improvisation”(25). Rhetoric still aims to persuade the public. The main challenge for the modern orator is to keep up and overcome the plethora of distractions that can claim the public’s attention.
Hello,
I really enjoyed reading your blog because it really got me to think. I strongly agree with your photo about how getting information from the internet is similar to drinking out of a fire hydrant. It is really sad to know that people have become so dependent on the web and rely on most of the information they retrieve; however, they don’t take into account that many of their sources are not reliable. It’s astonishing to know that a design on the web can attract a person and act as a form of persuasion, but who knows if the information is accurate.
-Christelle Lorenzana