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I have been dancing around these questions ever since I started to take a serious look at Rhetoric- you all fell victim to my rampage last week. I begged someone to tell me how to manifest my desires to make positive progressive change in a system that leaves no room for alternatives... I just finished reading chapter three in Ramage (refreshed at how straightforward he is) and am pleased to understand better the dynamics of rhetoric. I am wondering now, if I ought to reconsider my plea to help all individuals become thinking, conscious, questioning individuals- would things really move in a progressive trend if that were the case? Or would it spread a mass chaos of everyone questioning and everyone confused?

I like Ramage's idea that rhetoric in its most ideal world would function pluralistically- representing an understanding that there are no terms to deem one truth more valid than another- that as human beings we would appreciate not the differences but the commonalities among us- I'm wondering if he thinks that we still would have leaders and followers... Or if everyone would lead themselves- maybe that isn't the most ideal...

What I mean to question is whether or not I am right, in a realistic sense, to believe that everyone (if they had the true opportunity [i.e. environment, desire, motivation, encouragement etc]) really would value being a thinking and questioning individual- and if it's even the right thing to push for that? Don't get me wrong, I am certainly not saying that we ought to perpetuate the faults in our system that seem to keep people in the positions that enable our current consumerist trends- what I wonder is, would things really be better if everyone was questioning, searching, dissecting, protesting and reconstructing? Is this society comprised of some as leaders and the rest as followers for a reason? Are the followers content with being told what to believe? Have they seen that they are followers and chosen to remain that way because that is what they want? Or do they just not know?

I was talking with a friend who believes that hoping to "empower" people in the way I have deemed necessary is 1) unrealistic and 2) Not what people want- because people already know they are being manipulated by the media, that the education system is often doing a disservice to our youth, that our government lies to us and then sends our people into the war zone- but they choose to be told what to believe in, what to support- and so to be a really effective progressive leader- what can I do? Get straight myself. Work on being free myself, be that aware, conscious, thinking individual and let MY life represent all the things I hope for others- because essentially the followers are just looking for the next person to believe- the power lies in who they will believe next- If I don't want people to continue to be manipulated by selfish greedy aims- is it wrong to live right, to live free and inspire people to follow because essentially I am influencing them based on my own ideology? I guess I can't be responsible or feel guilty if my aims are pure and positive in their nature, and if they don't believe what I stand and live for then they will believe something else, right?

This is where my whole negative perception of rhetoric is throttled. I have been so anti-rhetoric because I am aware of the coercion that runs rampant in our society- but then again wouldn't I be essentially doing the same thing if I lived as I stated above? Or is that persuasion? I guess I wouldn't be asking people to consider what I aim to represent with my life, my words, my art, my work as the ONLY truth with no alternatives- but help them to see the benefits.....

I'm just continuing to question- and I am wondering what y'all might think about the idea of natural leaders/followers.. Feel free to comment honestly, because I am still working out how I feel and understand all this anyway....