According to both Parrish and Kennedy, there needs to be a greater push towards biology and nature in rhetoric. They make very valid points, pointing to different species and how they use rhetoric in everyday tasks. It was definitely interesting because a lot of what has been talked about deals with cultural factors. Others would call this nurture. So here it is, even in rhetoric there is a debate between nature and nurture. Being a psychology student, I never get done hearing about nature vs. nurture. What I find interesting is that its nature VERSUS nurture, meaning nature OR nurture. Quite obviously, it should be nature AND nurture.
In psychology, some scientists try to argue that intelligence is completely genetic. Yes, intelligence and genetics are correlated, but that doesn't mean that its causation. Any statistician or scientist will warn you that correlation does not equal causation. For instance, crime rates are correlated with ice cream sales. Do ice cream sales cause crime? No, the heat does. You have to be careful here. To get off of my tangent, I am simply trying to say that rhetors, or even common people, should look at it as nature and nurture.
In rhetoric the same applies. There are natural forms of rhetoric. The red deer will bugle or fight. However, there are certainly nurture aspects to it. The reinforcement contributes to animals learning what works and doesn't work. As Parrish tries to argue, humans are animals, so I can use them as an example here, too. We, as animals, may cry as babies in order to get our mother's attention. This is it's own type of rhetoric. However, we learn that when we cry, we usually get attention. Therefore, we associate crying with attention. Sure, it was natural for us to cry, but it turned into a learned, social, cultural, whatever you want to call it, experience. This is nurture. Nature and nurture, not nature or nurture.
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