Hey everyone! Still working on the second part of Dual Realms Garden. Until then, enjoy another essay I had written for my English class. This highlights the importance of rhetoric and philosophy in modern discourse. We live in postmodern times in which the foundations of truth are constantly being eroded away and questioned in favor of moral relativism which is the cause of the divide we are seeing here in the West.
When people are killed for political opinions and having discussions, we have really fallen far and have lost what it truly means to have discourse. Discourse is a necessary part of society and moral relativism risks not only erasing national identity, but societies at large. This is because we cannot be accommodating to all, and we risk what is known as Groupthink in which nothing is truly gained by trying to be tolerant towards others whose values are radically different from our own. Hence the need for discourse and why philosophy and rhetoric need to be recognized as interconnected rather than separate disciplines.
One can be a good speaker but lack any foundations for what they preach. Likewise, a philosopher can have some great ideas but without the means of expressing truth, it remains too abstract and restricted to think tanks without any application for greater society. Philosophy might establish what is true, but without rhetoric, those truths never reach people in a way they can understand, evaluate, or act on. And on the flip side, rhetoric without philosophical grounding risks becoming manipulation or empty persuasion.
Bottom line, progress is not gained by trying to accommodate all, but through discourse itself in which we discuss what is true and what isn't. Overall, where society is at currently is that instead of heeding Nietzsche's warning about nihilism and moral relativism, we have embraced these ideas which is why the West is so divided.
