Richard Weaver: Some main ideas

• rationality is all good and well, but we humans are emotional beings and therefore cannot wholly rely on rationality to meet our expressive ends
• aesthetics are necessary for us to be wholly expressive
• rationality and logic exist in a realm apart from human emotions and sensations; thus inviting the need for rhetoric
• rhetoric combines the power of rationality with the expressiveness of literature
• because of this relationship, all rhetoric is personal, aesthetic, and political because those using rhetoric wish to persuade their listeners to some political ends
• since all rhetoric is persuasive, a speaker must always consider her audience and include this consideration in all aspects of the composition process

Weaver seems to be a little old school here, especially when he claims that all rhetoric is persuasive. I guess it's true that all creation, in some way is persuasive, but his definition is more overt. It seems that he believes politics are always involved, whereas I think that some rhetoric is simply expressive, desiring to evoke an emotional response from the reader/listener that does not necessarily correspond with a political agenda. Of course, there are those who say that politics pervades every aspect of life (that would be, you, Bakhtin), so perhaps Weaver is onto something here.