The motives behind any war, or event that holds impact on any more than one person, can

always be traced through varying levels. These levels are increasing, starting from the
intrapersonal to the societal or even global levels. This is where I feel exigence is created.
Exigence, or at least the formal definition, is an urgent need or demand. In the rhetorical sense, it
examines the causality of rhetorical situations and becomes the motivation behind any one event.
To elaborate on my prior point about the increasing spheres (instead of the 2-dimensional levels
trope) of exigence, we can examine the “Why?” of various important aspects of history or
current events. Shortly after the civil war, in the American reconstruction period, was the era of
westward expansion under manifest destiny. This is an extreme example, but to say that I know
the exigence of thousands of people is foolish. Some may have gone west because they heard
there was gold, some might just be seeking opportunity. Some may truly believe that they had a
God-given right to claim the lands of Native Americans and kill hundreds doing so. Whatever the
individual “exigence” may be, it is undeniable that Americans kept travelling westward, killing
most of everything that they came across. Now, the estabilishment of several states during
westward expansion did occur before, after, and during the civil war (some may say it is a large
exigence of the war itself, since the creation and unbalance between “free” and “slave” states led
to the secession of the south entirely), but without the constituent injury, that comes after the
exigence, who knows what the United States would look like now. This is where the analysis of
what and why become varyingly important for rhetorical discourse.
We will start again with an extreme scenario to relay my ideas. Could you, dear reader
and sole audience, tell me why a star explodes? Could you tell me why a volcano erupts,
mercilessly torching hundreds of thousands of innocent people? Some may say that is God’s way
of punishing humans and their hubris. Some will rightfully explain the scientific processes that
occurred in order for these things to happen. Regardless, the difference between the what and the
way lies solely in the hands of the rhetor and the audience. This is to say that if you are looking
at a volcano’s eruption as a rhetorical situation, you are the audience, and God is the rhetor.
Using more human examples, more often than not, the what will never exist without a why
(which is why I use the example of uncalled for natural events, that seem to not have a why).
History will do an amazing job at identifying statistics, evaluating success and defeat, but it
crumbles under the idea that multiple factors and more imporantly, multiple people MUST take
accountability for causality. For example, The First Great War was initiated by the assassination
of Archduke Ferdinand, but the war continued after the acceptance of the fact that this event
occurred. So the motive suddenly turns into hundreds of things, those things can even be
emotions! Passion for nationalism, retaliation under the basis of humiliation, retaliation under the
basis of revenge, the exigence for the most extreme dilemmas of human history can be reduced
to feelings and society’s attitudes toward them. This is where I agree with Davie, Bitzer,
Consigny, and Vatz, on the fact that rhetorical discourse surrounding the values targeted could
reduce tensions. This is where the argument between these writers further proves my point.
Consigny’s response intrigues me the most. As Davie writes that Consigny sees both Vatz
and Bitzer as write and wrong. This is where disagreement finds its exigence. The only reason
this argument is seen as complex is because a person has stated the information they value, and
someone has reputed it in an effort to portray their own. It would be more beneficial if rhetors
chose to proclaim that the existence of exigence would not exist without the initial question, and
the initial question cannot have a wrong answer, it only adds constraints to further questions. If
the world did not work like this, we would continually argue things and constantly disagree with
each other on the sole foundation that we believe we are right and they are wrong. As humans we
create problems and we solve them. This is where you combine the arguments of all three rhetors
into one cohesive one that states all possibilities for a scenario, one building on each of the
former. For example, we can say, yes, a rhetor must first ask the question that creates exigence,
but the question arises from a variety of applications. Additionally, the audience adds constraints
to the acceptable information which could be represented. This means that exigence varies on the
audiences, this is more important to persuasion however. But this is not to say that rhetors are the
sole reasonings for rhetorical situations, as we examined earlier, responses from the audience
may force the rhetor into creating the situation after the fact of an occurrence. Arguing is a
fruitless when we don’t realize that discourse examines our values and exists to challenge them,
forcing us to change what is morally incorrect, and re-estabilish what we feel is morally just.
This is also where the idea of constraints in discourse arise.
If my friend and I were to discuss the existence of God in our world, what would you feel
are the constraints of this discourse? Well how Davie describes it, constraints are any positive or
negative factor oustide the situation that may affect the audience’s reaction to said discourse.
Well from personal experience I can tell you the constraints. Firstly, the subconscious constraint
of the discourse becoming “who can persuade to other to share in my beliefs?”. This is a large
one, because it affects the tonality of voice and language used. Secondly, the audience holds a
firm ground in theism, with millions of people and thousands of years of history to become a sort
of safety net or fallback in the case of attack on the argument (this is to say that if I were to make
a valid argument using logic against the fact that God is real, the argument ends when he brings
up faith as his reasoning). Finally, the constraint of friendship, like Davie says, some constraints
can be positive. This is the limitation of advancment on intolerance, meaning that at a certain
point, I will give in and discontinue my approach to prove a point on the foundation that he is my
friend and I will not break that bond because I so strongly believe God does not exist.
Constraints will always hurt or help the rhetor, and they are almost always created by the
audience, whether it be directly or indirectly. This is where the audience gains all of its power in
the discourse, as the rhetor creates the simulation with a question, and the audience controls it by
reminding the rhetor that exigence at the intrapersonal level is only useful to said person.
This article was published at the University of Utah, and it was digitally published on
JSTOR, which leads me to believe that the audience could be focused towards college students.
However, after reading the article, I believe the audience is intentionally focused towards rhetors
who aim to strenghten their discoursing skills. If that is the case then yes, I am certainly in the
audience. Another factor that makes me believe I am the intended audience is the fact that I am
currently a member of the audience of this essay, making me literally a member of the audience
whether the author intended it or not. The constraints I place as the audience are the fact that
reading long sources with extensive academic writing become very boring, but I do believe the
exigence of estabilishing the factors of any rhetorical situtation are extremely important.