Vatz, Richard E. “The Myth of the Rhetorical Situation.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 6.3 (1973): 41-71.
Vatz refutes Bitzer’s idea of the rhetorical situation by first stating: “No situation can have a nature independent of the perception of its interpreter or independent of the rhetoric with which he chooses to characterize it” (154). Vatz also explains Bitzer’s point of view as thus: “There is an intrinsic nature in events from which rhetoric inexorably follows, or should follow” (155). Vatz then sums up the rest of Bitzer’s argument before moving into his main argument, which involves a perspective on how the world is “a scene of inexhaustible events which all compete to impinge on what Kenneth Burke calls our ‘sliver of reality’” (156). An essential part of this, of course, is context and choice, for “any rhetor is involved in this sifting and choosing” (156) and “the very choice of what facts or events are relevant is a matter of pure arbitration” (157). Before moving into the next section of his argument, Vatz makes clear that “meaning is not discovered in situations, by created by rhetors” (157).
Vatz then turns to the implications for rhetoric and the rhetor, specifically the notion of responsibility. According to Vatz, Bitzer’s perspective places very little responsibility upon the rhetor regarding salience; however, “if we view the communication of an event as a choice, interpretation, and translation, the rhetor’s responsibility is of supreme concern” (158). Furthermore, “to view rhetoric as a creation of reality or salience rather than a reflector of reality clearly increases the rhetor’s moral responsibility…the rhetor is responsible for what he chooses to make salient” (158).
From this, Vatz asks the essential question: “What is the relationship between rhetoric and situations?” (158), stating that “situations are rhetorical…utterance strongly invites exigence…rhetoric controls the situational response…[and] situations obtain their character from the rhetoric which surrounds or creates them” (159). Vatz then invokes Vietnam, explaining that “the meaning of the war (war?, civil war?) came from the rhetoric surrounding it” (159), before drawing on the example of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which “once the situation was made salient and depicted as a crisis, the situation took new form” (159-160), and then commenting on the assassination of JKF (160).
In conclusion, Vatz stresses “rhetoric is a cause not an effect of meaning” (159) for “after salience is created, the situation must be translated into meaning” (160). Furthermore, “to say that the President is speaking out on a pressing issue is redundant” (161). And lastly, “it is only when the meaning is seen as the result of a creative act and not a discovery, that rhetoric will be perceived as the supreme discipline it deserves to be” (161). This last sentence carries the implication that Bitzer’s very argument cheapens, even demeans rhetoric.