Slowing down our rhetoric. Ramage and the "Slow Food Movement"

In this section, Ramage compares the (de) evolution of means of food production and distribution to the aforementioned terms of "motion" vs. "act." To act is to to do something with intention. To hopefully, apply purpose to our activities and our thoughts. To engage in motion is merely to be caught up in the swaying movement of "progress" or technology or any other number of experiences in our lives. Ramage asserts that only human beings are capable of "action" because we are the only ones who can understand ourselves in terms of future consequences, whether they be death or merely the way we want to raise our children.

He says, "the production of fast food is, in short, the culinary version of motion. The production of slow food, meanwhile, is quintessentially an act" (Ramage 31). The Slow Food Movement is the idea that we might know where the things we ingest come from. That they may remain connected to our social and ideological frameworks. It is the idea that what sustains us is something that we choose to be connected to. That connection will, as Ramage seems to assert intrinsically, be something that is based on thoughtfulness, sustainability and intention. Our choices will be an act, and not merely something we allow ourselve to fall into collectively or individually.

Moreover, he uses the analogy of the slow food movement to connect to the idea of rhetorical evolution as well. As rhetoric has made its way from classical models and ancient underpinnings to contemporary practice, it has shifted in subtle and radical ways. The Slow Food way of looking at this evolution would then, in turn, be in taking note of these subtle changes, mapping them with a tender eye and not merely with consumerist savagery.

A Slow Food approach would also in turn, ally itself with the complexity that goes into preparation and expression. Not seeing food or rhetoric merely as a set of steps to be mapped and mastered, but rather to place them into the context which they belong. Rhetoric cannot, asserts Ramage, exist outside of its context. It should be aware of the subtle shifts of season and flavor that make it something of sustenance.

He points to the idea that if rhetoric is to really be used ethically, as an instrument of change, then a slow awakening to its shifts and principles should be undertaken. Ramage advocates for a slow down of processes and goals. I find his work useful to my own thinking here because I often feel like things are moving so fast that my thinking is only served best by its mercurial quality rather than its depth. This chapter asks me to consider my own purpose, whether it be in something I put into my physical body, my teachers tool kit, or my mind.
This section advocates deep consideration of principles and ethics, of ideas and motivations in regards to thinking and living. I appreciate his appraisal of what we are losing when we speed things up, when we give ourselves over to commodification and assembly lines. There is an inherent danger in these activities. A danger of losing substance in exchange for accessibility.