Knowledge, new ideas, innovation, advantage, vision, rhetoric--all of these set the one-eyed man apart from his peers since he possesses something that the rest do not. What he ultimately possesses is power over the others, whether he usurps it himself or they give it to him and acknowledge him as leader because of what he has. He becomes the gatekeeper who has the "ability to certify certain ideas as being knowledge" (Brummett 12). Good rhetoricians often possess such power over their peers. Because so many men and a few women have thought deeply, spoken vociferously, and written prolifically about rhetoric and the power it holds over people, we have asked a few of the representatives of these "one-eyed men and women," to tea, and their dialogue today may help us In come In some) conclusions about the question that has plagued us: what is rhetoric? Let us listen in on their polite conversation.
