Nothing is right in individual and collective action: Placing unknowability at the heart of theorizing through rhetoric

The world is fueled by tensions, contradictions, and dilemmas that cannot be solved, or where both the solution and the problems are unknown. Organizing in this milieu requires a theory for a world that is unknowable and still needs to be managed. We argue that such a theory can be built by drawing on rhetoric, but not the conventional form of rhetoric that is fascinated with persuasion, cognition, and knowledge construction. We turn instead to the history of rhetoric as it developed into a set of practices capable of informing individual and collective action in the face of an unknownable reality. This alternative perspective leads to theorizing the tensions and contradictions of organizing, not as a gap that must be filled with knowledge to be reified as a ‘thing’, nor as a cognitive ambiguity blurring opposing demands, but as a mystery that cannot ultimately be known (a ‘no-thing’) but can be enacted through ritualized practices of inquiry to inspire imagination and pragmatic action. We illustrate our theoretical argument with anecdotal examples inspired by the Sustainable Development Goals.