My Summaries of Rhetorical Democracy Chapters

Hey, I hope you guys don't mind me blogging these potentially long, dry summaries of the chapters; doing this partly helps me think out loud, so I don't mean to indulge at the expense of your kind attention.

The chapters in this week's reading do a lot to demonstrate the classical conceptions of rhetoric, the current state of democracy, and the need for expansions of our idea of rhetoric based on that model. All of them seem to echo Berlin in arguing for rhetoric as the place to empower citizens to truly participate in democracy, and all seem to argue for a change in the way rhetoric is approached in the academy. I'll put my own interpretations of how they do the latter, and, as always, anyone's thoughts about incomplete, bogus, or thought-provoking parts of my tiny synopsis are welcome.

Hauser offers a generalized view of what rhetorical democracy means--one where the voice of the people is that of the government. He discusses how democratic governments since the Athenian one have claimed legitimacy based on the will of the people, but how they don't necessarily represent it as they claim to. Teachers of rhetoric can help establish a true rhetorical democracy, that accounts for diversity and does away with hegemony, by teaching students to communicate effectively. His implication is that rhetoric needs a more central position in the academy . . . I think.

Gronbeck focuses on the web's effect on rhetorical democracy, which he sees as potentially revolutionary. Since the web represents an unregulated, collectivist space where no one site stands for the voice of the elite, it's potentially a space where anyone with some grasp of rhetoric can have a powerful voice. He suggests that rhetoricians, teachers of rhetoric, examine what I'll call cyber-rhetoric for its key differences from traditional modes of communication: it can be more chatty than written discourse, and more formal than oral discourse; its inclusion of images, links, and other forms of augmentation complicate it; and it collapses the distinction between rhetor and auditor, or audience. The implication here, too, may be that training in this kind of rhetoric will strengthen rhetorical democracy.

Logan's chapter examines the rhetoric of African-American women, which holds implications for the rhetoric of any marginalized group. This rhetoric relies on two key elements, identification and resistance, which the disenfranchised rhetor uses to persuade an elite audience. The identification lets the rhetor in to the elite group, and the resistance offers whatever protest of oppression forms the thesis of the communication. This is a rhetoric that definitely wouldn't have formed a part of Athenian democracy, where the disenfranchised had no access at all, but needs to be included in a modern rhetorical democracy. Her argument also echoes Berlin's, in that she sees this rhetoric as helping to privilege differences, instead of homogenizing different groups into one. Again, she implies the need for training in the above techniques.

Eberly's chapter seems to argue most explicitly for resituating rhetoric's place in the academy. She goes back to Plato's constriction of rhetoric into a discipline all its own, and seems to pin the blame for rhetoric's continued iffy status in the academy on this narrow conception of it. She quotes Crowley as saying that we tend to seek audiences beyond our discourse community, and seems to argue for a more wide-spread application of rhetoric that may move it beyond the one discipline. Like Hauser, she argues explicitly for the teaching of rhetoric as necessary for democracy.

Finally, Simons' in-depth examination of the TIF and related models shows an application of a rhetoric informed by the demands of a new rhetorical democracy. The issues forum seems to draw on the Athenian model of everyone participating with a voice, while updating its methods to account for what the other authors have pointed out. The forum is wired and broadcast in several forms of media, giving it the cyber-awareness so important to Gronbeck. The inclusion of diverse views answers the need pointed out by Logan, for a rhetoric that lets oppressed groups have a voice. The focus on issues outside of rhetoric facilitates the changes that Eberly seems to be looking for, that let rhetoric interact with the academy as a whole.

All of the above chapters suggest radical ways of rethinking rhetoric along lines that may be post-post-modern, that are definitely socially oriented, and that seem to serve a democratic ideal. They have also made for a giant blog entry, and I thank you for indulging me.