Crowley, Chapter 2

The big thing for me in this chapter is Crowley's articulation (a nod to chapter 3) of how rhetoric can bridge the gap between the dominant hegemonies she sees in liberalism and fundamentalist Christianity. My own understanding of rhetorical theory is still too inchoate to see all of the moves Crowley makes, but a big one for me was her discussion of the stasis, a discussion which has--thanks to Dr. Strickland--come up for me a few times already this semester, between readings for this class and 8010. Crowley's use of stasis theory to describe how pro-choice and pro-life advocates ("an instance of the hegemonic struggle between liberalism and fundamentalist Christianity" (28) are essentially talking at cross-purposes ("An ancient teacher of rhetoric would have realized immediately that this disagreement is not in stasis; that is, its participants do not agree on the point about which they disagree, and hence two different and incompatible arguments are being mounted" 28-9). Crowley goes on to assert that "Argument entails the exchange of claims and evidence about a disputed position; minimally it requires an advocate to recognize that an opponent has a position on the issue at hand... [and] argument minimally requires an advocate to acknowledge that his or her claim is controversial" (29). Her point is that "Rhetorically speaking, if stasis is not achieved, each side may generate all the evidence in the world to support its claims and yet never engage in argument" (ibid). Because liberal rhetorical theory does values reason but not faith (37) and because its goal is understanding and not persuasion (41-3), it is ill-suited to encounter, engage and mollify Christian fundamentalism. Crowley summarizes her assessment of liberal rhetoric's ability to this end thusly:

"Like liberal theorists, I believe that if democracy is to thrive, citizens must negotiate their disagreements with one another. However, I part from liberal belief in at least two respects. I reject the claim that disagreements can be resolved solely by appeals to empirically based reason.... Second, I do not expect that full agreement can ever be reached on any issue that concerns a large group of citizens" (44).

She thus turns to "search for other grounds from which to think about political argument" and turns to "premodern rhetorical thinking as a place to begin" (44). Crowley states that "ancient rhetoric has much to offer postmodernity" (45), including the focus on location and contingency and the turn towards language. But "A contemporary theory of rhetoric," Crowley contends, "must do more than revive ancient notions... it must adapt old notions to address contemporary rhetorical situations" (47). Here Crowley marries ancient rhetoric with postmodern concepts to provide "analytic advantage[s] over modernism" (48). Rhetorical arguments circulate within *doxa*, that is, the communal life, and they are contingent and reflexive (reciprocal, as opposed to binary--mutually dependent and mutally constructive), arising out of given circumstances.

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the rhetorical terminology and its application to pomo ideas and thinkers that I'm familiar with (she cites Derrida, Spivak, Foucault, as well as Bordieu)--and I'm not sure if she's successful in her stated aims just yet--but her project has been provacative for me. While her alarmist approach to fundamentalist Christianity (warranted or not, given her position that apocalypticism threatens democracy) has the unfortunate side-effect of overshadowing her approach to engaging (and surmounting?) the seemingly incompatible positions of liberalism and fundamentalist Christianity. Perhaps one of her other works focuses solely on that aspect of her project.