Monday, March 5, 2007
Crowley in the blogosphere
Last year some blogging folks in rhet/comp had a "carnival" (linked discussion) of Crowley's book. There are several entries I might link to, but this one at Jeff Rice's blog included a number of links to other entries, as well as some discussion by Crowley herself (under a pseudonym).
Court on Crowley Redux
I've sort of said most of this already, but I'll reiterate and make it more to the points brought up in other posts:
I must have missed something--which isn't hard since 1) Crowley digresses more than I do; and 2) I digress quite a bit, both in speaking/writing and reading. But I didn't see where Crowley either positioned herself above the fray or even hinted that she intended to be objective. On the contrary, she states quite plainly in the Preface that she's doing a hatchet job of sorts, because she feels that Christian fundamentalism is a threat to democracy: "...the more I study apocalypticism, the more intense becomes my desire not only to dissent from it but to warn others of the ideological dangers it poses to democracy" (ix). Crowley doesn't, in my opinion (though that opinion is admittedly not as invested as others), make broad claims against all Christians, but rather is concerned with those who have sought to reconstitute the role of faith in politics--to merge the private with the public (separation of church and state being a fundamental precept of the Constitution, along with the religious tolerance and inclusion that follow).
Crowley's project, as best as I can see so far (and as best as I can summarize it), is to demonstrate why she believes that fundamentalist (and/or apocalyptic) Christianity has become a dominant hegemony in the U.S. and a challenge to the competing "default" hegemony of liberalism; and that the values inherent to liberalism--"freedom, tolerance, privacy, reason, and the rule of law" (5)--"double" as values inherent to democracy, she feels the challenge must be engaged. Crowley feels that liberal rhetoric is ill-suited to engage fundamentalist Christianity, however--or rather, stasis between liberalism and Christian fundamentalism can not be met, or rather that a reformulated rhetorical theory, one that marries a postmodern orientation with rhetorical strategies--both modern and ancient--is better-suited for engaging the new hegemony.
Rather than being "above the fray," I think Crowley's trying to reconstitute the fray--to bring it into stasis--through her own articulation of the fundamental (and fundamentalist) positions--on both sides. She wants to break down the binary, but she also feels that *fundamentalist* Christianity is a real threat to democracy--because it challenges representative deliberation, privileges the collective over the individual, operates through coercion, and does not allow for tolerance or pluralism (again, this is fundamentalist Christianity--and I would posit one can say the same about fundamentalist Islam, etc.). So she's invested in critiquing fundamentalist Christianity, whereas liberalism is merely "exhausted" (my word--or rather, Lyotard's--but not Crowley's).
To maybe bridge the divide that has seemingly crept in even here, I'd like to make an aside. Kevin mentions how Crowley easily could have turned to the poststructuralists she later uses (Derrida, Foucault, Said) instead of Mouffe in her discussion of identity and "the Other"--I had a similar reaction, only the name that came to mind for me was Emmanuel Levinas (his name is absent in Crowley, as far as I can tell--quite a surprise considering how many other names appear). Just to historically orient those who aren't familiar, in the long line of philosophical "begetting" (Nietzshe and Marx beget Althusser and Heidegger; Althusser and Heidegger beget Foucault and Derrida; Foucault and Derrida beget Said and Butler), Levinas fits snuggly between the generation of Althusser/Heidegger and that of Foucault/Derrida. Levinas was fairly influential, himself, in formulating "L'Autre," the modern concept of the radical Other in constituting the Self. Levinas felt that the Other's presence is what articulates one's own ethical role in the world. In "Totality and Infinity" he posits that "L'Autre precisely reveals himself in his alterity, not in a shock negating the Same [the Self], but as the primordial phenomenon of *gentillesse* ["tranquility" or "gentleness"]." This encounter with the Other in alterity (otherness encountered in a binary) articulates for the Same, the Self--even before one can formulate a response--a demand by the Other for engagement, for affirmation or denial. One has a sense of immediate ethical obligation to the Other. It might be interesting--in terms of bridging the divide between theology and postmodernism--tp make a connection between Levinas' ethical position and Crowley's position on rhetoric, that "minimally it requires an advocate to recognize that an opponent has a position on the issue at hand..." (29). (It might be interesting to note, too, that Levinas articulated God as "the inifinite Other").
I must have missed something--which isn't hard since 1) Crowley digresses more than I do; and 2) I digress quite a bit, both in speaking/writing and reading. But I didn't see where Crowley either positioned herself above the fray or even hinted that she intended to be objective. On the contrary, she states quite plainly in the Preface that she's doing a hatchet job of sorts, because she feels that Christian fundamentalism is a threat to democracy: "...the more I study apocalypticism, the more intense becomes my desire not only to dissent from it but to warn others of the ideological dangers it poses to democracy" (ix). Crowley doesn't, in my opinion (though that opinion is admittedly not as invested as others), make broad claims against all Christians, but rather is concerned with those who have sought to reconstitute the role of faith in politics--to merge the private with the public (separation of church and state being a fundamental precept of the Constitution, along with the religious tolerance and inclusion that follow).
Crowley's project, as best as I can see so far (and as best as I can summarize it), is to demonstrate why she believes that fundamentalist (and/or apocalyptic) Christianity has become a dominant hegemony in the U.S. and a challenge to the competing "default" hegemony of liberalism; and that the values inherent to liberalism--"freedom, tolerance, privacy, reason, and the rule of law" (5)--"double" as values inherent to democracy, she feels the challenge must be engaged. Crowley feels that liberal rhetoric is ill-suited to engage fundamentalist Christianity, however--or rather, stasis between liberalism and Christian fundamentalism can not be met, or rather that a reformulated rhetorical theory, one that marries a postmodern orientation with rhetorical strategies--both modern and ancient--is better-suited for engaging the new hegemony.
Rather than being "above the fray," I think Crowley's trying to reconstitute the fray--to bring it into stasis--through her own articulation of the fundamental (and fundamentalist) positions--on both sides. She wants to break down the binary, but she also feels that *fundamentalist* Christianity is a real threat to democracy--because it challenges representative deliberation, privileges the collective over the individual, operates through coercion, and does not allow for tolerance or pluralism (again, this is fundamentalist Christianity--and I would posit one can say the same about fundamentalist Islam, etc.). So she's invested in critiquing fundamentalist Christianity, whereas liberalism is merely "exhausted" (my word--or rather, Lyotard's--but not Crowley's).
To maybe bridge the divide that has seemingly crept in even here, I'd like to make an aside. Kevin mentions how Crowley easily could have turned to the poststructuralists she later uses (Derrida, Foucault, Said) instead of Mouffe in her discussion of identity and "the Other"--I had a similar reaction, only the name that came to mind for me was Emmanuel Levinas (his name is absent in Crowley, as far as I can tell--quite a surprise considering how many other names appear). Just to historically orient those who aren't familiar, in the long line of philosophical "begetting" (Nietzshe and Marx beget Althusser and Heidegger; Althusser and Heidegger beget Foucault and Derrida; Foucault and Derrida beget Said and Butler), Levinas fits snuggly between the generation of Althusser/Heidegger and that of Foucault/Derrida. Levinas was fairly influential, himself, in formulating "L'Autre," the modern concept of the radical Other in constituting the Self. Levinas felt that the Other's presence is what articulates one's own ethical role in the world. In "Totality and Infinity" he posits that "L'Autre precisely reveals himself in his alterity, not in a shock negating the Same [the Self], but as the primordial phenomenon of *gentillesse* ["tranquility" or "gentleness"]." This encounter with the Other in alterity (otherness encountered in a binary) articulates for the Same, the Self--even before one can formulate a response--a demand by the Other for engagement, for affirmation or denial. One has a sense of immediate ethical obligation to the Other. It might be interesting--in terms of bridging the divide between theology and postmodernism--tp make a connection between Levinas' ethical position and Crowley's position on rhetoric, that "minimally it requires an advocate to recognize that an opponent has a position on the issue at hand..." (29). (It might be interesting to note, too, that Levinas articulated God as "the inifinite Other").
Concept Map - Crowley
I think/hope if you click this it'll open up to another page and be much bigger.
Crowley and Stance
The problem with tackling the assigned rhetoric readings so late in the week is that everyone has already addressed what interested me! Yes,
Crowleyism
Kevin's thoughts, like all of yours, have really helped me to contextualize Crowley's arguments. The political edge to her work is certainly just one aspect of it, even though she's sharpened it and made it impossible to read around. That deliberate step does have the effect of making us uneasy, as Berlin and others have argued that students need to feel, in order to start questioning their value systems and really seeing how socially constructed they are. One system of questioning seems to lead to the other, at least in my own thinking--I think, "man, am I liberal, or fundamentalist, or both?" Then, "where do these values come from?" Partly, though, I follow that line of thought precisely because the rhetorical pedagogues before Crowley have taught me to look for it; as a teacher, if we decide to make our students squirm in their value systems a little, I wonder if I need to indicate that that's precisely what I'm doing, and to make a pedagogical forum where students are encouraged to air their views precisely as they are, to put ideology forward so that we can all interact with each other's, and, most importantly, so they don't feel pressured into the communist party, the church of essentialism :), or any other group.
One part of Crowley's argument (and forgive me if it's been explored already) that seems a little more value-neutral (and, yes, she would say that's impossible), is her writing on fundamentalism, on page 13, where she aligns it with foundationalism, which basically says that every belief system stems fromm an ideological foundation. This seems important because it brings in the question of whether the antifoundationalism she claims, which is a critique of established systems of belief, comes from the same foundation. She points out that critiquing beliefs as nonrational is also fundamentalist, and says that she doesn't do that, which is perhaps arguable. She seems mostly to say that liberals are more open to debate than conservatives, which, even if we agree with this, has to be called into question by her book's own explorations. How open is she to interpreting the rhetoric of those who are clearly her ideological opponents, and doing so fairly? Again, she would argue that "fair" is impossible; she might also say that liberals go closer to it than conservatives.
One part of Crowley's argument (and forgive me if it's been explored already) that seems a little more value-neutral (and, yes, she would say that's impossible), is her writing on fundamentalism, on page 13, where she aligns it with foundationalism, which basically says that every belief system stems fromm an ideological foundation. This seems important because it brings in the question of whether the antifoundationalism she claims, which is a critique of established systems of belief, comes from the same foundation. She points out that critiquing beliefs as nonrational is also fundamentalist, and says that she doesn't do that, which is perhaps arguable. She seems mostly to say that liberals are more open to debate than conservatives, which, even if we agree with this, has to be called into question by her book's own explorations. How open is she to interpreting the rhetoric of those who are clearly her ideological opponents, and doing so fairly? Again, she would argue that "fair" is impossible; she might also say that liberals go closer to it than conservatives.
Crowley, dense articulations, and classroom possibilities
I thought I'd go ahead and post some other sections of my paper that I left off last night. Although I do touch on the "how biased or unbiased is Crowley?" question in this week's presentation, I mainly focused on how many of her ideas--or Mouffe's ideas as taken from Derrida, Foucault, and Edward Said, who I’ll read from later--could be operationalized a bit. While I’m also interested in questioning Crowley's politics or ulterior motives in presenting her “meta-discourse” or self-reflexive rhetoric (and I really liked the questions raised by Mark and Faith on the last two posts on this board--where does Crowley stand beyond what liberals and Apocalyptists do?), I’m also interested in how some of her rhetoric provides concepts for civic discourse (that is, regardless of where Crowley may head in the second half of the book, I'm picking out some of her rhetorical strategies that could aid in a class discussion, a semiotic analysis of a text, a way to consider how "densely articulated" our own belief systems can be, etc).
I also wanted to add that, having grown up among (1oo's, 1,000's?) of fundamentalist Christians--in the shadow of some of their world headquarters--I would agree with Faith and likely all of you that, yes, there's a wide range of beliefs, motivations, and interpretations of why someone follows the tenets of a denomination. On the one hand, I'm glad I grew up among those who lived a Jesus Camp life and those who felt freer to negotiate what their faith might “mean” and how it might best be practiced. Almost by geographical default, I have many friends who are fundamentalist Christians. Having said that--having over-articulated my ethos claim here--I would disagree with what seems like over-generalization when Faith writes:
“a Fundamentalist Christian would never claim to have beliefs as Crowley defines them: ‘views or attitudes . . . that serve the interests of the believer and/or some other person, group, or institution’ (68). Their focus is on a much larger goal, winning souls for Christ, meaning that their life isn't about them. There's a higher purpose. In fact, living for yourself is just about the worst thing you can do.”
I agree that most “would never claim to have beliefs as Crowley defines them,” but I think Crowley would say that this was conjecture on her part (apt or not) and that, no, most would not openly admit or realize that this was the case, though a lack of admission or awareness would not mean that it wasn’t the case. I guess I’m worrying over the perhaps over-generous way in which you’re characterizing “their focus,” since I fail to believe that all fundamentalist Christians “focus on a much larger goal, winning souls for Christ” and that “their life isn’t about them. There’s a higher purpose.” Having said that, I don’t agree with Crowley when she begins to dwell exclusively on the Christian right as those who show “willingness to distort factual evidence to make ideological points” (168)(nor do I celebrate the over-representation of Christian freak shows in the documentaries I mention in the part of my paper I will get to below). I do share some of your irritation with overly smug, thinly veiled and equally hegemonic portraits from some of The Left (as I now over-generalize). I think we’ve mentioned a mutual interest in (the now defunct?) Studio 60, which would have higher ratings if I weren’t on the road most Monday nights, partly because it's interesting to watch Aaron Sorkin try to provide (self-professed) “fair time” to what he still sees as “The Other” (i.e. his sometimes stock Harriet Hayes character).
At any rate, here is more from what I’ll be talking about, CMAP in hand, when we gather this evening. . . .
* * * *
At times Crowley’s over-reliance on Chantel Mouffe for any discussion of “an identity such as ‘an American’ depend[ing] upon a rigorous exclusion of . . .competing national identities” seemed to over-credit Mouffe, LaClau et al. for ideas of “difference” and “the Other” easily found in Derrida, Foucault, and Said’s Orientalism (1978, 2002) (72). However, Crowley does cite these famous poststructuralists when she focuses on how hegemonic fixing of identities takes on the social (and bodily) incipience of habitus, and how a “densely articulated ideologic” enters the habitus, “explains everything,” and produces “intense emotional responses” that can rarely be countered (79). At this point Crowley suggests that beliefs new to, or less densely clustered with, commonplace ideologies are at least “relatively open to reception” (79). This put me in mind of Jon Stewart’s skirmishes with pundits on “real news” shows such as Hardball. Stewart’s contention is that these shows do not promote political discourse so much as white noise--easy iterations of densely articulated belief systems, a forum for commonplaces, platitudes, poll-tested talking points, and what Crowley might term the “ringing of chimes” to produce “sympathetic vibrations” (78-79).
The more accessible sections of Crowley’s book could be offered to a Jim-Berlin-caliber, uber-FYC course (or what we might just call Honors Comp). Perhaps a discussion of whether or not Crowley is biased in her depiction of the Christian Right could lead to peripheral points of how limited our language is when we try to avoid biased discourse on liberals or conservatives. Certainly, assertions such as “one function of hegemony and ideology is to create identity, to disguise or hide the flow of difference” would spark debate and abound in post-9/11 media examples: Progress for America’s “Because they want to kill us” ad, primetime dramas such as 24 and Studio 60 whose creators claim equal time for the left and the right (72). If nothing else, portions of Crowley’s argument could lead to the meta-awareness of being in a classroom (the Eden where some want us to lead value-neutral discussions) while debating whether or not we can find a space to offer 1) respect and the potential for justice, 2) the awareness and allowance of emotion, values, and beliefs, and 3) opportunities for discourse modeled on “agonistic pluralism” instead of consensus or a “perceived erosion of values.”
I also wanted to add that, having grown up among (1oo's, 1,000's?) of fundamentalist Christians--in the shadow of some of their world headquarters--I would agree with Faith and likely all of you that, yes, there's a wide range of beliefs, motivations, and interpretations of why someone follows the tenets of a denomination. On the one hand, I'm glad I grew up among those who lived a Jesus Camp life and those who felt freer to negotiate what their faith might “mean” and how it might best be practiced. Almost by geographical default, I have many friends who are fundamentalist Christians. Having said that--having over-articulated my ethos claim here--I would disagree with what seems like over-generalization when Faith writes:
“a Fundamentalist Christian would never claim to have beliefs as Crowley defines them: ‘views or attitudes . . . that serve the interests of the believer and/or some other person, group, or institution’ (68). Their focus is on a much larger goal, winning souls for Christ, meaning that their life isn't about them. There's a higher purpose. In fact, living for yourself is just about the worst thing you can do.”
I agree that most “would never claim to have beliefs as Crowley defines them,” but I think Crowley would say that this was conjecture on her part (apt or not) and that, no, most would not openly admit or realize that this was the case, though a lack of admission or awareness would not mean that it wasn’t the case. I guess I’m worrying over the perhaps over-generous way in which you’re characterizing “their focus,” since I fail to believe that all fundamentalist Christians “focus on a much larger goal, winning souls for Christ” and that “their life isn’t about them. There’s a higher purpose.” Having said that, I don’t agree with Crowley when she begins to dwell exclusively on the Christian right as those who show “willingness to distort factual evidence to make ideological points” (168)(nor do I celebrate the over-representation of Christian freak shows in the documentaries I mention in the part of my paper I will get to below). I do share some of your irritation with overly smug, thinly veiled and equally hegemonic portraits from some of The Left (as I now over-generalize). I think we’ve mentioned a mutual interest in (the now defunct?) Studio 60, which would have higher ratings if I weren’t on the road most Monday nights, partly because it's interesting to watch Aaron Sorkin try to provide (self-professed) “fair time” to what he still sees as “The Other” (i.e. his sometimes stock Harriet Hayes character).
At any rate, here is more from what I’ll be talking about, CMAP in hand, when we gather this evening. . . .
* * * *
At times Crowley’s over-reliance on Chantel Mouffe for any discussion of “an identity such as ‘an American’ depend[ing] upon a rigorous exclusion of . . .competing national identities” seemed to over-credit Mouffe, LaClau et al. for ideas of “difference” and “the Other” easily found in Derrida, Foucault, and Said’s Orientalism (1978, 2002) (72). However, Crowley does cite these famous poststructuralists when she focuses on how hegemonic fixing of identities takes on the social (and bodily) incipience of habitus, and how a “densely articulated ideologic” enters the habitus, “explains everything,” and produces “intense emotional responses” that can rarely be countered (79). At this point Crowley suggests that beliefs new to, or less densely clustered with, commonplace ideologies are at least “relatively open to reception” (79). This put me in mind of Jon Stewart’s skirmishes with pundits on “real news” shows such as Hardball. Stewart’s contention is that these shows do not promote political discourse so much as white noise--easy iterations of densely articulated belief systems, a forum for commonplaces, platitudes, poll-tested talking points, and what Crowley might term the “ringing of chimes” to produce “sympathetic vibrations” (78-79).
The more accessible sections of Crowley’s book could be offered to a Jim-Berlin-caliber, uber-FYC course (or what we might just call Honors Comp). Perhaps a discussion of whether or not Crowley is biased in her depiction of the Christian Right could lead to peripheral points of how limited our language is when we try to avoid biased discourse on liberals or conservatives. Certainly, assertions such as “one function of hegemony and ideology is to create identity, to disguise or hide the flow of difference” would spark debate and abound in post-9/11 media examples: Progress for America’s “Because they want to kill us” ad, primetime dramas such as 24 and Studio 60 whose creators claim equal time for the left and the right (72). If nothing else, portions of Crowley’s argument could lead to the meta-awareness of being in a classroom (the Eden where some want us to lead value-neutral discussions) while debating whether or not we can find a space to offer 1) respect and the potential for justice, 2) the awareness and allowance of emotion, values, and beliefs, and 3) opportunities for discourse modeled on “agonistic pluralism” instead of consensus or a “perceived erosion of values.”
S.C. and K.B.
A lot of what Crowley discusses in Toward a Civil Discourse (particularly chapter 3) reminds me of Kenneth Burke. Luckily for me, Crowley never makes the explicit connection to Burke, and so I have something to blog about. Basically, I think some of Burke’s ideas do a nice job of explaining why and how people act the way they do when it comes to politics and controversial social issues (each the province of symbolic action). I’ve squashed my impulse to spill out everything I know about Burke, and chosen just two ideas that have some obvious implications for the way people deliberate today.
God and Devil Terms Crowley notes the hierarchical nature of values, but according to Burke, or language is hierarchical too. Some words have more rhetorical force than others. Such is the case with God and Devil terms (which were also discussed by Richard Weaver). A God term represents the ultimate good in society (“security”, “freedom”, etc.). Devil terms, on the other hand, represent all that is evil and wrong in the world (“terrorist”, “un-American”). People (ab)use these terms all too often. For instance, a member of school board once accused a teachers’ union of ‘terrorism.’ This is a pretty offensive example, but what should be understood is that the very nature of our language often encourages us to take sides (see Burke’s terministic screens).
Guilt-Redemption-Purification The grand dramatistic cycle also seems to be relevant to Crowley’s discussion, particularly in regard to scapegoating. Basically, human beings have established order, but can’t live by it. Therefore, we experience guilt. The only way to cleanse ourselves of that guilt is through blaming ourselves (mortification) or blaming others (victimage). I really think there is something to be said for our desire to blame and symbolically slay other people and ideas. If this is really our natural inclination, then its no wonder we have so much trouble communicating in ways that aren’t completely polarizing and potentially harmful.
In short, contemporary discourse tends to be polarized and contentious and at the very least, I think Burke provides a vocabulary with which we can explain or describe some of these things.
God and Devil Terms Crowley notes the hierarchical nature of values, but according to Burke, or language is hierarchical too. Some words have more rhetorical force than others. Such is the case with God and Devil terms (which were also discussed by Richard Weaver). A God term represents the ultimate good in society (“security”, “freedom”, etc.). Devil terms, on the other hand, represent all that is evil and wrong in the world (“terrorist”, “un-American”). People (ab)use these terms all too often. For instance, a member of school board once accused a teachers’ union of ‘terrorism.’ This is a pretty offensive example, but what should be understood is that the very nature of our language often encourages us to take sides (see Burke’s terministic screens).
Guilt-Redemption-Purification The grand dramatistic cycle also seems to be relevant to Crowley’s discussion, particularly in regard to scapegoating. Basically, human beings have established order, but can’t live by it. Therefore, we experience guilt. The only way to cleanse ourselves of that guilt is through blaming ourselves (mortification) or blaming others (victimage). I really think there is something to be said for our desire to blame and symbolically slay other people and ideas. If this is really our natural inclination, then its no wonder we have so much trouble communicating in ways that aren’t completely polarizing and potentially harmful.
In short, contemporary discourse tends to be polarized and contentious and at the very least, I think Burke provides a vocabulary with which we can explain or describe some of these things.
Hegemony
I liked Mark's comment about “meta-discourse” -- perhaps that was was irking me about Crowley. It's especially confusing because she makes a good case for the pervasiveness of the hegemony. She seems to address this for liberals, but not for herself: “Thus the beliefs and practices of Americans who are not Christians are nonetheless affected by the hegemonic status of Christianity in this country.” Is she claiming to be outside that then? And if there's at least one smart person outside the hegemony, does that make it not a hegemony anymore?
I see this as related to Crowley's central problem – she represents Fundamentalist Christians as she sees them, not as they would represent themselves (presumably she can do this because she's outside the hegemony). For example, a Fundamentalist Christian would never claim to have beliefs as Crowley defines them: “views or attitudes . . . that serve the interests of the believer and/or some other person, group, or institution” (68). A Fundamentalist Christian would be offended at the mere idea that they were a Christian because they needed to be, just as I get angry when someone says that they “wish” they could be religious because it would “make everything so simple.” Their focus is on a much larger goal, winning souls for Christ, meaning that their life isn't about them. There's a higher purpose. In fact, living for yourself is just about the worst thing you can do. But Crowley defines the group in the way she sees them as an outsider, such as the paragraph where she equates angels with aliens (75).
I see this as related to Crowley's central problem – she represents Fundamentalist Christians as she sees them, not as they would represent themselves (presumably she can do this because she's outside the hegemony). For example, a Fundamentalist Christian would never claim to have beliefs as Crowley defines them: “views or attitudes . . . that serve the interests of the believer and/or some other person, group, or institution” (68). A Fundamentalist Christian would be offended at the mere idea that they were a Christian because they needed to be, just as I get angry when someone says that they “wish” they could be religious because it would “make everything so simple.” Their focus is on a much larger goal, winning souls for Christ, meaning that their life isn't about them. There's a higher purpose. In fact, living for yourself is just about the worst thing you can do. But Crowley defines the group in the way she sees them as an outsider, such as the paragraph where she equates angels with aliens (75).
Sunday, March 4, 2007
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.
"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.
Crowley, Liberal Rhet. Theory, and Jesus Camp
Ok, I'll admit up front that the following is the early part of the paper I'm handing in tomorrow night in conjunction with my CMAP. I thought I'd go ahead and post it as it touches on some of what Faith, Maggie, and others have blogged about so far. . .
* * * *
In Toward a Civil Discourse (2006), Sharon Crowley attempts, with many qualifications, to describe a rhetoric that can work past the “current ideological impasse” between liberalism and apocalyptism in American political discourse (23). Early chapters are dedicated to recovering rhetorical possibilities long obscured by pejorative, cynical connotations of rhetoric in general. Among Crowley’s contentions is that “rhetoric cannot thrive in politics where open disagreement is discouraged” (21). To this end, she describes a discourse in which liberals must forego insistence on reason being paramount to values (John Locke), emotional connections (Lynn Worsham and Alison Jagger), or “evaluation and commitment” (George Campbell’s The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1776)). Likewise, Crowley does not believe that an a priori insistence on consensus—as an outcome of multi-party democracies, public policies, or, really, any rhetorical situation—is a productive “argumentative goal”: “just relations between and among opponents,” she writes, “are . . . difficult to establish . . . when everyone begins with the knowledge that all positions taken by some or all must be eroded or even forgotten if deliberation is to succeed” (21-22).
Crowley builds much of her argument on a foundation provided by Chantel Mouffe, who also decries consensus-building in efforts to rescue democracy from “the failings of liberalism” and Derridean “violent hierarchies,” and who helps recover the “predominant role of passions as moving forces of human conduct” (18-20). Crowley does expand on Mouffe’s assessment of liberal rhetorical theory by articulating how it banks on the willingness of members of a democracy to argue in a rational fashion, even as it becomes clear that legitimacy was never grounded on rational argument (vs. hegemonic discourse), and that liberal rhetorical theory also demotes values (and agency) to the realm of the individual subject (the way Hugh Blair “advised his students to lay aside their commonplaces” and base arguments on their “native genius”), which poststructuralists have already troubled (35-38). To me, this dismantling of liberal rhetorical theory aids in Crowley’s own self-reflexive rhetoric. Crowley is not an apocalyptist but promises to be charitable in order to model the aidos and dike she is promoting in the sophistic tradition of Protagoras and Gorgias; however, she often admits the near impossibility of this while describing the apocalyptist “camp” vs. the liberalism that informs her own politics. Her attempts at self-reflexivity also provide a necessary basis for returning doxa from opinions formed and held by individuals to a more “postmodern theory of rhetorical invention” in which “doxa designates current and local beliefs that circulate communally” (47).
Crowley’s narrative becomes more engaging when she traces a sort of Foucauldian archeology of how hegemonic discourse positioned Americans as a briefly united “we” in the wake of 9/11 and how liberal democracy privatized values and emotions to the realm of the individual while elevating reason to that of public discourse. Her argument is also well-served by repeatedly defining Aristotelian rhetoric as a search for all available means of persuasion. Crowley does run the risk of constructing a straw man out of the tent show end of fundamentalism, but I found that her continual positioning of liberal thought as equally if oppositely hegemonic—an emanation of our habitus that is difficult to “not think” in terms of—did temper the easy one-sidedness to which her book might have succumbed. I also found myself generating more connections to the ways in which liberal thought lacks aidos as it constructs the Other, especially in recent documentaries like Ewing and Grady’s Jesus Camp (2006) and Friends of God (2007), which was directed by Nancy Pelosi’s daughter, Alexandra. Both films have drawn criticism for over-representing the extreme: for focusing on kids praying at camp with a cardboard George W. Bush, or, in the case of Pelosi’s film (described by HBO as “a look at the many millions of evangelical Christians who have become a formidable force in our culture and our democracy”), for lingering on the Christian Wrestling Federation.
* * *
* * * *
In Toward a Civil Discourse (2006), Sharon Crowley attempts, with many qualifications, to describe a rhetoric that can work past the “current ideological impasse” between liberalism and apocalyptism in American political discourse (23). Early chapters are dedicated to recovering rhetorical possibilities long obscured by pejorative, cynical connotations of rhetoric in general. Among Crowley’s contentions is that “rhetoric cannot thrive in politics where open disagreement is discouraged” (21). To this end, she describes a discourse in which liberals must forego insistence on reason being paramount to values (John Locke), emotional connections (Lynn Worsham and Alison Jagger), or “evaluation and commitment” (George Campbell’s The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1776)). Likewise, Crowley does not believe that an a priori insistence on consensus—as an outcome of multi-party democracies, public policies, or, really, any rhetorical situation—is a productive “argumentative goal”: “just relations between and among opponents,” she writes, “are . . . difficult to establish . . . when everyone begins with the knowledge that all positions taken by some or all must be eroded or even forgotten if deliberation is to succeed” (21-22).
Crowley builds much of her argument on a foundation provided by Chantel Mouffe, who also decries consensus-building in efforts to rescue democracy from “the failings of liberalism” and Derridean “violent hierarchies,” and who helps recover the “predominant role of passions as moving forces of human conduct” (18-20). Crowley does expand on Mouffe’s assessment of liberal rhetorical theory by articulating how it banks on the willingness of members of a democracy to argue in a rational fashion, even as it becomes clear that legitimacy was never grounded on rational argument (vs. hegemonic discourse), and that liberal rhetorical theory also demotes values (and agency) to the realm of the individual subject (the way Hugh Blair “advised his students to lay aside their commonplaces” and base arguments on their “native genius”), which poststructuralists have already troubled (35-38). To me, this dismantling of liberal rhetorical theory aids in Crowley’s own self-reflexive rhetoric. Crowley is not an apocalyptist but promises to be charitable in order to model the aidos and dike she is promoting in the sophistic tradition of Protagoras and Gorgias; however, she often admits the near impossibility of this while describing the apocalyptist “camp” vs. the liberalism that informs her own politics. Her attempts at self-reflexivity also provide a necessary basis for returning doxa from opinions formed and held by individuals to a more “postmodern theory of rhetorical invention” in which “doxa designates current and local beliefs that circulate communally” (47).
Crowley’s narrative becomes more engaging when she traces a sort of Foucauldian archeology of how hegemonic discourse positioned Americans as a briefly united “we” in the wake of 9/11 and how liberal democracy privatized values and emotions to the realm of the individual while elevating reason to that of public discourse. Her argument is also well-served by repeatedly defining Aristotelian rhetoric as a search for all available means of persuasion. Crowley does run the risk of constructing a straw man out of the tent show end of fundamentalism, but I found that her continual positioning of liberal thought as equally if oppositely hegemonic—an emanation of our habitus that is difficult to “not think” in terms of—did temper the easy one-sidedness to which her book might have succumbed. I also found myself generating more connections to the ways in which liberal thought lacks aidos as it constructs the Other, especially in recent documentaries like Ewing and Grady’s Jesus Camp (2006) and Friends of God (2007), which was directed by Nancy Pelosi’s daughter, Alexandra. Both films have drawn criticism for over-representing the extreme: for focusing on kids praying at camp with a cardboard George W. Bush, or, in the case of Pelosi’s film (described by HBO as “a look at the many millions of evangelical Christians who have become a formidable force in our culture and our democracy”), for lingering on the Christian Wrestling Federation.
* * *
Going Meta
Crowley describes an interesting problem in America today. People can’t even begin to decide what they are arguing about, let alone find a “civil” way to argue. I think there are a lot of ways for the very people who are in the center of the destructive discourse to pretend like they are not part of the problem. One interesting maneuver is the meta-move.
For instance, Thomas Frank is cited in Toward a Civil Discourse because he has something to say about hegemony. Indeed, his book, Whats the Matter with Kansas?, is concerned with hegemony and how social/moral issues such as abortion have gotten the attention of so-called red-staters so that they now vote for conservative Republicans (against their own economic interests). But Frank is as much a pundit as an analyst. Socially and economically, he presents very “liberal” arguments. However, because he removes himself from the discourse just enough to comment on it, he could probably claim that he is not part of the problem Crowley has defined. It’s a really interesting sort of metacommunicative move.
Perhaps a more obvious example is Michael Moore. He’s stated in Dude, Where’s My Country? that “Horatio Alger Must Die.” He has lamented that people have been deceived into voting based on their aspirations and not their current economic circumstances. He too tries to stand outside the situation in order to comment and define it. He communicates about the communication. Therefore, it would seem unlikely to his readers that he could also be part of the communication. In fact, we know that there are few individuals as polarizing as Michael Moore. He is undoubtedly part of the problem Crowley describes.
“Going meta” (as it was called by Herbert Simon in a QJS article) allows a speaker/writer to step outside or above a context and therefore look as though they are above and beyond the fray. I think all pundits and social/political commentators probably do this – O’Reilly, Hannity, Franken, etc. These commentators break down an opponent’s remarks everyday in order to tell their audience what’s really going on in particular comment or decision. I think it’s a phenomenon that’s really interesting, and also hard to describe, especially in the context of Crowley’s discussion. Sure, the meta-move is probably just another strategy for advancing a particular ideology, but it’s interesting that these rhetors also claim to know how these ideologies work. In fact, if we accept Faith’s interpretation, it would seem that Crowley is guilty of this herself.
For instance, Thomas Frank is cited in Toward a Civil Discourse because he has something to say about hegemony. Indeed, his book, Whats the Matter with Kansas?, is concerned with hegemony and how social/moral issues such as abortion have gotten the attention of so-called red-staters so that they now vote for conservative Republicans (against their own economic interests). But Frank is as much a pundit as an analyst. Socially and economically, he presents very “liberal” arguments. However, because he removes himself from the discourse just enough to comment on it, he could probably claim that he is not part of the problem Crowley has defined. It’s a really interesting sort of metacommunicative move.
Perhaps a more obvious example is Michael Moore. He’s stated in Dude, Where’s My Country? that “Horatio Alger Must Die.” He has lamented that people have been deceived into voting based on their aspirations and not their current economic circumstances. He too tries to stand outside the situation in order to comment and define it. He communicates about the communication. Therefore, it would seem unlikely to his readers that he could also be part of the communication. In fact, we know that there are few individuals as polarizing as Michael Moore. He is undoubtedly part of the problem Crowley describes.
“Going meta” (as it was called by Herbert Simon in a QJS article) allows a speaker/writer to step outside or above a context and therefore look as though they are above and beyond the fray. I think all pundits and social/political commentators probably do this – O’Reilly, Hannity, Franken, etc. These commentators break down an opponent’s remarks everyday in order to tell their audience what’s really going on in particular comment or decision. I think it’s a phenomenon that’s really interesting, and also hard to describe, especially in the context of Crowley’s discussion. Sure, the meta-move is probably just another strategy for advancing a particular ideology, but it’s interesting that these rhetors also claim to know how these ideologies work. In fact, if we accept Faith’s interpretation, it would seem that Crowley is guilty of this herself.
Crowley's Rhetoric
What I thought when reading Crowley was that she's using Berlin's tactic of foregrounding ideology, and giving a strident political focus to her discussion of rhetoric. In this, she seems to be using the approach that she criticizes the fundamentalist rhetoricians for, and I'm not sure whether that was deliberate, and think maybe it wasn't. Her idea that the liberal and fundamentalist rhetoricians are coming from fundamentally incompatible viewpoints seems like a starting point for a discussion of how their rhetorics operate. In her discussion of their operation, she carefully notes where liberals have been more willing to engage the other side than conservatives. So the editorializing intertwines with the scholarship, which, again, fits with the idea that putting ideology out front is the most honest thing to do, so that any political goals can be seen by the students and accepted, or not.
The question that Crowley's use of this tactic brings up is one that the article we read last week got me thinking about: how much does revealing ideology, and political goals, help to promote an honest discourse, and how much does it inhibit the audience, and subvert any potential openness. Crowley comes at us with revolution in her eye, then intersperses discussion of the nature of rhetoric, and I, as a reader, end up skimming toward anything that doesn't seem like mudslinging.
Do you guys think this is deliberate? Does she have a goal on the level of rhetorical pedagogy? I don't really know.
The question that Crowley's use of this tactic brings up is one that the article we read last week got me thinking about: how much does revealing ideology, and political goals, help to promote an honest discourse, and how much does it inhibit the audience, and subvert any potential openness. Crowley comes at us with revolution in her eye, then intersperses discussion of the nature of rhetoric, and I, as a reader, end up skimming toward anything that doesn't seem like mudslinging.
Do you guys think this is deliberate? Does she have a goal on the level of rhetorical pedagogy? I don't really know.
Crowley
The funny thing here is I am a Christian and I do not see what Faith sees in Crowley's work. I am, however, extremely different in my sense of morals and views from those Crowley is talking about. I didn't think she "lumped" all Christian's together in one category, since she was very specific to define Apocalyptists. I find what she has to say quite important, and very perceptive.
I think her argument goes to the way people of differing value systems and beliefs, even among Christians, makes it difficult for true arguments to evolve. Crowley states, "That is to say, argument minimally requires an advocate to acknowledge that his or her claim is controversial. Ethically speaking, if participants in a dispute do not formulate the position about which they disagree, the necessary respect for an other may not be in play, and neither the conduct nor the outcome of the argument may be just" (29). It is the ability to argue, discuss, and respect the views of others I believe she is talking about. It is difficult to argue with one who is so extremely tied into a system of beliefs that ideas and concepts unlike their own are unacceptable. Respect of those opinions is what is necessary, and beyond that the ability to speak up despite the disrespect that may thrown the way of those who choose to speak up.
I think, and I could be wrong, that what Crowley is getting at is the fact that reason within argument will not work within a very passionate argumentative setting. We need to learn to "use" emotion along with reason in order to invoke a more powerful argument. I do not think that Crowley is simply stating that all Christians are unable to see more than one point of view, but there are those who aren't able to do so, and that using passion as a part of their argument they have become extremely influential and difficult for "reasoning" liberals to argue with. I think it's a good point.
I think her argument goes to the way people of differing value systems and beliefs, even among Christians, makes it difficult for true arguments to evolve. Crowley states, "That is to say, argument minimally requires an advocate to acknowledge that his or her claim is controversial. Ethically speaking, if participants in a dispute do not formulate the position about which they disagree, the necessary respect for an other may not be in play, and neither the conduct nor the outcome of the argument may be just" (29). It is the ability to argue, discuss, and respect the views of others I believe she is talking about. It is difficult to argue with one who is so extremely tied into a system of beliefs that ideas and concepts unlike their own are unacceptable. Respect of those opinions is what is necessary, and beyond that the ability to speak up despite the disrespect that may thrown the way of those who choose to speak up.
I think, and I could be wrong, that what Crowley is getting at is the fact that reason within argument will not work within a very passionate argumentative setting. We need to learn to "use" emotion along with reason in order to invoke a more powerful argument. I do not think that Crowley is simply stating that all Christians are unable to see more than one point of view, but there are those who aren't able to do so, and that using passion as a part of their argument they have become extremely influential and difficult for "reasoning" liberals to argue with. I think it's a good point.
Crowley, Vomit, etc.
I visited the Univ of Louisville this weekend, and a graduate student there who was working with the brilliant Min-Zhan Lu told me that after reading one of his papers, Lu made him write out all his politics so that they wouldn't seep into his writing. She called this a “vomitory.” I felt as thought I wanted to see the vomitory of Sharon Crowley. I've read the second half of this book,because I spent much of the weekend trapped in an airport, and reflecting on the first half makes me wish that Crowley had spent more of the first half just being honest about her liberal politics and the fact that, as the second half of this book makes clear, she knows little to nothing about real Christians, outside of what she's read in a few books. Crowley takes a diverse and dynamic community and turns them into a cavalcade of the bizarre, extrapolating their beliefs from those of extremists (like LaHaye) whom she then uses to vilify. This is akin to making judgments about homosexuals from the beliefs of child molesters. All of this without ever actually conducting any interviews or empirical research on what Christians actually believe. I'm not convinced that Crowley has ever actually spoken to a Christian – rather, she sets up a Fundamentalist Bogeyman, about whom she must warn the Heroic Liberals to Save the Discourse (I'm thinking particularly of her alarmist discourse on 11). Crowley justifies these sweeping generalizations by saying that they are the “hegemonic discourse” -- I guess this gives her the right to characterize Christians however she chooses. I'll save specific criticisms for next week, but I mention this now because I'm interested in how other folks see Crowley as positioning herself in this half of the book.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Crowley, Chapter 1
SO much to say about this... I'll run out space.
Where was this book a couple of weeks ago? In 8010, we had a nice discussion about whether or not there are just some issues that one can not argue productively. Abortion was a salient example, of course, and implicit in that was the old yarn about not arguing about politics or religion (abortion is arguably *the* intersection between the two in a Venn diagram of American politics, with same-sex marriage closing in on it in recent years). Yet here is Crowley picking up that very concern in Chapter 1: "On (Not) Arguing About Religion and Politics," where she explains why this has become the case and why she believes it's a threat to democracy (I tend to agree). The main concern Crowley addresses here: "this moment in American history... a discursive climate dominated by two powerful discourses: liberalism and Christian fundamentalism" (2). While I'm not sure how successful Crowley will be in her goal to valorize rhetoric as an anodyne for the schism between the dominant hegemonies she sees in liberalism and apocalypticism, she sure knows how to turn a phrase. There are pages in my copy where there are more underlined lines than not.
While I don't agree with everything Crowley says, one gift she has, in my opinion, is an ability to write thick description--she really articulates for me several observations that I have myself internalized, but never put into words. She puts nicely something I was trying to say last week when she asserts that "Liberalism is the default discourse of American politics because the country's founding documents, and hence its system of jurisprudence, are saturated with liberal values" (3), which are, "According to Anthony Arblaster... freedom, tolerance, privacy, reason, and the rule of law" (5). I agree with that assessment, as with the (not controversial) view that the "Right" (excuse the simplification) has "achieved astonishing results" both in elections and in "morphing... the term *liberal* itself" (6). I think she's on to something, too, when she posits that one of main points of contention between the two hegemonies she constructs is that liberalism, because it values "individual rights, equality before the law, and personal freedom" thus "has little or nothing to say about beliefs or practices deemed to reside outside of the so-called public sphere" whereas "fundamentalist Christians" (that term can be a point of contention) "aim to 'restore' biblical values to the center of American life"--both public and private. Thus the "central point of contention" between the two hegemonies "involves the place of religious and moral values in civic affairs: should such convictions be set aside when matters of state policy are discussed, or should these values actually govern the discussion?" (ibid). The "conceptual vocabulary" of liberalism was a hegemony because it historically has gone without saying, but this "version of Christian fundamentalism, driven by apocalypticism, is in hegemonic contention with liberalism because it motivates the political activism of the Christian Right" and that this challenge has been largely successful, " rendering "the terms and conjectures of liberalism available for examination and possible rediscription" (5). In other words, liberalism has been the default position (though it's rife with its own problems--including its being situated in reason, a situating that excludes engagemente with any discourse that is not so situated); implicit in liberal discourse are many of the values intrinsic to democracy; the challenge to liberalism by Christian fundamentalism thus is largely a challenge to those democratic principles.
I think Crowley does a nice job of summing up who exactly it is that she's implicating in her construction of Christian fundamentalist hegemony, though she takes a while to get there (relatively speaking, considering how many people she probably lost on the way in): "The variety of Christian belief that I'm interested in here typically flourishes among conservative Protestants called 'evangelicals' or 'fundamentalists'" (7) and by fundamentalist, she borrows William Connolly's definition: "a general imperative to assert an absolute, singular ground of authority; to ground your own identity and allegiances in this unquestionable source; to define political issues in a vocabulary of God, morality, or nature that invokes such a certain, authoritative source" (12). Both liberalism and Christianity can be fundamentalist, as any belief system which is foundational in nature can be. Here Crowley makes a nice move in stating that "Ideological foundations are exclusive only if they are taken to be noncontingent--that is, if they are taken to apply nonconetextually or universally"; that "hence antifoundationalism is not coherent unless it is read as a critique of belief systems that posit universal or noncontingent foundations"; that is to say those belief systems that Crowley, using Elizabeth Minnich describes them: "take a given starting point as universal" and so "must also assume that any being whose subjectivity is not legitimatized by that starting point is of secondary or lesser worth"; as Crowley, summing up Minnich, puts it deftly, "When a metphysics informs a politics, those who are marginalized by its foundational ideal or ideals can be constructed by policy as invisible or worse, as worthy of subjegation and defeat" (13). Crowley disagrees with Minnich that antifoundationalism is a "rational position," positing that it is instead "an ethical preference" (ibid). This discussion reminded me of a description of postmodernism--that it is "nothing if not an ethical position" (Robert Eaglestone, in _The Cambridge Companion to Postmodernism, page 182).
I was puzzled, though, by the lack of discussion of the term *neoconservative* here, a discussion which would seemingly dovetail nicely with her discussion of the conflation of religion and politics and her contention that "during the 1980s... interpreters of biblical prophecy modified the apocalyptic narrative in order to suggest that political involvement was necessary in order to hasten the advent of the end time" (8). She includes a note following that line instructing the reader to "see chapter 4" but my scanning of it was for naught and when one turns to the index, the only listing for "neoconservative" is from one of the endnotes--it contrasts neoconservatism with *paleoconservatism* but it sums up the former as "economic and nationalistic conservatism" without any discussion of how the term can be productively related to Crowley's discussion--namely, that *the* central issue of much neoconservatist screed has been national policy towards Israel (and that any one who criticizes neoconservatism or indeed even uses the term is often labled an ant-Semite) with a reconcilation between those architects of neocon policies who are indeed Jewish with those who are fundamentalist Christians, including those involved in the Project for the New American Century and the current President of the United States. The term itself is controversial, as is linking it to national policies toward Israel, but the subject itself *is* relevant to her discussion of theonomy (see the links below for a more intelligent assessment):
http://www.slate.com/id/2137208/
http://www.slate.com/id/2160462/
I'm interested to see how she develops her contention that rhetoric is better-suited than liberalism for engaging "apocalypticism"--she uses broad strokes in asserting that rhetoric "does not depend solely on appeals to reason and evidence for its persuasive efficacy" and that rhetoricists understand "the centrality of desires and values to the maintenance of beliefs" while liberalism is based on reason and leaves little room for beliefs not grounded in it (4). Rhetoric, she contends "will work better in the present climate than liberal argumentation because it offers a more comprehensive range of appeals, many of which are considered inappropriate in liberal thought" (ibid) and how she'll develop Mouffe's "agnostic pluralism" (I've ordered Mouffe's book), which has as its "prime task" not the elimination of passions from the public sphere but intead the mobilization of "those passions toward democratic designs" (22).
Where was this book a couple of weeks ago? In 8010, we had a nice discussion about whether or not there are just some issues that one can not argue productively. Abortion was a salient example, of course, and implicit in that was the old yarn about not arguing about politics or religion (abortion is arguably *the* intersection between the two in a Venn diagram of American politics, with same-sex marriage closing in on it in recent years). Yet here is Crowley picking up that very concern in Chapter 1: "On (Not) Arguing About Religion and Politics," where she explains why this has become the case and why she believes it's a threat to democracy (I tend to agree). The main concern Crowley addresses here: "this moment in American history... a discursive climate dominated by two powerful discourses: liberalism and Christian fundamentalism" (2). While I'm not sure how successful Crowley will be in her goal to valorize rhetoric as an anodyne for the schism between the dominant hegemonies she sees in liberalism and apocalypticism, she sure knows how to turn a phrase. There are pages in my copy where there are more underlined lines than not.
While I don't agree with everything Crowley says, one gift she has, in my opinion, is an ability to write thick description--she really articulates for me several observations that I have myself internalized, but never put into words. She puts nicely something I was trying to say last week when she asserts that "Liberalism is the default discourse of American politics because the country's founding documents, and hence its system of jurisprudence, are saturated with liberal values" (3), which are, "According to Anthony Arblaster... freedom, tolerance, privacy, reason, and the rule of law" (5). I agree with that assessment, as with the (not controversial) view that the "Right" (excuse the simplification) has "achieved astonishing results" both in elections and in "morphing... the term *liberal* itself" (6). I think she's on to something, too, when she posits that one of main points of contention between the two hegemonies she constructs is that liberalism, because it values "individual rights, equality before the law, and personal freedom" thus "has little or nothing to say about beliefs or practices deemed to reside outside of the so-called public sphere" whereas "fundamentalist Christians" (that term can be a point of contention) "aim to 'restore' biblical values to the center of American life"--both public and private. Thus the "central point of contention" between the two hegemonies "involves the place of religious and moral values in civic affairs: should such convictions be set aside when matters of state policy are discussed, or should these values actually govern the discussion?" (ibid). The "conceptual vocabulary" of liberalism was a hegemony because it historically has gone without saying, but this "version of Christian fundamentalism, driven by apocalypticism, is in hegemonic contention with liberalism because it motivates the political activism of the Christian Right" and that this challenge has been largely successful, " rendering "the terms and conjectures of liberalism available for examination and possible rediscription" (5). In other words, liberalism has been the default position (though it's rife with its own problems--including its being situated in reason, a situating that excludes engagemente with any discourse that is not so situated); implicit in liberal discourse are many of the values intrinsic to democracy; the challenge to liberalism by Christian fundamentalism thus is largely a challenge to those democratic principles.
I think Crowley does a nice job of summing up who exactly it is that she's implicating in her construction of Christian fundamentalist hegemony, though she takes a while to get there (relatively speaking, considering how many people she probably lost on the way in): "The variety of Christian belief that I'm interested in here typically flourishes among conservative Protestants called 'evangelicals' or 'fundamentalists'" (7) and by fundamentalist, she borrows William Connolly's definition: "a general imperative to assert an absolute, singular ground of authority; to ground your own identity and allegiances in this unquestionable source; to define political issues in a vocabulary of God, morality, or nature that invokes such a certain, authoritative source" (12). Both liberalism and Christianity can be fundamentalist, as any belief system which is foundational in nature can be. Here Crowley makes a nice move in stating that "Ideological foundations are exclusive only if they are taken to be noncontingent--that is, if they are taken to apply nonconetextually or universally"; that "hence antifoundationalism is not coherent unless it is read as a critique of belief systems that posit universal or noncontingent foundations"; that is to say those belief systems that Crowley, using Elizabeth Minnich describes them: "take a given starting point as universal" and so "must also assume that any being whose subjectivity is not legitimatized by that starting point is of secondary or lesser worth"; as Crowley, summing up Minnich, puts it deftly, "When a metphysics informs a politics, those who are marginalized by its foundational ideal or ideals can be constructed by policy as invisible or worse, as worthy of subjegation and defeat" (13). Crowley disagrees with Minnich that antifoundationalism is a "rational position," positing that it is instead "an ethical preference" (ibid). This discussion reminded me of a description of postmodernism--that it is "nothing if not an ethical position" (Robert Eaglestone, in _The Cambridge Companion to Postmodernism, page 182).
I was puzzled, though, by the lack of discussion of the term *neoconservative* here, a discussion which would seemingly dovetail nicely with her discussion of the conflation of religion and politics and her contention that "during the 1980s... interpreters of biblical prophecy modified the apocalyptic narrative in order to suggest that political involvement was necessary in order to hasten the advent of the end time" (8). She includes a note following that line instructing the reader to "see chapter 4" but my scanning of it was for naught and when one turns to the index, the only listing for "neoconservative" is from one of the endnotes--it contrasts neoconservatism with *paleoconservatism* but it sums up the former as "economic and nationalistic conservatism" without any discussion of how the term can be productively related to Crowley's discussion--namely, that *the* central issue of much neoconservatist screed has been national policy towards Israel (and that any one who criticizes neoconservatism or indeed even uses the term is often labled an ant-Semite) with a reconcilation between those architects of neocon policies who are indeed Jewish with those who are fundamentalist Christians, including those involved in the Project for the New American Century and the current President of the United States. The term itself is controversial, as is linking it to national policies toward Israel, but the subject itself *is* relevant to her discussion of theonomy (see the links below for a more intelligent assessment):
http://www.slate.com/id/2137208/
http://www.slate.com/id/2160462/
I'm interested to see how she develops her contention that rhetoric is better-suited than liberalism for engaging "apocalypticism"--she uses broad strokes in asserting that rhetoric "does not depend solely on appeals to reason and evidence for its persuasive efficacy" and that rhetoricists understand "the centrality of desires and values to the maintenance of beliefs" while liberalism is based on reason and leaves little room for beliefs not grounded in it (4). Rhetoric, she contends "will work better in the present climate than liberal argumentation because it offers a more comprehensive range of appeals, many of which are considered inappropriate in liberal thought" (ibid) and how she'll develop Mouffe's "agnostic pluralism" (I've ordered Mouffe's book), which has as its "prime task" not the elimination of passions from the public sphere but intead the mobilization of "those passions toward democratic designs" (22).
Friday, March 2, 2007
Rhetoric and Fundamentalism
I haven't gotten quite through all three chapters yet, but what I've read so far has certainly peaked my interest. I think she's so right when she says, "Indeed, to dissent is to risk being thought unpatriotic" (1). It seems for a number of years that we only hear from one side. There's been a lot said on the issue of abortion, but it has been fairly one-sided. She goes on to say, "Discussion of civic issues stalls repeatedly at this moment in American history because it takes place in a discursive climate dominated by two powerful discourses: liberalism and Christian fundamentalism" (2). Liberals tend to battle with reason, and the Fundamentalists with fire and passion. Somehow that fire and passion has outwitted the reason, and I believe Crowley is saying that is because reason doesn't fight on the same level as passion. She talks about deeply held beliefs bonding tightly with the bodies of believers. Next to that the cerebral approach is cool and perhaps less effective. I know when I firmly believe something it's easier to simply let fly than to try to reason through my argument.
I also began wondering about this in relation to something we discussed this week in a rhetorical criticism class, that being Fantasy Theme. I don't know that it exactly fits, but there are certain elements here. The fact that the fundamentalists all hold to one belief, and that belief is the only important fact. Any other information is pales in comparison to this belief system. It also made me wonder about Hitler. Yeah, I said Hitler. Think about it, he was one hell of leader who was capable of pulling people together under one belief: that they were better than the rest of the world. If I believed that I was "saved" and that meant I would go to heaven when all others would go the opposite direction, I could believe that I, and my ideals, were superior to others. There is something very compelling about considering yourself a part of an elite group. The larger the group grows, the more strength they gain.
Cowley brings in rhetoric as a device by which others can once again join into a more diverse conversation about politics. She states, "But as I have said repeatedly, rhetoric does have a major advantage over liberal strategies of argument insofar as it is able to address ideological and emotional claims as well as rational ones" (23). This is an idea that I like. How else does one make a point in a highly emotional argument, but with an emotional appeal. Perhaps we should mix a little emotion in with our reason in order to be heard.
Good book, good points.
I also began wondering about this in relation to something we discussed this week in a rhetorical criticism class, that being Fantasy Theme. I don't know that it exactly fits, but there are certain elements here. The fact that the fundamentalists all hold to one belief, and that belief is the only important fact. Any other information is pales in comparison to this belief system. It also made me wonder about Hitler. Yeah, I said Hitler. Think about it, he was one hell of leader who was capable of pulling people together under one belief: that they were better than the rest of the world. If I believed that I was "saved" and that meant I would go to heaven when all others would go the opposite direction, I could believe that I, and my ideals, were superior to others. There is something very compelling about considering yourself a part of an elite group. The larger the group grows, the more strength they gain.
Cowley brings in rhetoric as a device by which others can once again join into a more diverse conversation about politics. She states, "But as I have said repeatedly, rhetoric does have a major advantage over liberal strategies of argument insofar as it is able to address ideological and emotional claims as well as rational ones" (23). This is an idea that I like. How else does one make a point in a highly emotional argument, but with an emotional appeal. Perhaps we should mix a little emotion in with our reason in order to be heard.
Good book, good points.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Hoax Aftermath
Brief follow-up. . .
It's hard not to connect this morning's headlines (Scorsese, Britney and that war are so five minutes ago) with last night's discussion. Likely, everyone has already seen the UNC "Break Up" video on YouTube (I always assume I'm the last to get a viral video infection), but, if not, it's easy to locate (it rose to the top!). The vague implications of its creator--"the power of internet companies" and the "amount of money companies make from them"--are what I wanted to offer up this morning:
* * *
YouTube Breakup Is a Hoax
AP
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (Feb. 27) - The Valentine's Day breakup of two North Carolina college students that featured singers, hundreds of spectators and a profanity-laced tirade was a hoax after all.
Ryan Burke confessed Monday that the confrontation, which became an instant hit on YouTube.com, was all a stunt to show the power of Internet communities and the amount of money that companies make from them. The pair weren't even dating.
The fake breakup garnered plenty of attention, including more than 747,000 hits on YouTube, where users post video online, and local and national media coverage.
"The fact that actual news agencies are interested was a surprise," Burke told The Charlotte Observer. "We did think it would get some media attention but not from those outlets (like newspapers)."
Last week, Burke, 22, claimed he and Mindy Moorman had been dating for four months but that he broke up with her because of alleged infidelity. He attracted a crowd by promoting the event on the social networking Web site facebook.com., and hundreds of students and several photographers were among the spectators at a popular gathering spot on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus.
When Moorman, 21, arrived, an a cappella group sang the Dixie Chicks hit "I'm not Ready to Make Nice."
When Burke dumped her, Moorman's response was an angry rant filled with expletives.
Moorman, a sophomore at North Carolina State University in nearby Raleigh, said she didn't expect such a big reaction. "No, never, never, ever," she said.
Moorman's only regret: She cursed too much.
* * * *
It's hard not to connect this morning's headlines (Scorsese, Britney and that war are so five minutes ago) with last night's discussion. Likely, everyone has already seen the UNC "Break Up" video on YouTube (I always assume I'm the last to get a viral video infection), but, if not, it's easy to locate (it rose to the top!). The vague implications of its creator--"the power of internet companies" and the "amount of money companies make from them"--are what I wanted to offer up this morning:
* * *
YouTube Breakup Is a Hoax
AP
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (Feb. 27) - The Valentine's Day breakup of two North Carolina college students that featured singers, hundreds of spectators and a profanity-laced tirade was a hoax after all.
Ryan Burke confessed Monday that the confrontation, which became an instant hit on YouTube.com, was all a stunt to show the power of Internet communities and the amount of money that companies make from them. The pair weren't even dating.
The fake breakup garnered plenty of attention, including more than 747,000 hits on YouTube, where users post video online, and local and national media coverage.
"The fact that actual news agencies are interested was a surprise," Burke told The Charlotte Observer. "We did think it would get some media attention but not from those outlets (like newspapers)."
Last week, Burke, 22, claimed he and Mindy Moorman had been dating for four months but that he broke up with her because of alleged infidelity. He attracted a crowd by promoting the event on the social networking Web site facebook.com., and hundreds of students and several photographers were among the spectators at a popular gathering spot on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus.
When Moorman, 21, arrived, an a cappella group sang the Dixie Chicks hit "I'm not Ready to Make Nice."
When Burke dumped her, Moorman's response was an angry rant filled with expletives.
Moorman, a sophomore at North Carolina State University in nearby Raleigh, said she didn't expect such a big reaction. "No, never, never, ever," she said.
Moorman's only regret: She cursed too much.
* * * *
Monday, February 26, 2007
A Rhetorical Passion
Yes, I have a thing about "passion" being an aspect of what people do. Therefor, I am thrilled with Rosa Eberly's ability to be passionate about rhetoric without taking herself too seriously. Well, that and the fact that she is right.
She talks of rhetoric as being the means of being citizens together. What an odd thought, being citizens motivated to work together to achieve a common goal. Perhaps we talk about it a lot, but let's face it, we don't really believe in it. She states, "And given the growing sense that our democracy is composed of deliberating bodies that no longer know how to deliberate, of publics that can imagine themselves as nothing other than consumers, and of leaders who hold in contempt the idea that democracy requires information to be held in common. . ." (Eberly 5). The things we are reading make me think a great deal about teaching, and what that means. One minute I'm unsure of what should be taught (how political, or how controversial) and then I read this and I'm thinking I should teach simply to engage the students in a conversation about something real.
If students begin to understand the power of a well written or spoken piece, perhaps we could engage them further in the practice of writing.
Hmmmph.
She talks of rhetoric as being the means of being citizens together. What an odd thought, being citizens motivated to work together to achieve a common goal. Perhaps we talk about it a lot, but let's face it, we don't really believe in it. She states, "And given the growing sense that our democracy is composed of deliberating bodies that no longer know how to deliberate, of publics that can imagine themselves as nothing other than consumers, and of leaders who hold in contempt the idea that democracy requires information to be held in common. . ." (Eberly 5). The things we are reading make me think a great deal about teaching, and what that means. One minute I'm unsure of what should be taught (how political, or how controversial) and then I read this and I'm thinking I should teach simply to engage the students in a conversation about something real.
If students begin to understand the power of a well written or spoken piece, perhaps we could engage them further in the practice of writing.
Hmmmph.
Random Thoughts
Some random thoughts…
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Issues Forums and Engaging Civic Discourse
Drury, where I live that other life most days of the week, has a Convo series that also influenced Drake, which is mentioned as being inspired by Temple's model for campus forum debate. In the early days, our Convo speakers seemed to be nomadic academics who brought their traveling medicine show of specialties across the midwest (See the Post-Colonialist and What He Has to Say About Joe Conrad! See the Third Most Cited Voice on Late Abstract-Expressionism!). Since 9/11, our series has become more of a civic-minded public forum for debating the "issues" that students (freshman must attend) will analyze for the rhetoric, philosophy and "American Experience" portions of their year-long FYC course.
This year, naturally, the theme has been "Liberty and Security in a post-9/11 World" and the local media has taken great interest in tallying the (perceived) red or blue nature of our famous and obscure rhetors, which have included Col. Janis Karpinski sharing her first hand account of Abu Ghraib and Eric Posner's thesis that the Geneva Convention may not have relevance for the conduct of the global war on terror.
In this week's readings Herbert Simons writes that "my reckless bias is for TIF itself, and for its commitment to a certain vision of the university as a site of public controversy. . ." Our vice president for academic affairs, who holds a Ph.D in rhetoric, has recently had to enter the public discourse in the form of an op-ed piece in the local paper. I should back up and relate that Cindy Sheehan is scheduled for Theme Day (the uber-Convo experience, a day of debates in leiu of "regular" class meetings) in which she will "publicly debate" Col. Michael Meese. Many in the media--and local letter writers--believe that Drury originally contracted Sheehan and then, after her recent brushes with the law and Dick Cheney, "added on" the presence of the "Right" by asking Meese to come too. However, to my knowledge both were always on the bill. Anyhow, in a Simons-like statement, Dr. Taylor writes:
"In an age in which the quest for understanding is too often subjugated to the politics of demonization or, worse yet, to an insular silence on controversial ideas, institutions of higher education have a special calling to promote — and to insure — the free and open exchange of opinion on issues of public importance. Drury University's annual convocation series embodies the university's larger historic commitment to providing a platform for provocative ideas, as we celebrate the process of 'knowledge in the making.'" Later, in the same piece, he adds: "This day is about understanding the scope and function of dissent. In a sense, this is what colleges do every day; we engage the ideas and beliefs of people we don't understand, occasionally celebrate, and sometimes detest. We do this not because all ideas are of equal merit, but because all people are of equal worth. As such, we seek out dissenting views because they test our assumptions and affirm the importance of informed and engaged deliberation on matters of public significance."
I just wanted to note that that conception of the liberal arts university is still hotly contested, and largely due to this question of "engaging" the community as to the "scope and function of dissent." Interestingly, though, this conception itself has stirred many to write opinions to the editor--enabling civic discourse even among those who feel it isn't our place to "promote" certain political viewpoints.
On a completely unrelated note, Maureen Stapleton just flashed on the screen beyond my laptop as part of the "in memoriam" montage at the Oscars. The clips they lingered on for Stapleton? That's right, Mark: her portrayal of Emma Goldman in 1981's Reds.
See you soon and sorry for leaping in with Crowley in my previous post.
This year, naturally, the theme has been "Liberty and Security in a post-9/11 World" and the local media has taken great interest in tallying the (perceived) red or blue nature of our famous and obscure rhetors, which have included Col. Janis Karpinski sharing her first hand account of Abu Ghraib and Eric Posner's thesis that the Geneva Convention may not have relevance for the conduct of the global war on terror.
In this week's readings Herbert Simons writes that "my reckless bias is for TIF itself, and for its commitment to a certain vision of the university as a site of public controversy. . ." Our vice president for academic affairs, who holds a Ph.D in rhetoric, has recently had to enter the public discourse in the form of an op-ed piece in the local paper. I should back up and relate that Cindy Sheehan is scheduled for Theme Day (the uber-Convo experience, a day of debates in leiu of "regular" class meetings) in which she will "publicly debate" Col. Michael Meese. Many in the media--and local letter writers--believe that Drury originally contracted Sheehan and then, after her recent brushes with the law and Dick Cheney, "added on" the presence of the "Right" by asking Meese to come too. However, to my knowledge both were always on the bill. Anyhow, in a Simons-like statement, Dr. Taylor writes:
"In an age in which the quest for understanding is too often subjugated to the politics of demonization or, worse yet, to an insular silence on controversial ideas, institutions of higher education have a special calling to promote — and to insure — the free and open exchange of opinion on issues of public importance. Drury University's annual convocation series embodies the university's larger historic commitment to providing a platform for provocative ideas, as we celebrate the process of 'knowledge in the making.'" Later, in the same piece, he adds: "This day is about understanding the scope and function of dissent. In a sense, this is what colleges do every day; we engage the ideas and beliefs of people we don't understand, occasionally celebrate, and sometimes detest. We do this not because all ideas are of equal merit, but because all people are of equal worth. As such, we seek out dissenting views because they test our assumptions and affirm the importance of informed and engaged deliberation on matters of public significance."
I just wanted to note that that conception of the liberal arts university is still hotly contested, and largely due to this question of "engaging" the community as to the "scope and function of dissent." Interestingly, though, this conception itself has stirred many to write opinions to the editor--enabling civic discourse even among those who feel it isn't our place to "promote" certain political viewpoints.
On a completely unrelated note, Maureen Stapleton just flashed on the screen beyond my laptop as part of the "in memoriam" montage at the Oscars. The clips they lingered on for Stapleton? That's right, Mark: her portrayal of Emma Goldman in 1981's Reds.
See you soon and sorry for leaping in with Crowley in my previous post.
Oscar & Al
I don't have a lot to say here, but it does seem somehow connected that Al Gore is on the stage of the Oscars, clearly using "the rhetoric" to push "the politics" in a variety of ways. Oh and he just won something. How's that for real time news blogging?
A
A
I Have a Crush on Emma Goldman
Personally, it’s really easy for me to get excited about the need for deliberation and expression in a free society. However, most writers render these goods as subservient to democracy. I don’t think I like that. Aren’t there other reasons and other contexts for which a faith in rhetoric and a focus on deliberation is important? Historically, rhetoric flourishes only in democratic societies. Therefore it is completely natural to associate the two and produce books such as Hauser & Grim’s. Such a book serves two functions. The most obvious function is that it provides means by which democracy can be encouraged and maintained. A less obvious, and more cynical function of this book is to gain respect and importance for our field by raising it to the level of our society’s most sacred and fundamental principle- democracy. Now we’re important. Now maybe we can get some grant dollars.
But does democracy really deserve the pedestal we’ve built for it? There are good reasons to believe that this form of government, particularly the way we institute it in America today, is not necessarily the best means by which individual freedom and growth can be encouraged. Specifically, I’m thinking of Emma Goldman’s straightforward, yet powerful assertions that all government is tyranny. Here’s what her definition of Anarchism looks like:
I’m getting at two things here. First, I just wanted to be a pain and question the default toward democracy. Before we discuss ways to make democracy better, its worth investigating what, if anything, makes democracy better than other forms of government (or a lack of government). Second, I really enjoy the literature that praises deliberation and discussion, and I’m wondering if I can find a way to reconcile that sentiment with my sympathy for Goldman’s arguments. How would rhetoric function in an anarchist society? Would it be any more or less important to our everyday lives?
But does democracy really deserve the pedestal we’ve built for it? There are good reasons to believe that this form of government, particularly the way we institute it in America today, is not necessarily the best means by which individual freedom and growth can be encouraged. Specifically, I’m thinking of Emma Goldman’s straightforward, yet powerful assertions that all government is tyranny. Here’s what her definition of Anarchism looks like:
“The philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-madeNot only can it be argued that it is unhealthy for a person to submit to the will of others (majority or otherwise) but one may also ask what gives any man or woman the right to order the lives of other men and women. I might argue that the person who spends a lifetime kissing babies, shaking hands, vilifying opponents, telling lies, etc. has no more right to power than the person who organizes a militia to take the government by violence.
law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore
wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary.”
I’m getting at two things here. First, I just wanted to be a pain and question the default toward democracy. Before we discuss ways to make democracy better, its worth investigating what, if anything, makes democracy better than other forms of government (or a lack of government). Second, I really enjoy the literature that praises deliberation and discussion, and I’m wondering if I can find a way to reconcile that sentiment with my sympathy for Goldman’s arguments. How would rhetoric function in an anarchist society? Would it be any more or less important to our everyday lives?
Politics, internet and students
I found myself enjoying and learning much from this week's posts. Aaron wrote about what Hauser actually wants of the teachers of rhetoric, what "we" are to give to the students, and I wonder if it doesn't have something to do with what we discussed last week. Hauser states, ". . .instruct our students in the arts of effective argument, adapting appeals to their audience, expressing ideas in language that engages others, and on occasion, even inspires, and the relationship between the discourse they craft and the world they inhabit" (Hauser 13). If you think about this, what is needed is to instruct our students in believing that a) they have valid opinions, b) their opinions can engage others, and c) that in time they can inspire. Maybe I'm wrong, or simply optimistic, but today I think it takes as much education about one's own rights to speak up as it does "how" to do it correctly.
Mark's explanation of the spiral of silence was intriguing. Is this a part of rhetorical studies? It makes sense, the silence could tell one as much as the reams of printed words, I would think.
I wonder if this could also be taught more effectively via the internet. Expressing opinions and ideas over a somewhat anonymous forum. In Gronbeck's piece he talks about what direction the home computing age will take us politically. With each new age of technology there have been changes in how we view politics and politicians.
The WWI had radio and silent film clips and citizens had a chance for the first time to see what actually went on. It was also a time when war lost a great deal of the romantic idealism that had gone with it before. We can express opinions instantly now, and search out more information than what is given in a news sound-bite or a newspaper story. Perhaps soon, we'll be voting for the president from our homes. To be able to understand the process on a more individual level, to rhetorically analyze the process would be fascinating. Gronbeck states: "Simalarly, we must find ways as rhetoricians to study the political search processes in which individuals engage" (Gronbeck 28). A new way to utilize rhetorical skills.
Mark's explanation of the spiral of silence was intriguing. Is this a part of rhetorical studies? It makes sense, the silence could tell one as much as the reams of printed words, I would think.
I wonder if this could also be taught more effectively via the internet. Expressing opinions and ideas over a somewhat anonymous forum. In Gronbeck's piece he talks about what direction the home computing age will take us politically. With each new age of technology there have been changes in how we view politics and politicians.
The WWI had radio and silent film clips and citizens had a chance for the first time to see what actually went on. It was also a time when war lost a great deal of the romantic idealism that had gone with it before. We can express opinions instantly now, and search out more information than what is given in a news sound-bite or a newspaper story. Perhaps soon, we'll be voting for the president from our homes. To be able to understand the process on a more individual level, to rhetorically analyze the process would be fascinating. Gronbeck states: "Simalarly, we must find ways as rhetoricians to study the political search processes in which individuals engage" (Gronbeck 28). A new way to utilize rhetorical skills.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Faith On Rhetoric
I'm convinced that we need more rhetorical debate in the public sphere, but I'm still confused about how we decide our topics for debate. Simon's TIF article shows us one model of public debate, but I wondered, like Mark, how relevant such issues were to our students – ahem, future citizens of a rhetorical democracy. I also wonder about how the choice of debates for such a public forum could be used for political maneuvering – who decides what issues are “big” issues? (This is especially relevant for say, a high school. How do we decide between issues that enfranchise and interest more people and issues that are “important” but maybe less interesting? Debates in popular culture (Stones vs. Beatles, Paris vs. Nicole, the merits of American Idol contestants ) would interest a large group, but I don't know what the outcomes would be, or how one could go about getting funding for such things. (This reminds me – last week I was talking to a friend of mine who teaches eighth grade. He was telling me that recently his students were locked in a heated debate about who would win: Chewbacca riding on a velociraptor vs. the snow monster riding on a brontosaurus. I believe the consensus was Chewy, because Han Solo liked him, and brontosauruses are vegetarians). A debate in the war in Iraq is important, but not as many people will feel like they have something to say. Perhaps I'm too focused here on outcomes: something has to happen because of the debate. But if nothing happens, is it still worthwhile? Can we argue for the sake of argument?
Students.
As is my way, I'm focusing on how the readings this week may or may not influence us in the classroom....I happened upon this in the Gronbeck: "To be maximally useful to our students, to outfit them for the communication environment of our time, we'd bette rbe training them to shred multimeidated work with equal [to their ability to shred literature] expertise, because nobody else is" (27). A couple of things strike me here, and I'm pretty sure I'm both right and wrong in one way or another, so it seems like a good idea to post for the discussion board.
A. I assume when he says, "audience" he means us--that is, what he also calls "rhetoricians"...whether this is true or not, I kind of subsume "teachers of composition (and communication, Mark;))"
So if he's addressing us, then this is a sort of call to arms for both our methods and content and goals for the students.
2. Not only, then, are we to teach writing/lit criticism, we should include all versions of communication in this critical structure.
This seems like something that WOULD be useful to the students, but, on the other hand, are we really all qualified to teach what I'm assuming as all levels of rhetoric, within all mediums? I guess I'm just a wee bit unclear as to what he really thinks we should be doing, if he really is talking to "us".
3. The whole "because no one else is". This seems a bit too much like "crisis" talk. Does he mean folks outside rhetoric departments? Does he mean people who aren't from Iowa? People who aren't him? I guess I find it hard to believe that NO one else is doing this sort of educating.
Perhaps this will become clearer once the responses come pouring in, or I have time to reread. Thanks social-types
A
A. I assume when he says, "audience" he means us--that is, what he also calls "rhetoricians"...whether this is true or not, I kind of subsume "teachers of composition (and communication, Mark;))"
So if he's addressing us, then this is a sort of call to arms for both our methods and content and goals for the students.
2. Not only, then, are we to teach writing/lit criticism, we should include all versions of communication in this critical structure.
This seems like something that WOULD be useful to the students, but, on the other hand, are we really all qualified to teach what I'm assuming as all levels of rhetoric, within all mediums? I guess I'm just a wee bit unclear as to what he really thinks we should be doing, if he really is talking to "us".
3. The whole "because no one else is". This seems a bit too much like "crisis" talk. Does he mean folks outside rhetoric departments? Does he mean people who aren't from Iowa? People who aren't him? I guess I find it hard to believe that NO one else is doing this sort of educating.
Perhaps this will become clearer once the responses come pouring in, or I have time to reread. Thanks social-types
A
Spiral of Silence and Civic Engagement
Hauser did a nice job charting a few of the obstacles democracy and civic engagement. His discussion of public opinion polls in particular introduces some other potential barriers to a vibrant rhetorical democracy. I’d like to briefly discuss a theory of mass communication called “spiral of silence” and discuss why it might mean trouble for civic engagement.
Noelle-Neumann (1974) argued that human beings are fearful of isolation and often doubt their own capacity for judgment. If we accept that these particular brands of fear and doubt are indeed common to many people, then there are some serious obstacles to rhetorical democracy and civic engagement that need to be considered. Because expressing an unpopular opinion could lead to censure, ostracism, isolation, etc., it makes sense that human beings would try to gauge public opinion about political/social issues before expressing their own beliefs. Spiral of silence theory therefore contends that willingness to expose one’s views is greater if a person “believes his own view is, and will be, the dominating one or (though not dominating now) is becoming more widespread” (p. 45). This means that minority opinions can be effectively silenced or self-censored due to social pressures alone. When fewer minority opinions are introduced to the public dialogue, even fewer people will speak their opinions, as they will believe themselves to be even further removed from the mainstream beliefs on an issue. This is where the phrase “spiral of silence” originates.
In today’s society, people are likely to get most of their information about public opinion from the mass media. Public opinion polls as they appear in newspapers and 24 hour cable news stations are the most obvious example of how people learn how their ideas fit in with the rest of the public’s. If someone learns that only 33 percent of the American public agrees with them about the fantastic job President Bush is doing, they may choose to keep their opinions hidden so they don’t risk being labeled a deviant. Political pundits and editorial cartoons are a few other media sources from which people can attain this same information about public opinion.
Of course, it’s not a very original move to blame the media for the problems in our society. And moreover, it would be foolish to suggest that pundits or public opinion polls be censored in any way – to do so would be to violate both of Hauser’s requirements for a rhetorical democracy (publicity and free speech). Maybe more background on Spiral of Silence is necessary to help answer this question, but does anybody else believe that a fear of isolation and an inherent doubt in one’s own capacity for judgment could be problems for a rhetorical democracy?
Noelle-Neumann (1974) argued that human beings are fearful of isolation and often doubt their own capacity for judgment. If we accept that these particular brands of fear and doubt are indeed common to many people, then there are some serious obstacles to rhetorical democracy and civic engagement that need to be considered. Because expressing an unpopular opinion could lead to censure, ostracism, isolation, etc., it makes sense that human beings would try to gauge public opinion about political/social issues before expressing their own beliefs. Spiral of silence theory therefore contends that willingness to expose one’s views is greater if a person “believes his own view is, and will be, the dominating one or (though not dominating now) is becoming more widespread” (p. 45). This means that minority opinions can be effectively silenced or self-censored due to social pressures alone. When fewer minority opinions are introduced to the public dialogue, even fewer people will speak their opinions, as they will believe themselves to be even further removed from the mainstream beliefs on an issue. This is where the phrase “spiral of silence” originates.
In today’s society, people are likely to get most of their information about public opinion from the mass media. Public opinion polls as they appear in newspapers and 24 hour cable news stations are the most obvious example of how people learn how their ideas fit in with the rest of the public’s. If someone learns that only 33 percent of the American public agrees with them about the fantastic job President Bush is doing, they may choose to keep their opinions hidden so they don’t risk being labeled a deviant. Political pundits and editorial cartoons are a few other media sources from which people can attain this same information about public opinion.
Of course, it’s not a very original move to blame the media for the problems in our society. And moreover, it would be foolish to suggest that pundits or public opinion polls be censored in any way – to do so would be to violate both of Hauser’s requirements for a rhetorical democracy (publicity and free speech). Maybe more background on Spiral of Silence is necessary to help answer this question, but does anybody else believe that a fear of isolation and an inherent doubt in one’s own capacity for judgment could be problems for a rhetorical democracy?
Overall Thoughts About Rhetorical Democracy and the Social
These chapters seem to go furthest of all of our readings to really show the connection between contemporary democracy and rhetoric. They show ways to reconfigure the relationship between the two. They don't focus so much on how to make a pedagogy out of this newly figured rhetoric, but looking at the earlier readings, mostly Berlin, I'm a-wonderin' if a teaching tool or two may be synthesized.
Berlin's model of a classroom that embraces student diversity, helping students to investigate their own backgrounds and delve into the rhetorics that those backgrounds provide, speak to Logan's chapter. The identification-resistance rhetoric could easily be taught with the foundation that such a pedagogy would provide.
The main question I'm left with, after reading and synthesizing, is whether we need to be focusing rhetoric beyond the composition of papers. Do we need to be teaching students the rhetorics of e-mail, blogging, and other forms of discourse that Gronbeck and others see as vital to the future of rhetorical democracy? And how would teaching that kind of rhetoric intersect with composition studies, and speech and communication?
Other questions that the readings raised, while I'm on that jag: how much access to the democratic process will rhetorical training give our students? This isn't meant to be pessimistic or rhetorical (hee hee); I'm wondering what our freshly trained rhetoricians would do with their new skills, to exercise their power to influence democracy. Blog? Protest? Restructure culture to allow for these new voices?
Have a wonderful day, everyone. Thanks for this wonderfully thought-provoking class.
Berlin's model of a classroom that embraces student diversity, helping students to investigate their own backgrounds and delve into the rhetorics that those backgrounds provide, speak to Logan's chapter. The identification-resistance rhetoric could easily be taught with the foundation that such a pedagogy would provide.
The main question I'm left with, after reading and synthesizing, is whether we need to be focusing rhetoric beyond the composition of papers. Do we need to be teaching students the rhetorics of e-mail, blogging, and other forms of discourse that Gronbeck and others see as vital to the future of rhetorical democracy? And how would teaching that kind of rhetoric intersect with composition studies, and speech and communication?
Other questions that the readings raised, while I'm on that jag: how much access to the democratic process will rhetorical training give our students? This isn't meant to be pessimistic or rhetorical (hee hee); I'm wondering what our freshly trained rhetoricians would do with their new skills, to exercise their power to influence democracy. Blog? Protest? Restructure culture to allow for these new voices?
Have a wonderful day, everyone. Thanks for this wonderfully thought-provoking class.
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.
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.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Crowley, Aidos, and the "Low Risk"
At first I thought I was fortunate, in the spring of 2003, to have a class of FYC students who were not immediately out to "vehemently" lob "feminizing" insults at those on the "opposite side" of our escalation into Iraq (Crowley 30-31). Then, as I began to use the backdrop of military invasion as a series of "teaching moments"--class discussions that would segue into written responses to "what are the best arguments for 'liberating' Iraq?"--I started encountered the avoidance issues Crowley discusses in the first few chapters of _Toward a Civil Discourse_. On the positive side, the low key ("low risk"?) nature of the discussions allowed us to stay focused on the pros and cons (and less on ad hominem attacks). The discussions also made me consider--though I didn't have Protagoras handy at the time--how writing classes were better suited to teach "respect" than "justice" (i.e. Crowley's / Atwill's discussion of the sophist who argues that "the political art 'consists of two qualities,' aidos and dike," or "respect" and "justice" pg. 22). On the negative side, I was let down that these students--free of a draft, insulated from seeing Iraq anywhere but on TV--didn't care more to argue and were respectful to the point of immediately agreeing to disagree ("Hey, I see where you're coming from, that's cool, I'm just saying. . .and that's just my opinion"). Finally I decided that it was too easy to blame them. I was also free of the draft, wasn't likely to see any combat directly in my life time, and was probably as let down by my "teaching moment" not being more successful as anything else.
I guess that was the spring I started considering the easy distance from the "real" that rhetorical invention allowed the Left and Right on my campus (and also allowed us to construct the "Left" and the "Right"). One afternoon we took our classes outside to watch a heated debate between two venerable professors, but, afterwards, most students just reported initial feelings of fear ("Dr. ____ and Dr. _____ were really going at it! I thought they were going to throw down!") and massive relief when the colleagues later displayed mutual admiration, to the point of performing aidos as though it were the bigger issue at stake, which made the vehemence of the previous argument also seem like crafted performance, which, to me, was both a positive example and something that cut against "the mobilization of the passions. . .[as the] task for rhetoric" that Crowley emphasizes.
Of course, we should be about finding rhetorical space (or uncovering the "paths" Crowley notes in her introduction) for moving beyond the "current ideological impasse". We should, I suppose, display colleagiality in civic discourse, particularly in civic arenas, as opposed to the peace vigil invective Crowley references on pg. 1. My worry is that, in modeling colleagial and academic discourse, we can also diffuse the conflict--or de-mobilize passions of the students. I'm not saying Crowley endorses this; I'm just considering the ways good intentions can still enable fixed positions. I'm sure many of us have been sent a copy of a reader entitled _Everything's An Argument_. That title makes me wonder if I've convinced students that "everything's only an argument." I like that Crowley offers language--and appropriation of ancient discourse--that could be helpful in conveying how aidos does not mean "carefully avoiding anything that might sound disrespectful" in public or private discourse.
"Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness." -- Analects 13.23
I guess that was the spring I started considering the easy distance from the "real" that rhetorical invention allowed the Left and Right on my campus (and also allowed us to construct the "Left" and the "Right"). One afternoon we took our classes outside to watch a heated debate between two venerable professors, but, afterwards, most students just reported initial feelings of fear ("Dr. ____ and Dr. _____ were really going at it! I thought they were going to throw down!") and massive relief when the colleagues later displayed mutual admiration, to the point of performing aidos as though it were the bigger issue at stake, which made the vehemence of the previous argument also seem like crafted performance, which, to me, was both a positive example and something that cut against "the mobilization of the passions. . .[as the] task for rhetoric" that Crowley emphasizes.
Of course, we should be about finding rhetorical space (or uncovering the "paths" Crowley notes in her introduction) for moving beyond the "current ideological impasse". We should, I suppose, display colleagiality in civic discourse, particularly in civic arenas, as opposed to the peace vigil invective Crowley references on pg. 1. My worry is that, in modeling colleagial and academic discourse, we can also diffuse the conflict--or de-mobilize passions of the students. I'm not saying Crowley endorses this; I'm just considering the ways good intentions can still enable fixed positions. I'm sure many of us have been sent a copy of a reader entitled _Everything's An Argument_. That title makes me wonder if I've convinced students that "everything's only an argument." I like that Crowley offers language--and appropriation of ancient discourse--that could be helpful in conveying how aidos does not mean "carefully avoiding anything that might sound disrespectful" in public or private discourse.
"Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness." -- Analects 13.23
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Berlin and Cognitive Development
I'm writing about cognitive development in my thesis this week (I mentioned this in class on Monday) and a lot of it seemed relevant to Berlin, so although this is somewhat retrospective, I thought it might still be interesting.
William Perry's Forms of Ethical and Intellectual Development in the College Years and Belenky et al's Women's Ways of Knowing both posit schemes for understanding college student cognitive development, differing primarily in that Perry focused his study on males and Belenky et al on females. In both schemes, the student begins in a stage Perry terms “dualism” (66) and Belenky et al term “received knowledge” (35). In this stage, the student sees the teacher as an Authority who possesses Truth. It is the student's job to give back the Truth. This is usually where the student is at around their freshman year of college. After this stage, the student is able to move to “multiplicity” or “subjective knowledge” where he or she understands that there are a multitude of opinions with equal value. Then the student achieves “relativism” or “procedural knowledge” where he or she gains understanding of the processes involved in obtaining knowledge, such as using supportive evidence to understand complexities.
Try here and here for helpful charts.
It is only after the students have progressed through these stages that they are able to achieve Commitments in relativism (“an affirmation of personal values in relativism”), or “constructed knowledge,” where he or she sees is able to clearly integrate external complexities with his or her own views. It is also only at this point that the students can tolerate ambiguity and complexity. Students don't usually achieve this until graduate school or beyond.
William Perry's Forms of Ethical and Intellectual Development in the College Years and Belenky et al's Women's Ways of Knowing both posit schemes for understanding college student cognitive development, differing primarily in that Perry focused his study on males and Belenky et al on females. In both schemes, the student begins in a stage Perry terms “dualism” (66) and Belenky et al term “received knowledge” (35). In this stage, the student sees the teacher as an Authority who possesses Truth. It is the student's job to give back the Truth. This is usually where the student is at around their freshman year of college. After this stage, the student is able to move to “multiplicity” or “subjective knowledge” where he or she understands that there are a multitude of opinions with equal value. Then the student achieves “relativism” or “procedural knowledge” where he or she gains understanding of the processes involved in obtaining knowledge, such as using supportive evidence to understand complexities.
Try here and here for helpful charts.
It is only after the students have progressed through these stages that they are able to achieve Commitments in relativism (“an affirmation of personal values in relativism”), or “constructed knowledge,” where he or she sees is able to clearly integrate external complexities with his or her own views. It is also only at this point that the students can tolerate ambiguity and complexity. Students don't usually achieve this until graduate school or beyond.
What's important to note here is that what Berlin is asking students to do most certainly comes in the later stages of development. So what can we do to speed students along? Perry says not much, because it's a highly internalized process. However:
- Perry suggests that “the realization that in the very risks, separateness, and individuality, of working out their Commitments, they were in the same boat not only with each other but with their instructors as well” facilitated a move towards higher levels (239). The student needs to not only feel that way, but he must also believe that others see him that way.
- Teachers must have “visibility in their own thinking, groping, doubts, and styles of Commitment” to give the students the sense that they too are in the community (239).
And this is why the teacher can't stand up there and say their political leanings, or whatever else. Because the discovery of those Commitments needs to be modeled for the students. In fact, as Belenky et al point out, our friend Freire writes that “problem-posing education affirms men as being in the process of becoming—as unfinished, uncomplete beings.”
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Apologies and Kudos
After class I mentioned to Donna that I didn't realize the CCC Hairston "counterstatements" were posted on ERES. I've just been locating our readings on JSTOR and Project Muse at Drury--cultivating my outsider ethos, I guess--so forgive that last quote-reading part of my presentation.
Also, I was just checking my MU listservs, waiting to see whom Aaron had thrown under the bus, and I learned of Chad's poem being selected for Best American Poetry 2007. Bravo (to say the least)! I'll have to check out a back issue of Kenyon Review.
Oh, and Court, I would still like that article, so if you don't mind photocopying it, that would be great.
Read everyone soon,
Kevin
Also, I was just checking my MU listservs, waiting to see whom Aaron had thrown under the bus, and I learned of Chad's poem being selected for Best American Poetry 2007. Bravo (to say the least)! I'll have to check out a back issue of Kenyon Review.
Oh, and Court, I would still like that article, so if you don't mind photocopying it, that would be great.
Read everyone soon,
Kevin
Monday, February 19, 2007
Eternal Whatever of the Pomo Hoosier Rhetor
Faith, Maggie and others have already taken up the question of Berlin's pedagogy, and throughout the semester we've returned to the (important) question of how to put theory into practice without merely nodding to the social epistemic as one more writing exercise (i.e. Our next unit will focus on how all of you are socially constructed: free-floating signifiers unaware of the unresolved narratives you consume and the political unconscious you each reify. The unit after that will ask you to describe a place that is special to you, why that is, and what you learned there. For our last unit you'll need to bring Diane Hacker's style guide . . .)
Let me add to this thread by highlighting the conclusion of Patricia Harkin's "Rhetorics, Poetics and Cultures as an Articulation Project":
"The students Jim dealt with are, by and large, products of a homogeneous, rural, politically and religiously conservative culture. My mentees and I have named this typical students the 'postmodern Hoosier rhetor.' . . .When the postmodern Hoosier rhetor has a contradiction pointed out to her, then, she is less likely to contemplate the cognitive dissonance as a spur to invention and more likely to simply say 'whatever.' And since Jim's method calls for students to arrive at genre as a function of their invention processes, the pomo Hoosier rhetor reinvents the 'whatever' genre--the essay that concludes by asserting that 'everyone is entitled to their own opinion'--the very kind of writing that we hoped cultural studies would eliminate." (205)
Maybe we can spend a bit of time sharing how we've either fallen into the rhetoric Hairston would accuse us of ("oh, these "unsophisticated" students. . .) or had to dig in a bit pedagogically (countering the whatever / relativist position with something Berlin might have encouraged).
Let me add to this thread by highlighting the conclusion of Patricia Harkin's "Rhetorics, Poetics and Cultures as an Articulation Project":
"The students Jim dealt with are, by and large, products of a homogeneous, rural, politically and religiously conservative culture. My mentees and I have named this typical students the 'postmodern Hoosier rhetor.' . . .When the postmodern Hoosier rhetor has a contradiction pointed out to her, then, she is less likely to contemplate the cognitive dissonance as a spur to invention and more likely to simply say 'whatever.' And since Jim's method calls for students to arrive at genre as a function of their invention processes, the pomo Hoosier rhetor reinvents the 'whatever' genre--the essay that concludes by asserting that 'everyone is entitled to their own opinion'--the very kind of writing that we hoped cultural studies would eliminate." (205)
Maybe we can spend a bit of time sharing how we've either fallen into the rhetoric Hairston would accuse us of ("oh, these "unsophisticated" students. . .) or had to dig in a bit pedagogically (countering the whatever / relativist position with something Berlin might have encouraged).
Hairston admits "careless misattribution"! Britney bald! America still at war!
What follows is basically the intro to the paper I'm turning in tonight. The rest is more CMAP dependent (I'll bring CMAP copies to class and will post as a jpeg tomorrow). Looking through this week's blog, I don't believe I'm facing a hostile crowd of Hairston enthusiasts.
* * *
There are moments in “Diversity, Ideology, and Teaching Writing” (1992) when you can imagine Maxine Hairston preparing to hold for applause—imagining an audience of like-minded pedagogues weary of “literary critics who are at the center of power in most English departments,” interlocutors equally incensed that freshman writing topics “used to be literary [and] now they’re political” (179-180). There are times when, having “cut my teeth” as a grad assistant the year after this was published, I found myself nodding to examples of FYC teachers asserting their “duty” and “right” to “put ideology and radical politics at the center of their teaching” (180). Yet not far into Hairston’s quotes from such “radicals” as James Laditka and Patricia Bizell, I began to shrug and remember it was really only two or three fellow grad assistants who believed you couldn’t teach writing in sixteen weeks, but you could force eighteen year-olds out of Plato’s cave a little faster. We were devotees of Jameson’s The Political Unconscious (1981)—thanks to a Colley Cibber scholar who encouraged us to “lay ideology bare” for our students (he had no patience for Berlin’s heuristic approach; he insisted on de-mystifying his audiences in dramatic lectures)—and as devotees some of us did fall into Hairston’s category of “those who . . . show open contempt for their students’ values, preferences, or interests” (181).
Still, there are so many problems with Hairston’s argument. An early difficulty is that she qualifies (“I don’t suggest that all or even most freshman courses are turning this way”) only to overstate in the same paragraph (“Nevertheless, everywhere I turn I find composition faculty. . .”) (181). As the essay unfolds, Hairston also appears guilty of brushing past arguments she set out to counter. Why have writing courses suddenly become obsessed with the “diversity” and “ideology” of her title? “Major issues about social change and national priorities are involved,” she concedes, “[but] I cannot digress into those concerns in this essay” (183). Later, after citing Berlin’s argument that Flower’s cognitivism, with its “pursuit of self-evident and unquestioned goals in the composing process” parallels “the pursuit of self-evident and unquestioned profit-making goals in the corporate market place,” Hairston dismisses Berlin as “facile” and guilty of “non-logical leaps” sans analysis or counter-argument—in spite of the fact that, five pages later, she claims: “ad hominem arguments don’t impress me.” (183, 187).
As I researched a network of associations for this piece, I found that C.H. Knoblauch, one of the ideologues Hairston uses to establish her Leftist scare, later complained to the editor of CCC that he was incorrectly quoted when Hairston attacked him for “setting up a straw man by attacking a mechanistic, structuralist model of composition [that had] already been discredited in the literature and calling it ‘conservative, repressive, deterministic, and elitist’” (Hairston “Reply” 255). Hairston offers an “apology” in her own reply, which was published alongside other response essays in CCC. In it she admits Knoblauch was “justified in complaining” and claims, “I regret my misattribution; it was careless,” though two paragraphs later she circles back to qualify that “although my quotation was literally inaccurate, I do not think it misrepresented Knoblauch’s views” (“Reply” 257). It’s revealing that in misquoting Knoblauch to attack a straw man argument, Hairston not only creates another straw man but reveals how political even the most purportedly “disinterested” plea to return to the “classics” can be.
* * * *
See you soon,
Kevin
* * *
There are moments in “Diversity, Ideology, and Teaching Writing” (1992) when you can imagine Maxine Hairston preparing to hold for applause—imagining an audience of like-minded pedagogues weary of “literary critics who are at the center of power in most English departments,” interlocutors equally incensed that freshman writing topics “used to be literary [and] now they’re political” (179-180). There are times when, having “cut my teeth” as a grad assistant the year after this was published, I found myself nodding to examples of FYC teachers asserting their “duty” and “right” to “put ideology and radical politics at the center of their teaching” (180). Yet not far into Hairston’s quotes from such “radicals” as James Laditka and Patricia Bizell, I began to shrug and remember it was really only two or three fellow grad assistants who believed you couldn’t teach writing in sixteen weeks, but you could force eighteen year-olds out of Plato’s cave a little faster. We were devotees of Jameson’s The Political Unconscious (1981)—thanks to a Colley Cibber scholar who encouraged us to “lay ideology bare” for our students (he had no patience for Berlin’s heuristic approach; he insisted on de-mystifying his audiences in dramatic lectures)—and as devotees some of us did fall into Hairston’s category of “those who . . . show open contempt for their students’ values, preferences, or interests” (181).
Still, there are so many problems with Hairston’s argument. An early difficulty is that she qualifies (“I don’t suggest that all or even most freshman courses are turning this way”) only to overstate in the same paragraph (“Nevertheless, everywhere I turn I find composition faculty. . .”) (181). As the essay unfolds, Hairston also appears guilty of brushing past arguments she set out to counter. Why have writing courses suddenly become obsessed with the “diversity” and “ideology” of her title? “Major issues about social change and national priorities are involved,” she concedes, “[but] I cannot digress into those concerns in this essay” (183). Later, after citing Berlin’s argument that Flower’s cognitivism, with its “pursuit of self-evident and unquestioned goals in the composing process” parallels “the pursuit of self-evident and unquestioned profit-making goals in the corporate market place,” Hairston dismisses Berlin as “facile” and guilty of “non-logical leaps” sans analysis or counter-argument—in spite of the fact that, five pages later, she claims: “ad hominem arguments don’t impress me.” (183, 187).
As I researched a network of associations for this piece, I found that C.H. Knoblauch, one of the ideologues Hairston uses to establish her Leftist scare, later complained to the editor of CCC that he was incorrectly quoted when Hairston attacked him for “setting up a straw man by attacking a mechanistic, structuralist model of composition [that had] already been discredited in the literature and calling it ‘conservative, repressive, deterministic, and elitist’” (Hairston “Reply” 255). Hairston offers an “apology” in her own reply, which was published alongside other response essays in CCC. In it she admits Knoblauch was “justified in complaining” and claims, “I regret my misattribution; it was careless,” though two paragraphs later she circles back to qualify that “although my quotation was literally inaccurate, I do not think it misrepresented Knoblauch’s views” (“Reply” 257). It’s revealing that in misquoting Knoblauch to attack a straw man argument, Hairston not only creates another straw man but reveals how political even the most purportedly “disinterested” plea to return to the “classics” can be.
* * * *
See you soon,
Kevin
Berlin, Binaries, and the Composition Classroom
I appreciate how
I wonder about the rest of us in ENGL 8040. How far have some of you gone towards meeting Berlin's social-epistemic, theory-informed goals?
Is a writing classroom big enough to hold everyone's ideology?
Let's just get this out the way, shall we?
Pulling My Hair(ston) Out
Hair(ston) Today, Wrong Tomorrow
I'm Gonna Wash that Leftist Right Outta My Hairston
Come On, Maxine
I think Mark's right that teachers have less power than Hairston attributes to them. But I do think it's wrong for a teacher to stand up in front of a class, state her political views, and then assume that that somehow opens a dialogue. In true Berlinian fashion, I will quote two student texts to make this point (as opposed to quoting, say, Moby-Dick – boo literary canon! Viva la resistance!)
I ask my student to write a short reflective letter to me after they've read my comments on their first submission of their paper. Here are two excerpts (which I am consciously co-opting for my rhetorical purposes):
I really don't see the big deal about using cliches, but if getting a decent grade requires not using cliches then I won't use them.
I agree with all of your comments, on the basis that I am a student learning and you are a student trying to obtain your masters so I will take your opinion. Also you are the one grading my paper so I will do it how you want me to to do it.
Besides the obvious contempt here, we can see the students acknowledging and submitting to my power over them, despite their personal disagreement. “I believe something,” they seem to be saying, “but you say it's wrong, so I can't say it's right.” What irks me is that now it's irrelevant whether or not I tell them why cliched writing is bad, because any knowledge I impart is received as “stuff I have to do to get an A” and not “stuff this smart person thinks for good reasons.” Teachers who mean to foster openness by being open about what they believe miss the point that students, particularly at the freshman level, are less concerned with the ability to voice their opinion than they are with grades. We don't conceal information to be deceitful, we conceal information so that the students' views aren't trumped, shoved aside, or replaced by ours.
Pulling My Hair(ston) Out
Hair(ston) Today, Wrong Tomorrow
I'm Gonna Wash that Leftist Right Outta My Hairston
Come On, Maxine
I think Mark's right that teachers have less power than Hairston attributes to them. But I do think it's wrong for a teacher to stand up in front of a class, state her political views, and then assume that that somehow opens a dialogue. In true Berlinian fashion, I will quote two student texts to make this point (as opposed to quoting, say, Moby-Dick – boo literary canon! Viva la resistance!)
I ask my student to write a short reflective letter to me after they've read my comments on their first submission of their paper. Here are two excerpts (which I am consciously co-opting for my rhetorical purposes):
I really don't see the big deal about using cliches, but if getting a decent grade requires not using cliches then I won't use them.
I agree with all of your comments, on the basis that I am a student learning and you are a student trying to obtain your masters so I will take your opinion. Also you are the one grading my paper so I will do it how you want me to to do it.
Besides the obvious contempt here, we can see the students acknowledging and submitting to my power over them, despite their personal disagreement. “I believe something,” they seem to be saying, “but you say it's wrong, so I can't say it's right.” What irks me is that now it's irrelevant whether or not I tell them why cliched writing is bad, because any knowledge I impart is received as “stuff I have to do to get an A” and not “stuff this smart person thinks for good reasons.” Teachers who mean to foster openness by being open about what they believe miss the point that students, particularly at the freshman level, are less concerned with the ability to voice their opinion than they are with grades. We don't conceal information to be deceitful, we conceal information so that the students' views aren't trumped, shoved aside, or replaced by ours.
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