Week 2: Rhetoric Wrap-Up

As a future community college composition teacher, I’ve found myself leaning increasingly toward planning curricula rooted in topics that would potentially matter (I hope) to my students.  For me, this means helping them to develop mental habits of critical thinking.  These articles on rhetoric got me thinking more about the usefulness of tackling rhetoric from the student point of view.  Lindemann’s “What Do Teachers Need to Know About Rhetoric?” is a handy historical survey of rhetoric from the Greeks to today.  Bazerman’s “Analyzing the Author’s Purpose and Technique,” a chapter from a textbook cautioning students to about media manipulation, could be ideal for a critical thinking course.  The Bitzer piece, “The Rhetorical Situation,” is a unique, if a bit dry, contribution that posits that rhetoric is always a response to a situation that compels someone to speak out -- a sound analysis, though not so interesting to me.
    In my opinion, the three most stimulating topics covered in these articles are 1) the philosophical battle between content and style, 2) thoughts on critical thinking and 3) “old” rhetoric vs. “new” rhetoric.  Where Aristotle saw rhetoric as neither inherently good or bad (its moral impact depends on a speaker’s application), Lindemann depicts Plato as “castigating” rhetoric as an “ignoble deceit, an attempt to flatter” the listener (43). I was trying to apply this view to our fine civil servants like Mr. Obama, who, in my opinion, has broken more campaign promises than any other president in my lifetime, yet, even when I can no longer believe his words, even when he knows (see the polls) most people think he’s a massive sell-out, nonetheless, he exudes confidence and, sometimes, that sweet charm that hooked us in the first place.  Is that “flattery,” as Plato put it, or just a talent to charm the pants off of you?  In terms of rhetorical skills, later scholars praised such “delivery,” so Obama would get high points in this regard.
    Plato wasn’t alone, though.  Burke, Addison and Weaver were among scholars who kept in mind, not just the orator and the art of his persuasion, but the potential harm much rhetoric has on certain readers/listeners who cannot tell an angel from a demon in angel’s britches.  We think of Hitler’s brilliant magnetism that led Germany to ruin, but there were undoubtedly Greek and Roman leaders who were clever and corrupt as well.  The Bazerman piece provides a pragmatic guide for students unfamiliar with media analysis, noting key rhetorical techniques like flag waving, scapegoating and cardstacking.  There are empowering suggestions for students to judge for themselves the ethos of a writer by investigating the reputation of the publication and the author.  Readers are encouraged to consider how transparent an orator is by scrutinizing the evidence, the level of precision and the quality and frequency of the references.  As I’ve become more active in studying up on the Washington power structure, and the local and global effects of that power, I, too, find myself looking up information on speakers -- their backgrounds, their connections, the consistency of their actions and their words.  For me, these habits have helped to open my eyes; I hope my students benefit the same way.
    Kenneth Burke is said to have made the most contributions to the “new” rhetoric, in part because he synthesized thought from diverse disciplines like psychology and anthropology, as opposed to the rhetoricians of the past who focused on the rhetoric alone.  Burke said the “key term”  of “new” rhetoric is “identification,” as when a speaker seeks to identify himself with his listener (53).  I immediately think of Bush the Junior as someone who employs this technique superbly.  Identification is the answer to the $10,000 question: “How could Joe Voter elect Bush president, not once, but two times?”  How many times have we heard, “He might not measure up as the leader of the free world, but, heck, he’s the kinda guy you’d want to invite over for a barbecue?”  In the end, voters seem to choose style over content nearly every time.  This makes things a lot easier for folks.  Why go to the internet to research something like 9/11?  That’s hard work.  On the other hand, if I’ve already made up my mind that I trust my leaders, and they never lie, heck, I’ll follow ‘em anywhere they lead...Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, name it.  Identification equals trust. 
    I’m still left with a couple questions.  Lindemann holds that rhetoric, by definition, implies the listener has choices (40).  This is easy to see when I’m selling Bibles door to door; you can simply buy or shut the door.  But in a multinational community where the media is either state owned (BBC) or increasingly “playing it safe” (ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN, etc) because conservative corporations own and control them, where’s the choice?  By Lindemann’s definition, does that mean that, with waning choice, rhetoric isn’t really rhetoric?  Does it cease to persuade?  Germans under Hitler had precious few choices.  Was Hitler not a rhetorician?
    A final question.  Bazerman walks a fine line, encouraging students toward critical thinking, yet propping up a rosy view of the world: “Fortunately, only a small fraction of writing is deliberately manipulative” (109).  Bazerman goes on to reason that most novels and magazines shoot straight from the hip, so there’s little need to be careful.  What about a world where hardly anyone reads novels or magazines or newspapers anymore and, anyway, like the electronic media, print media are owned by big corporations, as well?  How careful do our students need to be when the majority of their information comes in sound bites from TV or their smartphone?