This week’s readings challenge us to break through conventional barriers in curriculum design, argument and in our role in the drama for social justice. I had to think twice about how I think and act to “the other,” and this is making me question what I’ve come to accept as justice. In “Repositioning Curriculum Design,” Matthew Heard offers a re-working, in a sense, of Wiggins and McTighe’s “essential questions,” asking us to re-imagine curriculum planning as an opportunity to problematize our thinking and our students’ thinking, rather than, in Brock Dethier’s words, simply trying to “keep your boss happy.” ( 318) As intriguing as Heard's ideas are, I have to say: easier said than done. My limited exposure to departmental politics suggests little leeway for personal idiosyncrasies and probably even less when it comes to stepping outside the lines of curriculum expectations. Nonetheless, several of Heard’s innovations, like “goal-free” evaluations point to a brave, new pedagogy, if and when a teacher has the job security -- and the temerity -- to test conventional limits.
In The Rhetoric of Reason, James Crosswhite derides traditional argument bereft of emotion, “free from the limitations of culture, politics and commitment.” (41) Instead, he argues for a reconstruction of the theory of argumentation because the conventional assumptions -- that if we could “put aside our strong feelings, . . . our gender, our nationality and ethnic identities, . . . then we could reason our way to agreements” -- in his view, aren’t working. (44) Of course, it’s hard to argue against Crosswhite's stand on argument. If our own stalemate Congress weren’t enough validation, just look (if you dare) at the fifty-plus years of dead-end debates between Israel and Palestine (not that you can do so without discussing the sugar-daddy behind the curtain). Unfortunately, Crosswhite, in this first chapter of his book, engages us only in the problems of traditional argumentation, leaving us to wait for better solutions.
Like Crosswhite, David Wallace defies conventions that threaten to make us less human. In confronting discourse in general and the Composition discourse community in particular, Wallace, in his article, “Unwelcome Stories,” takes issue with the pretense that we are to, quoting Lynn Bloom, “‘avoid any suggestion that there’s a real human being’” relating real experiences in our writings and general discourse. (545) Rather, Wallace champions our rights to speak from a place of truth -- especially on behalf of the marginalized -- despite the dominant politics of the Composition community that both question and resist such daring. Where Crosswhite puts his faith in fighting for social justice through a reconstructed approach to argumentation, Wallace advances, quoting Royster, “cross-boundary discourses.” If I understand correctly, this means to engage the powers that be, addressing issues that have for too long gone unaddressed -- particularly the dominant’s self-satisfied view of itself as the only view, which marginalizes all “others” without regard. Wallace augments this concept to point the finger at himself as well. Thus, while he’s a gay man, he takes significant pains to point out his own limits of understanding when discussing a colleague who is both gay and Black.
You have to hand it Wallace for making the noble effort to “go the extra mile” to understand someone whose shoes he’s never walked in before. While it’s hardly fair to compare Wallace to Crosswhite since, the latter has yet to unveil his methods fully, for me, it’s hard to deny that Wallace’s approach may well bear more fruit in the long run. If I get the gist of Crossman’s stance, a re-vamped apparatus of argumentation is what’s needed to bring humanity together. I’d put my money on Wallace’s take, if only because it’s the only thing that’s ever worked for me: making the effort to try to see another person’s point view. Unless I’m missing something, this is the first step toward real empathy. The Spanish-speaking world has an expression that goes far beyond “I’m sorry” and would seem to be the ideal path toward bringing disparate individuals and groups together: “Lo siento” or “I feel (your pain).”
As an embarrassingly flawed human with many years attempting self-reflection toward bridging the gap between me and those around me, I appreciate these intellectual moves toward reconciliation. By themselves, however, I wonder if they can bring us any closer to a sense of justice or peace. Rather, I worry that they are essentially intellectual moves when what’s needed is spiritual reflection. Given, such a discussion is probably deemed as controversial in academia as Wallace’s discussions of race and sexuality. Nonetheless, from my experience, I can’t imagine real success in “cross-boundary” discourse without the profound benefits of coming to know myself, my flaws, my potential, in an ongoing examination of how I communicate -- and sometimes mis-communicate -- with others. Otherwise, all to often, I end up blaming “the other.”
Of course, when it comes to developing a system of rhetoric for working out fair play, Wallace is right. Self-reflection is only the first step in any pursuit of justice. Beyond recognizing my own fallacies and "the other's" innate values and rights, we need healthy communication skills that center discourse on justice and clarity, and reduce the common human habit whereby I find my foot in my mouth once again. Wallace's most important point, it seems, is that "language and rhetoric are never neutral" (553). Never? But we've come so far! Some fifty years after the Civil Rights Amendment, Wallace reminds us that there's a "real danger in congratulating ourselves on what we have achieved and failing to continuously attend to our complicity in maintaining the discourses of power." (549) Maintenance is the key word, I think. Given that improvements have been made, the job is never over. Maintenance of our discourse is particularly at issue when speaking/writing to/about the marginalized, as Wallace offers: "I want to show engaged respect for wisdom drawn from experiences with marginalization that I have not lived; I want to seek out both what is common in our experiences in speaking and writing from the margins as well as what is different." (551) He's taking a stand for something too few of us consider: that the battle of equality is never over and must be attended to in every conversation we have, every paper we write, and to do so, this must be an active pursuit, a seeking out. Thus, conscious mindfulness is essential for social justice because, while there's no substitute for spiritual self-reflection, for most of us, it doesn't occur to us to self-reflect on matters we consider to be "wrapped up" and laid to rest.
Repeatedly, Wallace brings up the disturbing notion of universal complicity, that we're all implicated in this interchange. For me, this comes to a head when Wallace refers to Malea Powell, a Native American, who denounces the dominant discourse for its core imperialism. When it comes to complicity, I wonder who can finally escape the brand of "imperialist" in this country -- except perhaps those who actively educate themselves and others and resist it. No doubt, Powell is right on the money with his indictment. Post-WWII liberals sometimes scratch their heads in disbelief at the atrocities in Vietnam or Iraq or CIA assassinations in Central and South America, but, in fact, this is only good old-fashioned Yankee imperialism, born in our North American land-grab, bought with the blood of Native Americans and slaves, an imperialism just raising its head again after a pretense of nobility during WWII -- a war whose start, we now know, was funded by American corporations with full knowledge of the Oval Office. At the heart of our grand ole tradition of imperialism is the ignorant American who prefers not to know what's going on and looks the other way (an apt description of myself for too long). Of course, this is central, again, to Crosswhite and Wallace and Powell's appeals for communication and justice because no bridges can be built between us and "the others" so long as we are ("blissfully") unaware of their lot, or if we are so brainwashed with a jingoism that drains us of all humanity that we grow self-satisfied with the narrowness of personal achievements and material accumulation, resistant to the work and the risk of becoming informed about our own complicity.
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