Cinnabar and Alabaster

a historical look at the requisite exigencies of rhetoric:
131. rhetoric = civic discourse, not only 1st-year comp; has a "symbiotic relationship" with society (Vickers) but really only democratic society, since realistically "rhetoric cannot exist in environments that do not allow for debate and argument with respect to issues of law and government": "rhetoric has flourished during those periods when democracy was strong, but when the society faced an outside threat, rhetoric flowered" (why "we remember solon, pericles, lincoln, roosevelt, & churchill)
132. likewise, "when democracy was weak, rhetoric became static at best, reduced to scholasticism or literary criticism at worst." b/c democratic systems are or are becoming the new world order, then, we'd predict that rhetoric be "destined for a period of growth in the new millenium," but it's not going to happen.
133-5. ancient greece & notions of freedom--slavery first meant not being free to make one's own choices; by the end of the 7th cent BC freedom meant the ability to be recognized as a member of the community; slaves were no longer allowed in the gymnasia or seen as having social/personal value, only economic. we still think of freedom this way--being "free" means having or having valid access to social recognition
136. the easy answer is "all language is rhetorical" so there's still a place for rhetoric today, but more realistically, "if we are to understand the place of rhetoric in society today and tomorrow, we must understand the nature of liberal democracies, how they are characterized by social stability, individualism linked to recognition, and systematic redistribution of wealth through a combination of governmental economic policies and wide-ranging entitlements" (plus, b/c the modern democracies "meet all the basic human needs that have driven political change," in a sense there's nothing left to do)
137. economic entitlement programs--social security, etc. started in the 30s and expanded in the 60s: now "Americans in general believe that they are entitled to certain benefits and recognition even when neither has been earned"
138. protests of the 60s--and the rise of new rhetoric--were "a rebellion against conformity and a demand...for greater recognition as individuals" for a generation resisting the influence of old war-time solidarity-narratives in the face of a new war; the popular rhetoric of these protests "largely involved shouting down opposing points of view...a form of populism, of what we can call selective pluralism, that had the potential to turn ugly"
139. selective pluralism (acc. to Habermas) "accelerates the process" by which pluralism "breaks down traditions and erodes established rituals and religious beliefs and thereby leads to tribalism," by "admitting into the universe of discourse only those with correct political views; all others are excluded. to survive, democracies must attenuate radicalism by relying on the ideals embodied in the process of reaching consensus through rational communication and...the normative procedures associated with intellectual argument"; this requires a well-educated populace.
140. open-admissions works against this goal rather than for it: the "populist politics of inclusion, as well as a growing sense of entitlement, which implicitly recognize the inherent value in upward mobility, socioeconomic success, and recognize that writing skills are central to academic accomplishment" led inevitably to "composition classes [becoming] microcosmic town meetings as workshop pedagogy...became de rigeur from coast to coast"; "differences were to be celebrated through rational discourse that would overcome emotional prejudices...as well as through token positions statements" like STROL, and "argumentation became one of the more preferred modes" in writing classes. but: "such efforts could not reverse the precipitous decline in academic standards and performance that has undermined the very foundation of deliberative democracy. those who supported populist politics came to argue that the goal of inclusion justified abandoning the traditional standard of academic success--excellence"; "allowing everyone to participate was deemed more important than achievement"
141. (tragic statistics lead to this conclusion): "the emphasis on pluralism during the 1960s....eroded standards of academic excellence to such an extent that the sort of rational communication... envisioned became impossible in a society in which a growing number of people--students and teachers alike--employ a restricted register to communicate basic needs and cannot deal with abstractions"; "issues of inclusion require us to believe that individuals have equal worth and merit equal recognition," but "experience with workshop pedagogy...showed that students were significantly unequal in terms of their abilities and their motivation to succeed," and "efforts to find common values were easily derailed by students whose culture and/or home language rendered hopeless all prospects of collaborative learning."
142. "diversity with respect to abilities and motivation inevitably leads to diversity in achievement, in grades, and this kind of diversity is had to celebrate"--it also "casts doubt on our ability to achieve a pluralistic society based on equality, for it raises the question of whether those who cannot use Standard English in written communication can be included among the nation's educated elite"; "extreme individualism precludes community, and it renders anemic current notions of pluralism. it also precludes rhetoric in all traditional sense of the term"; "the agenda of new rhetoric [has] failed. we have discovered what differentiates good writers from bad ones--intelligence, motivation, and socioeconomic status--but we have rejected the findings as unpalatable."
143. "furthermore, we have not discovered how to turn bad writers into good ones, largely because increasing intelligence, motivation, and socioeconomic status is beyond us. thirty years of research and theorizing in rhetoric and composition have not improved the quality of communication in any measureable way, and student writing in particular seems to be in an irreversible decline"; part of the problem is the divided nature of the field--at war with new rhetoric's (hopeless) interest in "deliberation and epistemology" was romantic/expressivist theory, (uselessly) "congruent with the ideals of radical democracy insofar as it validat[e] the opinions of everyone" & so offers universal recognition (but also thoroughly subjegates students by offering teachers the power to judge their personal experience)--this fits in well w/the increasingly confessional nature of our entertainment/priorities (reality tv & oprah)--everyone just wants to be recognized, whether positively or negatively, which perpetuates the illusion of freedom: we don't have to have social value to find a venue that'll make us feel like we do.
147. technology "freedoms" both widen the gap between the haves & have-nots, they increase isolationism & our valuing of it, so that the "lucky" among us can afford to stay home to work & not interact with anybody--"the freedom associated with technology is the freedom to be alone and...it is actually antithetical to civil society and rhetoric in all its forms. certainly this freedom is increasing--and we are becoming a nation of semiliterate shut-ins as a result"; "individualism and isolation have taken a toll on society at all levels, even the must fundamental": families have gotten smaller, more people are living alone, and "isolation is positively correlated with distrust"--of government, of churches, of schools, of others.
148. the sequence of contradictions: we want to be alone, but we crave community recognition; entitlement programs offer illusionary recognition but it isn't social; more individualism means fewer avenues for social recognition means more desperate acts of public confession & "other forms of behavior that result more often in negative, rather than positive, recognition" (which is always inherently relational); status/recognition is built now on consumerism, which is unfulfilling; the price of objects "reinforces a sense of personal worth" for those who can afford to purchase them; "the capitalistic foundation of liberal democracy makes this sort of recognition possible, but it has no way to make such shallow recognition meaningful"; "'contented consumers' are prone to feeling dissatisfied without knowing why" & they avoid activities that could lead to genuine recognition b/c they aren't as socially or economically rewarding.
149. identity politics make it worse, not better: they "provide a means for people with common characteristics to assert an identity" and "lead to a sense of belonging" but "are based on superficial, deritualized, shared values and perspectives" whereas "real community...is based on rituals and values that are reciprocally defining"; plus, "any sense of community that may be obtained through identity politics springs from the group's inevitable assumption of the role of victim"; "in a society that values equality more than freedom, assumed victimization can seem empowering" but leads to "us versus them" mentalities and "high levels of hostility," which is why "race relations, for example, are worse today than they were thirty years ago"--identity politics "foster shallow tribalism that is antithetical to democracy and that puts self-interest above all others"; "we preach toleracnce in the name of diversity and equality, and.... nevertheless, ours has become the most intolerant society in the developed world."
150. the problem: "traditional rhetoric as we know it is suasive; it is not necessary for either confession or exposure. it involves developing a particular representation of reality in a way that motivates the audience to accept it as true. this rhetoric, therefore, is predicated on the premise that some representations of reality are better than others. however, our society is driven by an irrational--perhaps even fanatical--desire for equality, and nowhere is this desire stronger than in our schools." as a result, we reward all students for saying anything at all ("which may explain why so many first-year students entering university report receiving very high grades in high school English") instead of "evaluat[ing] not the experiences but the way they are expressed"; if we do that, though, "we become conflicted, for in spite of our best hopes and wishes, students are unequal. by denying their inequality and by perpetuating the myth of equality, we unintentionally produce students who cannot...express anything resembling an original, independent thought for fear of offending someone somewhere."
151. "postmodern rhetoric is...revolutionary in a political sense--but clearly not an intellectual one...[and] fundamentally at odds with both individualism and independent thought"; Marxist-style idealism "stifles independent thought and action in favor of a massive social leveling and inevitable mediocrity" and postmodernists quoting Freire rely on connections that are "far-fetched at best" when "compar[ing] the status of illiterate peasants who suffered under Brazil's military regimes...to the privileged status of America's contented consumers"; "in so doing, postmodern rhetoric trivializes and belittles true oppression and true suffering"
153-4. the "information age" floods us with more than we can comprehend and we value it based on appeal, making us more realistically part of an "entertainment age" wherein "journalism...has moved significantly toward subjective reporting that shows an easy disregard for facts under the premise that truth is a social construct and that the end (audience share) justifies the means (crass sensationalism)"; "Yahoo! and Excite attach more and more ads to every search result in order the generate revenues, [and] we see yet more erosion of the role rhetoric plays in our society. suasion may be ranmpant, but in a semiotic, not a traditional rhetorical, sense. increasingly, rehtoric is limited to visual, rather than verbal, persuasion" and "our standard notions of rhetoric simply to not apply in the transfer of information that characterizes our age"; "such discourse may use rhetorical figures, [but] the overwhleming aim is [only] to transfer information. thus rhetoric no longer serves as a tool for shaping the form of our democracy or as a tool for redistribution of recognition" but instead "if rhetoric is everywhere and everything, it ends up being nothing."
155. "historically, one of the distinguishing characteristics of rhetoric was its pragmatism. people used rhetoric to get things done, to shape the world they lived in. rhetoric was an important sociopolitical tool, whether one wanted to build a road to corinth or ensure a more perfect union.... rhetoric has been the handmaiden of social progress, linked inextricably to democratic ideals. today, there is strong evidence to suggest that... liberal democracy signals the terminal point of social change"
156. ..."where the human need for material comfort and recognition is sufficiently satisfied to ensure social stability" and "the demands that society makes on rhetoric...will be nominal, and there is every indication that they will disappear altogether in the not-so-distant future as the information/entertainment age matures"; most people won't even notice, and "first-year composition," even when we notice, "probably will remain a paper-dominated anachronism...[that] will continue to emphasize traditional rhetorical features of audience and aim...as though society had a place for people who can use language suasively to make a difference in the world"; "students will continue to produce themes in which they take stands on issues of great import, and teachers will continue to urge students to provide more details, more examples, more thought."
157. "the sociopolitical realities that govern our lives in this liberal democracy, however, will make these efforts rhetorically meaningless."