What the Heck? A Pre Discussion Post

(With apologies for Tardiness)

Why the Heck Did I Choose This Article?

When I read articles like Vitanza's I am intrigued by postmodern complex thought exercises.  However, as you might(not) know, I find the (dis)functional presentation of composition to be (un)fruitful with(out) a proper pedagogical (mis)understanding.  To me, the previous sentence is part of the problem of complexity.  How do I get at what the sentence is saying?  Particularly when I'm trying to teach composition?  What I desire is some sort of practical means of connection between postmodern theories and classroom practice.  The title of the article I chose--"Critical Rhetoric: Theory and Praxis"--makes me hopeful about productive discussion tomorrow.  I love seeing theory and practice together.

I've been learning in this class that the divide between rhetoric as composition and oral and performative rhetoric is quite artificial.  We utilize and teach rhetorical writing techniques, and you are incorporating humanistic and sociological theory in your classrooms.  That's why I thought this article would be a neat connection between the two.  So... I'll give a little background on the author in order to communication the importance of this article for my branch of the discipline.

Who the Heck is Raymie Mckerrow?

Raymie E. McKerrow is the Charles E. Zumkehr Professor in the School of Communication Studies, and Affiliate Faculty in Interdisciplinary Arts at Ohio University. He earned his B. S. in Speech at Southern Illinois University, an M. A. at Colorado State University, and his Ph. D. in Speech Communication at the University of Iowa.... He also has contributed work in argument theory, most recently as a respondent to papers presented at the Ontario Society for the Study of Argument Conferences. Since the mid 1980’s his work has focused on contemporary rhetoric, drawing on the ‘ideological turn’ in rhetorical theory/criticism, with primary attention on what has become known as “critical rhetoric.” In reworking and advancing the arguments contained in early work between 1984 and 1989, he has published on issues such as space and time, the nature of the subject, and corporeal rhetoric (taken from his C.V.)

Dr. McKerrow has been the editor of 5 different scholarly journals.  Presently, he is the editor of the flagship journal in communication The Quarterly Journal of Speech.  He has been the president of the Eastern Communication association and has received the National Communication Association’s lifetime achievement award.  There are a number of awards given to scholars and groups that are named after Dr. McKerrow.  In other words, if you are in my discipline, he is Super(person). He also the stereotypical Grandpa; (i.e. the one that goes on walks with you and gives timely caring words of wisdom rather than the one that shouts about his lawn and covers his couch furniture with plastic).  

Critical Rhetoric

What the Heck is it?

Well, that's a long story (and article), but most succinctly, it can be stated as an orientation toward, rather than a method of, critiquing discourses of power.  By orientation, McKerrow means a manner of being critical rather than just some methods of critiquing.  This orientation is not reliant on a destination where we proclaim, "There, I've figured out how things are".  Instead, when a discourse that was marginalized becomes accepted, it is ripe for critique, but so it is ripe for critique when not accepted.  He calls this the critique of domination and the  critique of freedom.  The point is, for the critic (which is what FYC instructors are) we are to always exist with the orientation of questioning both status quo and resistance.  The following quotes flesh this out a bit.  If you read the article, you'll see it's foolish to try to include all the theorists he draws upon.  It's safe to say that he tries to do what we have not been able to do in our discussions--make Foucault practically applicable.

The task of Critical Rhetoric

The task of a critical rhetoric is to undermine and expose the discourse of power in order to thwart its effects in a social relation (98).

The analysis of the discourse of power focuses on the "normalization" of language intended to maintain the status quo (100).

Whether the critique establishes a social judgment about "what to do" as a result of the analysis, it must nonetheless serve to identify the possibilities of future action available to the participants (92).

The problem does not consist in drawing the line between that in a discourse which falls under the category of scientificity or truth, and that which comes under some other category, but in seeing historically how effects of truth are produced within discourses which in themselves are neither true nor false (p. 118; Cited in McKerrow, p. 100).  (Foucault’s statements about truth)

The Utility of Critical Rhetoric

The analysis of the discourse of power focuses on the "normalization" of language intended to maintain the status quo. By producing a description of "what is," unfettered by predetermined notions of what "should be," the critic is in a position to posit the possibilities of freedom. Recharacterization of the images changes the power relations and recreates a new "normal" order. In this interaction, "truth" is that which is supplanted by a newly articulated version that is accepted as a basis for the revised social relation. Once instantiated anew in social relations, the critique continues (100).

Discussion Questions

Tomorrow in class, I want to discuss how we practically can exist as teachers in the post-modern classroom.  Sound impossible?  It might be, but Dr. Raymie McKerrow, has made some interesting suggestions about being a post-modern scholar that have classroom applicability.  Someone has already addressed the idea of Critical Rhetoric in classroom instruction.  If you're interested in that approach, here's a link.


Q1:  What do you think about the idea of analysis demanding we offer "what to do next"?  Is that really a necessary part of critique?


Q2:  What do you think of the idea of positioning ourselves as critics in the classroom?  Should that critical embodiment be encouraged for students as much as for instructors?


Q3: Let's each choose 2 principles of Critical Rhetoric listed below and be ready to discuss how they relate both to our other articles as well as practical ways this orientation might be useful in your classroom.

The Principles

Principle #1. "Ideologiekritik is in fact not a method, but a practice" (McGee, 1984, p. 49).

            An orientation is the least restrictive stage from which the critical act might be launched; it      maximizes the possibilities of what will "count" as evidence for critical judgment, and allows for creativity in the assessment of the "effects of truth" upon social practices (102).

Principle #2. The discourse of power is material.

What does McKerrow mean by materiality?

A critical rhetoric no longer looks at praxis in its ethical dimension, tying it to an ideal life-style. Rather, a critical rhetoric links praxis, both as object of study and as style, to "a mode of transformative activity" (Benhabib, 1986, p. 67) in which the social relations in which people participate are perceived as "real" to them, [emphasis mine] even though they exist only as fictions in a rhetorically constituted universe of discourse (103).

Doxastic knowledge functions as the grounding of a critical rhetoric.  Rather than focusing on questions of "truth" or "falsity," a view of rhetoric as doxastic allows the focus to shift to how the symbols come to possess power-what they "do" in society as contrasted to what they "are" (104).

Principle #3. Rhetoric constitutes doxastic rather than epistemic knowledge.

By subsuming the constitution of subjects under the rubric of episteme, theorists do no more than attempt to rescue rhetoric from the oblivion to which Plato consigned it (104).

Doxastic knowledge functions as the grounding of a critical rhetoric.  Rather than focusing on questions of "truth" or "falsity," a view of rhetoric as doxastic allows the focus to shift to how the symbols come to possess power-what they "do" in society as contrasted to what they "are" (104).

Principle #4. Naming is the central symbolic act of a nominalist rhetoric.

Consonant with recapturing a sense of rhetoric as doxastic rather than epistemic, a reinterpretation of rhetoric as nominalist fits well with the contingent nature of the social reality in which humans are both subject and subjected (105).

Principle #5. Influence is not causality.

The task of a critical rhetoric is to call attention to the myth, and the manner in which it mediates between contradictory impulses to action (107).

Principle # 6. Absence is as important as presence in understanding and evaluating symbolic action.

Terms are not "unconnected"; in the formation of a text, out of fragments of what is said, the resulting "picture" needs to be checked against "what is absent" as well as what is present (107).

Principle # 7. Fragments contain the potential for polysemic rather than monosemic interpretation.

A polysemic critique is one which uncovers a subordinate or secondary reading which contains the seeds of subversion or rejection of authority, at the same time that the primary reading appears to confirm the power of the dominant cultural norms (108).

Principle #8. Criticism is a performance.

The practice of a critical rhetoric can take refuge in Foucault's (1980a) defense of his own writing as that of a specific intellectual (p. 126). T o borrow Lentricchia's (1983) statement of the practice, a specific intellectual is "one whose radical work of transformation, whose fight against repression is carried on at the specific institutional site where he [she] finds himself [herself] and on the terms of his [her] own expertise, on the terms inherent to his [her] own functioning as an intellectual" (pp. 6-7). This also gives meaning to theorizing as a critical practice-as a performance of a rhetor advocating a critique as a sensible reading of the discourse of power (108).

Thanks to everyone who gets to read both the article and this post!  We'll try to engage discussion as critical rhetors tomorrow!  




Thanks~  Aaron