Groneck And The Cyberpolitical Culture

I found the article a little dull in the beginning with the inclusion of the Greek language and the meanings behind it, but overall, I think his article touched upon a very important aspect of rhetoric, that being his “electric rhetoric”. Going on about how we use radio, film, television and the computer to send our thoughts to the masses so others could read them, I think that this is a new important horizon we as a generation as seen. Years before, people wrote letters and staged riots and did all of that to get their point across, but now, all we have to do is jump online and write what we feel. Case in point, this blog. Anyone who is searching for this topic -  radicalism and rhetoric and everything else in between – can just get on Google and search for it. Using an example from my last blog post where I attracted the attention of an Alinsky biographer, I think now that the state of the cyber world is as essential as forever. But I digress, back to my point.

The Internet has become the premier gateway to share ideas. All we have to do is have access. Anyone with an idea can share it. Whether they be intellectuals or scholars or even regular students, one little post is all it takes to introduce the world to a radical new idea. Of course, this could have consequences, but that’s not the point: we shouldn’t deter anyone from introducing or proposing progress of any sort. If it’s a good idea, then we must elaborate on it and give it importance. And the language in this electric rhetoric is indeed radical rhetoric – because it’s on the Internet shouldn’t change anything at all. Language is language – it’s how you use it, how you push it forward. And some people call the Internet a burden – and believe me, at times, it is – but we should never scoff the power of it. We can do anything we want to do with it and Gronbeck’s article definitely proves that.

The End Of Del Gandio

I’m not entirely sure if we’re finished the book by now, because of class schedules and such, but I reached the end of “Rhetoric For Radicals”, and I felt like posting about it anyway.

I think the final chapter about the twenty-first century radical rhetoric was probably the finest chapter in the book, in terms of actual writing and the message. I felt like the other sections in the book were hastily written and not really that credible in terms of applying it to modern day situations. That may be a stupid thing to say, but what I mean by that is in this chapter, he specifically writes about our generation and our time, and for that, I found it to be more applicable and realistic. Writing about things like networks and revolutionary realities was something that really added to the book’s message – which reads more like a pamphlet than an educational text. Again, I don’t want to slam too much on Del Gandio, for he knows more about this subject than I ever could, but maybe it’s because it reads too much like a riot act and I can’t take it seriously. As mentioned in a previous post, I wrote about Alinsky’s text was more powerful because of its history, and maybe that’s just where my radical interests lie. Perhaps I am more interested in the building blocks of radicalism than the finished room, but I don’t want to stray too far away from my eventual point.

I’m a fan of prose by all means, but his prose was not fitting for this type of book. He tried way too hard to sound like a leader, instead of an informant, merely teaching this instead of poking us repeatedly until we followed him out into the street ourselves. It felt way too rushed and the language, at times, was so melodramatic that I put it down for a few seconds. Again, I give this man a lot of credit – he wrote a decent-sized book and he has a lot of knowledge. But I just can’t apply it. It’s probably just me, but whatever the case may be, radicalism is something that I guess can’t be overplayed – it has come to you at the right moment, and you have to feel it, not read it.

Rhetoric For Radicals: The Beginning to 178

I know this may seem like a long post by the title, but I assure you that it will not be. Fear not.

Honestly, after having read Rhetoric for Radicals up to page 178 now, I can say that I really don’t like this book. Granted, I love the ideas he is pushing forth, and it is an easy read, I find. But it has a language that doesn’t know what it wants to be. For example, it seems prose-like at some parts and dense in others. It’s hard for me to get into the proper flow of it. It reads TOO much like he is directly talking to us – and believe me, while at times that can be a very good thing, it’s just too scatter shot, I think, to create a proper impact. I don’t know if it seems like I’m approaching this text in the wrong way, but even after the first chapter, I felt like he was attacking me as the reader instead of the systems  and organizations that his theories were supposed to attack. It’s definitely informative and it’s interesting as all hell, but I don’t know – I just found Saul Alinsky to be much more enthralling. Maybe it’s because of the history behind it, or the time period it was written in, but I found Rules for Radicals to be a much more proper text to showcase for this class than Rhetoric for Radicals.

Perhaps, like I said before, that I am being too nitpicky and just not going with the flow of it. I thought many times perhaps it is my general understanding of the subject that is holding me off from truly absorbing the information that I have been given. But a smaller part of me is still screaming at me that I like the earlier history of radicalism – back when it was new and fresh. For some reason, I look at the counterculture from the late 60′s and I see Alinsky and even shades of Abbie Hoffman’s “Steal This Book” and I am much more captivated by the stories in there. Time has passed. We as a generation of kids have gotten more cynical and jaded to the concept of progress. And by that I mean that even though people tell us that we have so much to do with the freedom we have and to fight for what we believe in, there are still a percentage of people who cannot – and at times, will not – fight for it. They feel they won’t make a difference. Maybe I’m in that percentage that can’t get off my butt and fight for what’s right and try to rid the world of greed. Maybe that’s why I read Del Gandio and find myself staring  at the letters instead of taking them in.

Whatever the case may be, it is still a book that can teach a lot. And who knows – perhaps in time my mind will change, maybe when I finish reading it. But for now, I guess my inner radical is aligning with the radicals of the past.

Chapter 4: Activist Rhetorics

Reading about Brookwood Labor College definitely helped me understand what truly a labor college’s purpose is. Even though I felt the chapter was a little bit of a struggle to read, I soon became interested deeply into the subject matter. I’ll admit that before I read this article, I didn’t really have an idea of what exactly their purpose was. But as it is easily explained on the top of p.77, the intention of a labor college is to “enable students to campaign against abhorrent working conditions and low wages through public speaking, public writing and public action.” That, to me, seems like the most basic way of ever describing it, and yet, it is powerful in its intention.

I think this is something that is wholly necessary. Especially at a time where society is at its weakest and most vulnerable, we need a fresh generation that can springboard from “not knowing anything” to “knowing everything.” With knowledge comes power, and I have to admit, being able to have the opportunity to go to a college such as this with the full intention of learning how your system works and to fight it, is an amazing thing to possess. Another quote from the reading that really stuck with me was on p. 82, when Norton writes about the Brookwood students and their motivation to learn “how people act under given conditions.” I really saw that as something vital to not only the education process, but just on a personal level. Granted, almost everything we do on a daily basis is simply a reaction to what someone else did or something we saw. It’s how we balance those reactions to create our personalities and how we cope and function with whatever society or a system throws at us. This generation is very advanced and has seemingly unlimited chances at changing the world we live in. It’s only crucial that we read the history of it and only learn from past mistakes.