Gronbeck: Citizen Voices

There were a few points he made, which he summarized and quickly moved on from, which I wish he would he explored a little more.  For example, when he wrote that, “…even as some beat the drum to organize peoples’ marches, actual political activity in the execute and legislative halls seemed more influenced by the numbered voices of the printout than the bull-horned voices of the streets” (23). This point was one in a list of points that he would have made if he had more space.  I personally think it is an interesting one worth contemplating and wish he would have spent more than three sentences on it.  What is he basing this idea on?  Is that meant as a segue into the idea of cyber politics?  His concept intrigued me and then left me unsatisfied.

I have to agree with his later point that a citizen’s building of political identity is just as much a part of civic engagement as attempting legistlative change.  And when a citizen is a critically thinking, he or she can definitely successfully piece together a political identity by taking advantage of internet sources.  A danger does lie, though, in the fact that many internet users may not be aware of the different angles website creators are coming from and may not be able to see past that to use their own experiences to compare and contrast.  Personally, I have a problem with believing too much that I read or hear and therefore must be extremely careful processing information before I go voicing my opinion. It’s true, though, that the internet is certainly not the only place where one must be careful to analyze and criticize sources.  It’s certainly one of the more easily accessible and extensive places.  When armed with the right tools, I think it’s definitely a beautiful place of opportunity for many of the reasons Gronbeck listed in his essay.

del Gandio 97-178

After reading the section of the chapter “The Power of Language” regarding the use of language for positive social change, I was struck by the line, “The main purpose of this section is to demonstrate how the language of propoganda shapes consciousness, thus producing conformity of thought and action” (119).  Okay, so I may be putting things together sort of slowly, but this is what it took for me to realize that the exact same process, the construction of reality and beliefs through words, is being used by those with the common good in mind and those with the common exploitation in mind.

Del Gandio clarifies this for me on the following page, bringing home this terrifying point even more clearly, “All propoganda is rhetorical, but not all rhetoric is propoganda.  Both consciously shape language to maximize effectiveness, but propoganda is manipulative, distorting and power-driven.  Propoganda seeks to exploit people’s desires while rhetoric seeks to liberate people’s desires” (120).  Um, wow.  That contrast right there is honestly terrifying.  That the same process and skill can be enlisted to justify an unnecessary war (as del Gandio goes on to explore) as well as fight to free an entire race of people from oppression demonstrates the absolute power of words and language.

In addition, it’s hard to even judge the people using this rhetoric for bad purposes as bad people, as del Gandio points out that a lot of times it is done out of ignorance.  Yes, ideally all people could think critically and identify propoganda and avoid furthering it, but that is not the truth of the matter.  This section clearly pointed this out to me in a very comprehensive way.

Rhetoric for Radicals 2

I identified with most and understood best the section entitled “Overall Attitude” in the part of the chapter on Delivery.  Del Gandio says, “Your confidence, poise, composure, emotional state, personality, liveliness, spontaneity, engagement and overall vibe are part of the speaking experience” (44).  He goes on to say that despite any technical shortcomings in your speech, “people will like you if you’re sincere, endearing, and passionate” (44).

Going back to a speech’s similarities to having a one-on-one conversation, I believe this concept can be easily found in two-person conversations as well as conversations between a speaker and an audience.  While reading this I immediately recalled a situation I experienced over the weekend.  Throughout the course of one evening I had a few conversations with the friend of a friend, who I had met a few times before.  I had always considered him funny, a little goofy, but always positive and accepting.  However, this recent encounter proved the complete opposite.  He made judgmental comments and appeared unsettled.  I immediately responded by acknowledging my feelings of discomfort, though I did not know from where they came, and attempted to avoid him as best I could.  I found out that something had happened that shifted his attitude lately, and it was this new, negative attitude that I was responding to.

It was incredible how strong the force of his attitude was, and how he attempted to blame it on me and share it with me.  I can definitely see how a speaker can use effectually an attitude that strong, hopefully a much more positive one than his, to communicate with and connect with an audience.

del Gandio chapter 1

As I read this chapter I took notice of ideas which coincided with Alinsky’s, for example when del Gandio says, “Ignoring this distinction may save your ‘integrity,’ but it also jeopardizes your organizing accomplishments.  Most of us will agree that accomplishing our goals is the most important thing” (26).  He recognizes, as Alinsky did, the importance of doing what must be done to accomplish the goal.

However, I noticed a pretty major deviation from an idea that Alinsky presented.  Whereas Alinsky, as an outsider to many communities, entered these communities, organized them, and became a rhetorical spokesperson, at least for a time, del Gandio seems to wish for something different.    He speaks about the “decentered, anti-authoritarian activism, which is the predominent paradigm of contemporary activism,” rather than activism led by a particular leader and organized by a particular organizer (31).  He goes on to say that “We don’t have and we don’t want ‘rhetorical leaders.’  We don’t want others to speak to us; we want to speak for ourselves”  (31).  This seems to be one way that 21st century radicalism has gone its own way and attempts a new method.

2nd Half: Alinsky

My favorite part of this book is where Alinsky addresses the power that the organizer leads the members of the community to realize and yield.  For those whose dignity has been completely denied by many, the path to power he describes is not an easy but a necessary one, especially if these people hope to organize and fight for recognition and change.

I suppose the line that pointed out the universality in this process, as I always seem to be searching for the universal, is this, “Self-respect arises only out of people who play an active role in solving their own crises and who are not helpless, passive, puppet-like recipients of private or public services” (123).  Self-respect is such a necessary part of this process, it must be present in the organizer and in all the members of the community.  The link between self-respect and power never occurred to me, but after having read this section I fail to see how they could possibly be separated.

Alinsky p. 1-97

I wouldn’t call myself a religious person, but having grown up in the church it was definitely surprising to read his allusion to “the first known radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom– Lucifer” on one of the first pages.  I was worried that I was going to manage to be offended by something he said, which is something that rarely happens.

Happily, I was not at all offended.  What I understood at first to be a controversial attitude for controversy’s sake is actually his tendency to attempt to fairly and completely look at all aspects of an issue or a belief.  I enjoyed his willingness to criticize himself just as he criticizes others.  He never really agrees or disagrees with anything completely, but finds positives and negatives in all.

His thoughts on rhetoric were surprising.  He’s sort of the opposite of many of the agitators we’ve studied so far; his focus rather is on the stripping away of rhetoric and fallacy and illusion to uncover the true human intentions, moral and immoral.  Odd that he appears to associate rhetoric with other negatives, preferring tactics of understanding and communication.  Which I suppose is a form of rhetoric.  Anyway, I liked this reading a lot.

Ch. 5: Modern Rhetoric Education

The biggest realization, although it may seem glaringly obvious, since I’ve been writing in college is that in order to write something at all worth reading you must have something to say.  As basic as that may sound, it makes a lot of sense.  Going along with this, assigned writing needs to be posed in a way that it produces writing that says something, that questions, or that fights for something.

Reading this quote on p. 115, “Many educators and administrators in the past and present have considered courses in writing and speaking to be politically neutral courses,” I had to stop and think for a moment.  I have certainly been assigned writing or speaking projects in the past where I felt like the goal was to instill grammar, language conventions, or other standards of writing into me.  The time I spent writing these papers felt like the most pointless of my life.  Writing is going to necessarily be bland, uninspired, and robotic without a topic which either invites controversy or questions a practice in some way.

So, when I read that Alan Gribben claimed this, “The consideration of issues such as race and gender in the composition classroom, he and many of his colleagues argued, had nothing to do with the writing curriculum,” I had to ask myself what he thought students should be writing about (116).  Kates had just completed a description showing that race and gender are two of the most contested and still prominent language issues today.  I wonder what he assigns his students to write about.

To conclude, I feel that my objections to his stance are nicely summed up by Kates on page 116: “To do so is to establish courses that are not connected in important ways to the lives of students and events in the larger culture outside the university; ignoring the politics of writing instruction means designing courses that do not provide opportunities for students to consider language in the rigorous tradition of rhetorical study that dates to classical times.”

Chapter 2: AR

I thoroughly enjoyed this chapter.  One concept I wish that Kates would have expanded on is the idea “that feeling has a logic, that it is not ‘without rhyme or reason,’ gives indication of the convictions that allowed her to generate rhetorical theory that varied significantly from that of her white male contemporaries as she worked to write a rhetoric text…” (30-31).  I was intrigued by this idea of hers that there is a logic to feeling, one that is just as important and effective as the logic and rationale of the male-dominated academy of her time, and that it causes women to be taken less seriously.  I agree that emotion is an integral aspect of education and rhetoric, and while I realize that the male-dominated academy which valued “stoic rationality” over “the logic of feeling” is no longer fully dominates education, I can still see remnants of that belief around me (30).

It seems to me that this clash can sometimes manifest itself in communication between the two genders.  I know myself to be motivated mainly by this logic of feeling in my actions and communication, and I have butted heads with many a person, male and female, who simply do not listen based on the fact that I have involved emotion into the argument.  Argument, another aspect of Jordan’s theory I appreciated.  I have noticed that generally when emotion is interjected into an argument, credibility is lost by the person using it.  Jordan’s ability to incorporate emotion effectually into a brand new kind of rhetoric for women is commendable.

Ch. 5: Women Leaders Response

Fannie Lou Hamer is a truly interesting study in rhetoric and advocacy.  Her involvement with SNCC, including her connection to the song “This Little Light of Mine,” illustrate her use of successful solidifying sign tactics.

Mostly, however, I respect her understanding of the workings of politics.  She said, “But we learned the hard way that even though we had all the law and all the righteousness on our side –that the white man is not going to give up his power to us” (106).  No, she was not giving up, she was just accepting that “appealing to the federal government within the boundaries of the law did not always bring the immediately desired remedy” (107).  The last section of the chapter seemed to merely list all her failures, even though the author attempted to point out the good that came out of her attempts for change.  Each time she attempted change, it seems that awareness was raise about the issue she fought for and change was attained much later.  Poor Fannie.  It seems, though, that she understood and accepted her somewhat invisible role in this process.  She is quoted as saying that visiting Guinea, led by a black, “confirmed the necessity of struggle if oppressed people were to be free” (107).  That’s very heroic of her, in my book.

Chapter 4 Response

Reading this chapter about the nonviolent agitation in Birmingham, what struck me most was the outrageous corruption of the establishment.  The political establishment, mainly.  Of course I had been aware of the ideology of the preservation of segregation that the political establishment held at the time, but I was definitely unaware of the extent to which this ideology manifested itself.

The ignoring of violence against the protesters was horrible, yes, and so were the lack of persecution of those who bombed black homes and properties, but I was even more appalled to read these lines, “The political establishment had strong links to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and the White Citizens’ Council.  Connor used the Klan to his advantage and, in some cases, to do his dirty work” (81).  Wow.  The government’s association at that time with a group centered around the hatred of blacks and violence speaks multitudes.

On a different note, I found this chapter to be thorough and enlightening regarding the Birmingham nonviolent resistance of the 1960s.