Just for clarity's sake, then -- these are genuine questions, not rhetorical ones -- we don't need a left rhetoric because
(a) the antagonists don't confront each other on grounds, terms, or whatever largely acceptable to all,
and/or
(b) it's not the case that the agreement among the antagonists is substantial and should trump the disagreements,
because these are the conditions for the use or existence of rhetoric?
I'm unclear on your point. I think for most us, rhetoric means just a persuasive way of talking. We surely need that, Old ways, i.e., MarxsLeninsSpeak, do not move people any more, except away. Surely you agree.
As to your conditions of rhetoric:
(a') No one on the left thinks that where the ideas of every age are the ideas of the ruling class that the grounds, terms, or whatever of the confrontation are agreeable to all. Or should be. That is why we are on the left.
(b') No one on the left thinks that we can persuade the rich or their government protectors of the error of their ways, taht the disgreement between us is small. On the other hand, if on fundamentals the disagreement between us, the left, such as it is, and its intended constituency that noneless votes for Bush, is far greater than any agreement, we're screwed, right?
jks
--- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> On the need for a left "rhetoric"
>
> (I believe that term has been invoked in recent
> threads, along also with
> "narrative" as a form of rhetoric).
>
> I believe the dictionary (or handbooks of
> composition) will list quite a
> few legitimate senses of the _word_ "rhetoric," and
> no one can fight
> against mere usage of a word.
>
> But in this post I'm going to assume that in most,
> perhaps all, uses of
> the term (not just on this list but by, e.g.,
> Kenneth Burke, Deirdre
> McCloskey, or Wayne Booth) its original senses still
> operate powerfully
> -- and all those original uses of the term
> (Aristotle, Cicero,
> Quintilian, Renaissance rhetoricians) make two
> assumptions: (a) that
> speaker (usually speaker, not writer) and listener
> (audience rather than
> readership) directly confront each other in a
> framework agreeable to
> both (e.g., a parliament) and (b) that there is
> _almost_ complete
> agreement on all the important issues between
> speaker and listener. The
> "almost" is of great importance, for the difference
> is of course the
> reason for speaking; but the "[nearly] complete
> agreement" is the
> context within which the persuasion proceeds. The
> whole of the art is
> directed to demonstrating that this large shared
> agreement dictates that
> the speaker's position on the small area of
> disagreement should prevail.
>
> (This kind of rhetoric still exists today only in
> churches which put a
> great emphasis on sermonizing.)
>
> Rhetoric is not only of little use to the left;
> attempts to develop a
> left rhetoric aid the right.
>
> There are no "new ideas" here, incidentally. The
> ideas I'm opposing go
> back over two millenia. The ideas I'm proposing go
> back to the late 19th
> century (developed within the ranks of the German
> social democracy.)
>
> The left (willy-nilly, incidentally, even when
> leftists think they are
> using a rhetoric) casts persuasive discourse under
> three headings
> officially, four in practice: theory, propaganda,
> agitation. The theory
> of all three is ill-developed (in part at least
> because of the freezing
> of leftist thought under the Third International),
> so there is plenty of
> room for fresh thought. Clearly factory gates can no
> longer be the
> favored locus of agitation, so it is particulary
> methods of agitation
> that needs most rethinking, but the deadend which
> leftist concern with
> rhetoric (as shown on this thread) constantly
> reaches is merely one
> indication of the need to carry on that fresh
> thought within the
> classical categories.
>
> (The fourth is polemics -- for which there is very
> little theory to
> guide us, mostly because it was never recognized as
> a distinct genre of
> left writing and speaking, though it is one of the
> most often
> practiced.)
>
> My contributions to lbo-talk are most frequently
> driven by concern over
> the utterly undeveloped theory of agitation in
> current left practice.
>
> Carrol
>
> P.S. These categories have nothing to do with
> "Leninism," though the
> most convenient source for a summary of 2d
> international thought on the
> subject is to be found in WITBD.
>
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