[lbo-talk] Re: lbo-talk Digest, Vol 11, Issue 333 Message: 9

[Ann_Li]

Hi Carol, I understand the issue of correct action on the issue of
persuasion but it does seem to me that there are existing attempts to get at
this rhetorical deficiency like perhaps Aune's book on Marxism and Rhetoric
on which I'd like to hear your thoughts. Even liberal attempts like Norris
et al's attempts to reframe the post 9/11 terrorism news coverage seem to
address the persuasion problem in substantive ways in terms like frames and
triggers that despite their positivist tone that yes, "aid the right", can
at least address the need to not abandon methods for persuasive, rhetorical
analysis that makes your issue of agreement/disagreement a prime ideological
area for theories of critical discourse analysis. I don't know if we abandon
or redefine our definitions of hegemony in that context. The left needs to
"reframe" the tools to match the current mediated forms of rhetorical
criticism in ways beyond silly and momentary polemic interventions like Jon
Stewart's on Crossfire.

Ann

Message: 9
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 16:12:59 -0600
From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
Subject: [lbo-talk] On the Limits of Rhetoric Re: lefty percentiles,
or, why we lose?
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Message-ID: <41A7AA6B.DC9389CB at ilstu.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

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.