Article Proposal – Distributism

Laura J. Davies

June 28, 2007

CCR 720: Agnew

Proposal

  Faith and Economics Collide: The Rhetoric of the Catholic Land MovementAn Article Proposal  

            The process of writing history has as much to do with the historian’s appraisal of his present world as it does with the conditions, ideas, and events of the past that he is excavating and presenting to the reader. Hans Kellner, in his 1994 essay, “After the Fall,” illustrates this through the example of Erich Auerbacher’s 1953 history of Gregory of Tours, Mimesis. Auerbacher, a German living in Turkey after World War II, was dealing with the collapse of his old life in Germany, and when he read Gregory’s History of the Franks, he made a connection between himself and Gregory, who was also grappling with the reality of a new world order, his being the rise of ransacking barbarian rule after the fall of Rome. Armed with this sense of camaraderie, Auerbacher was able to present a uniquely nuanced reading of Gregory’s history, and this, Kellner claims, should be the purpose of all histories. It is not enough to write a chronicle of the past; rather, the historian of rhetoric must use language to construct a reality of both the past and the present. What that past was is relatively important. Kellner points out that Auerbacher “chose to reread an unimportant passage in a little-read text of a dark age, and found a great deal” (35). A good history is not all-encompassing. Instead, he argues, “historical discourse progresses, if that is the right word, by producing classics, in all their individuality and, often, wrongness” (34). History cannot ignore the human element – it is about humans and it is created by them, and therefore reflects the choices and arguments all people make.

            It is Kellner’s argument for small histories like Auerbacher’s, which have the potential to provide contemporary readers with great truths about their present world, that led me to the work of the distributists and the Catholic Land Movement in England from the 1920s to the 1940s. Little work has been done on this group of radical (or some say reactionary) reformers, who argued that the only solution for the vices of industrial capitalism was to turn people back to the land and create self-sufficient communities of independent, property-owning farmers and craftsmen. Distributism was in opposition to the more popular alternative economic theory of the time, socialism. The tenets of distributism were most fully described and promoted by G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, who debated with leading socialist thinkers of the day through an extended correspondence consisting of personal letters and published essays and treatises. This virtually untapped store of arguments against standardization, consolidation, and unnecessary mechanization has many potentially valuable connections to current twenty-first century arguments for local economies and cultures. I believe, therefore, that it is necessary to recover the history of distributism and the work of the Catholic Land Movement, which trained industrial laborers to become farmers. The distributists were arguing for people to change the entire structure of their lives and their communities. They used the power of the word in the form of the essay, the newsletter, the pamphlet, and the pulpit to get their message out to both the poor in the cities and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, who patronized the movement in England.

            It is this connection between an economic argument (distributism) and religion (the Catholic Church) that I wish to explore in an article about the Catholic Land Movement. The Catholic resistance to industrial capitalism began, in large part, with Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum. This open letter by the leader of the Catholic Church solidified the Church’s place in the economic debates of the time. Leo XIII called for an alternative system; Chesterton, a Catholic, gave a possibility through distributism, which he fully explained in his 1926 book, The Outline of Sanity. The Outline of Sanity, as well as other works by Chesterton and his intellectual partner, Hilaire Belloc, was then taken up by the leaders of the Catholic Land Movement, who put the principles of distributism in action through the establishment of local city chapters and training centers. The structure of the training centers and the Catholic Land Movement’s own take on the theories of distributism is explained through the founding papers of the movement, contained in a collection edited by Belloc, Flee to the Fields, which was recently republished in 2003 by IHS Press. I believe the intersection of faith and economics makes the argument of distributism particularly strong: the Catholic Land Movement is able to appeal through two lines of argument, one political/economic and the other religious. My central claim, then, is that the Catholic Land Movement brought the words of Leo XIII and Chesterton to practical fruition, persuading members of the large population of Catholic industrial workers to leave their jobs and be retrained to start a new community based on different economic principles with a Catholic ethical vision. I analyze the arguments of the many contributors to Flee to the Fields to trace how both Leo XIII’s and Chesterton’s arguments were taken up by the leaders of the Catholic Land Movement. This article will also require historical research in the conditions of English cities from 1890 to 1935, conditions created through industrial capitalism, which distributism claims to counter. It will also necessitate research in the principles of socialism, which is rejected in both Rerum Novarum and The Outline of Sanity.

            The main text I will use in my argument is the Flee to the Fields collection. Other possible sources that will add to my understanding of how the Catholic Land Movement functioned and presented its arguments to Catholic congregations are the serial publications of the Movement, most notably The Cross and the Plough, a newsletter published in Glasgow that served as the voice of the Movement throughout England. I have worked with the archival librarians at Syracuse University to locate copies of The Cross and the Plough. The University of Notre Dame has a few copies of individual issues of the publication in its archives, but there are full runs of The Cross and the Plough at both the National Archives of Canada at the Kelly Library at St. Michael’s College in Toronto and at the British Library in London. I believe that access to these publications will give me a better, more comprehensive understanding of how the contributors argued for distributism among England’s poor urban Catholic population. The Kelly Library is the most obvious choice for immediate research; they do not loan out serial publications, but Toronto is relatively accessible from Syracuse and travel there would not require much funding. Eventually, though, to pursue this project more fully, it makes sense to also travel to England, where I might be able to locate additional publications through the diocesan libraries and also find people who were involved in the Catholic Land Movement or who know about it more intimately, since it was active through the mid-1940s. My first step, if this article includes information from The Cross and the Plough, is to apply for travel funding to go to the Kelly Library in Toronto, where I will be able to access the full scope of the publication.

            This article, with its emphasis on historical research, religious rhetoric, and the rhetoric of social movements, has several possible venues for publication, such as journals devoted to the study of rhetoric like Rhetoric Review, Rhetorica, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, JAC, and Philosophy and Rhetoric. This article might also be of interest to more interdisciplinary journals in history or religion, like Journal of the History of Ideas, Past & Present, The Catholic Historical Review, and Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture. I could also transform this article into a conference presentation for CCCC (under the history of rhetoric) or RSA. The deadline for the May 2008 RSA conference in Seattle is September 15, so I could put together a proposal this summer for presenting my project there. I can see this project developing into several articles and possibly a dissertation project, but I need to do more primary research into the Catholic Land Movement to see if that is possible. There are also contemporary applications of the work of the Catholic Land Movement that I could explore, such as its connections to the Catholic Workers Movement (Dorothy Day) and modern movements in the Catholic Church for social justice (the Just Faith movement and liberation theology), as well as connections to current economic arguments against large mechanized corporate agriculture and conglomerate businesses and for self-sustaining community initiatives, such as food co-ops and patronage of local businesses.

 Main Bibliography

Belloc, Hilaire, ed. Flee to the Fields. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003.

Chesterton, Gilbert K. The Outline of Sanity. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2001.

The Cross and the Plough: The Organ of the Catholic Land Associations of England and Wales. Vol. 1-16 (1934-1949.)

 

McNabb, Vincent. The Church and the Land. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003.

Rerum Novarum: Encyclical Letter of Our Holy Father by Divine Providence. Pope Leo XIII on the Condition of Labor. May 15, 1891. In Seven Great Encyclicals. Ed. William J. Gibbons. Glen Rock, NJ: Paulist Press, 1963.

  

Catholic Land Movement & Distributism Lit Review

Laura J. Davies

June 27, 2007

CCR 720: Agnew

Literature Review

   Distributism and the Catholic Land Movement in England  

              English cities in the early twentieth century were crowded, polluted places, the result of two waves of industrialization that swept through the country over the course of one hundred years. The big factories marked both the new English landscape and a fundamental change in the English economy: the economic system, once primarily local, subsistence, and household-based, became capitalist and international. This new economic reality required droves of unskilled laborers to work in the factories, which were producing mostly textiles and other manufactured goods primarily for export. Poor people from the countryside, disillusioned after years of working as tenant farmers for large landlords, willingly came to the cities for the promise of steady employment. However, the cities and unrestrained capitalism created new problems for the workers: unsanitary living conditions, child labor, increasing gap between the rich and poor, low wages, and long hours at tedious factory line jobs. One solution proposed by Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto (1848) and Das Kapital (1867) was socialism: a revolution by the proletariat to seize the means of production from the rich capitalists and place the economy in the hands of a proletarian-controlled socialist State. Another solution less recognized today but much debated in England between World War I and World War II was distributism.

            Distributism is the antithesis of the consolidation inherent in industrial capitalism: it is an economic system that is based on redistributing large land holdings to individual subsistence farmers and craftsmen. Its economy is local, not global, and based on private ownership of property. Distributism’s roots can be traced back to several eighteenth and nineteenth century thinkers, such as William Morris, Matthew Arnold, and John Ruskin, who opposed industrialization because it led to society’s rapid adoption of machines, which allowed for the phasing out of small farmers and skilled artisans. Thomas Carlyle, a prolific Scottish writer, wrote in his 1829 essay “Signs of the Times,” that the new modern faith in all things mechanical has replaced a faith in nature, God, and the individual man. Through capitalism and industrialization, “not the external and physical alone is now managed by machinery, but the internal and spiritual also” (60). Carlyle extends the meaning of machinery to include all standardizing institutions, such as education and religious and social societies, committees, and publications. Carlyle argues that this “Age of Machinery” has denied people true happiness, and that a counterrevolution based on the old order, which prized wonder, the unknown, and the individual, is bound to occur. Carlyle continues his argument from “Signs of the Times” in his 1843 book Past and Present. In it, he claims that the monotonous work of most industrial laborers is unfit for human beings, whose work should be “in communication with nature” (196). Carlyle’s social critique of industrialism and capitalism offers suggestions for an alternative way of life that reflects many aspects of pre-industrial England, but it does not offer a detailed plan of action except for the suggestion that the “reformation” be small and start with individuals (“Signs” 82).

            One of the most important texts that sparked the distributist movement was Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical, Rerum Novarum. Published on May  15, 1891, this papal letter on the conditions of labor and the economics of industrialization criticized capitalism for producing “the misery and wretchedness which press so heavily at this moment on the large majority of the very poor,” who are helpless against “the callousness of employers and the greed of unrestrained competition” (2). Leo XIII rejects the socialist solution on several points: it does not value individuality; its communist revolution is founded on stealing from the rich; it gives the State too much power; and it deprives people of free will by denying them the motivation to work for private ownership of their property. Since socialism will not do, Leo XIII suggests the adoption of a new economic system that treats manual labor and private property as sacred. He points out that Jesus himself worked with his hands as a craftsman, learning carpentry from his father, Joseph. The economic system Leo XIII argues for is based in the local community, which derives its strength from the individual talents of its members, and therefore, the members will look out for each other. In this new economy, there will be neither a huge gap between the rich and the poor nor a class war because the rich will naturally distribute what they do not need to their poorer neighbors (11). It is from this claim that the distributist movement most likely derived its name.

            Distributism is most clearly defined by Gilbert Keith (G.K.) Chesterton in his 1926 book, The Outline of Sanity. Unlike Carlyle, Leo XIII, and other cultural critics of the time, who saw the inherent problems of industrial capitalism but had no practical plan for creating an alternate system, Chesterton attempts in this book to lay out a specific course of action that could be (and eventually was) followed to develop a local economy that opposes capitalism. It was also inspired by Hilaire Belloc’s 1912 book The Servile State and is in part an answer to H.G. Wells’ book The Outline of History, which describes his vision of the world through a socialist lens. The Outline of Sanity begins with Chesterton’s rebuttal to those who claim distributism – an economic system based on small individual private ownership and local communities of independent farmers and craftsmen – is an unachievable, utopian ideal in the modern world. In the first section of his book, Chesterton points out to his critics that their conception of capitalism is also an ideal: pure market forces do not drive the economy, for the State intervenes on behalf of the large trusts and big businesses. The working “capitalist” system, therefore, has been tainted by socialism. Chesterton also claims that capitalism “is contradictory as soon as it is complete” because it treats people in “two opposite ways at once…For the capitalist is always trying to cut down what his servant demands, and in doing so is cutting down what his customer can spend” (43). Since every worker is also a consumer, such diametrically opposed agendas cannot exist together. Capitalism is a broken system already, then, and the only solution, according to Chesterton, is a new economic system – distributism – which, he contends, may not be the perfect system, but at least pursuing it will be one step in the right direction for correcting the consequences of the current industrial economy. Chesterton believes that a switch to a distributist economy will occur in two steps: first, through individual resistance to large-scale capitalism, which will pick up followers and momentum to make it possible for a deliberate, counterrevolution where willing people will leave the cities and be trained and resettled as farmers and craftsmen. The rest of the book outlines these two stages, and Chesterton acknowledges that this outline is necessarily sketchy, for who can know what a society based on free-thinking individuals will eventually look like (63).

            In the second section of The Outline of Sanity, Chesterton dispels the commonly-held myth that big business is so omnipotent that it cannot be successfully resisted by individuals. He claims that “nobody is yet driven by force to a particular shop” and writes that arguments against the effectiveness of boycotts of large corporations are faulty, because people have the ability to choose to patronize local businesses if they want to (71). Individuals have power – they do not have to be controlled by big business (72). Chesterton’s plea to people who do not like the current state of the economy is to do anything, to start small, to ignore the critics who say an alternative is impossible, and to halt the progression of industrial capitalism. Once that is achieved, the real change can begin, which he outlines in the third section of his book, “Some Aspects of the Land.” This change in a way of life must begin with two classes of volunteers: peasants, “actual or potential, who would take over the responsibility of small farms” and landlords who are willing to “give up or sell cheaply their land to be cut up into a number of such farms” (105). Chesterton likens distributism’s call for these volunteers to the government’s appeal for enlistments in 1914. These small farmers would form the backbone of the distributist society, but Chesterton points out that it will not be a homogenous community; it will have a balance of “different things of different types holding on different tenures…so in my modern State there would be some things nationalized, some machines owned corporately, some guilds sharing profits, and so on, as well as many absolute individual owners, where such individual owners are most possible” (98). What makes this new community different from an industrialized capitalistic one is that the community is connected to nature and the natural order, to self-sufficient production and consumption instead of international trade and profit-making. It is a more complete life, as opposed to the splintered life and partial knowledge of assembly line workers. It is important to note that Chesterton’s distributist society does not outright reject the use of machines, but rather promotes the view “that instead of the machine being a giant to which the man is a pygmy, we must at least reverse the proportions until the man is a giant to whom the machine is a toy” (133). The individual must decide when and where to use a machine.

            The Outline of Sanity ends with Chesterton’s suggestion that the distributist movement base itself in religious (namely Catholic) principles, for religion will instantly bond the new communities and impart it with an already-established rich history for upholding the value of labor, property, and the individual. This association of an economic theory (distributism) to a major religion (Roman Catholicism) proved key in the eventual enactment of distributist principles in England from 1925 to 1934. Catholicism in early twentieth century England, even though it was not the official state religion, had a large following among the poor workers in the cities, some accessible revenue for publications, and an established structure in the community that allowed priests and lay Catholics to spread the message of distributism to entire congregations. The first group to take Chesterton’s and Hilaire Belloc’s distributist theories into practice was the Catholic Land Movement, founded in Glasgow in 1929. The Movement’s local leaders, who included both clergymen and Catholic laity, were instrumental in explaining distributism to the populace and recruiting people to the movement through sermons, published essays, and pamphlets. One such publication was the newsletter The Cross and the Plough, which was circulated  throughout England and the official voice of the five Catholic Land Movement chapters in England: Glasgow, London, Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool. Unfortunately, many of these publications, like The Cross and the Plough, were not collected and printed and therefore are not widely accessible. Some, though, like Flee to the Fields, the collected founding papers of the Catholic Land Movement, have been recently republished by two American publishing houses, IHS Press and Ignatian Press.

            Distributism became a Catholic project in England because many priests and bishops saw the consequences of capitalism as not just an economic or social problem but a religious crisis as well. In his essay, “The Line of Approach,” distributist Harold Robbins makes the point that 95% of England’s Catholics lived in the cities, and the vast majority of them were poor factory workers, suspect to sinning through the vices inherent in city culture and entertainment: excessive alcoholism, pornography, and trashy movies and novels. Another effect of the modern industrial economy which translates to a religious problem for Catholics is the breakup of the family: parents leave the home to work in the factory (big business capitalism) and children are cared for and educated by the state (socialism.) Fr. Vincent McNabb, one of the most outspoken of the local leaders of the Catholic Land Movement, argues in his 1926 book The Church and the Land that only distributism can revive the sacred bond of the family for distributism unifies the parents and the children in a common pursuit for survival on the land. McNabb echoes the principle stated in Rerum Novarum that the rights of the individual and of the parent “are prior to the rights of the state” by recognizing the fact that they “must have preceded states” (120). The Catholic clergy and laity who endorsed distributism in the Catholic Land Movement agreed with Chesterton that the new distributist communities must be Catholic in nature, for as George Maxwell, one of the Movement’s major figures, argues in his essay “The Restoration of the Crafts,” it is a Catholic tenet that work is sacred, and therefore the Catholic settlers’ commitment to their work as an expression of their religion and an act of submission to God will ensure the community’s survival.

            The Catholic Land Movement believed that the time for distributism was now and took on the challenge of converting factory workers to farmers. This transition was facilitated, as Reginald Jebb describes in his essay “The Community” and Rev. John McQuillan in his essay “Training for the Land,” by the creation of four training centers in England. These working farms recruited single young men who wanted to escape city life for the promise of a more fulfilling life through distributism. The farms taught them the huge variety of tasks necessary to becoming a self-sufficient farmer, from husbandry to crop rotation to small machinery repair. The breadth of the knowledge of a successful farmer is quite astounding, the Catholic Land Movement leaders and Chesterton pointed out, and life as a farmer is not the drudgery that modern culture makes it out to be: as Chesterton wrote in The Outline of Sanity, “I know it is said that a man must find it monotonous to do the twenty things that are done on a farm, whereas, of course, he always finds it uproariously funny and festive to do one thing hour after hour and day after day in a factory” (100). The young men on the training farms learned hands-on what it takes to live off the land. It was the plan, McQuillan notes, of the Catholic Land Movement to establish a training center for women, but due to insufficient funds, it was never realized. It was not ideal, Jebb writes, that these training centers did not allow for the financial support of entire families, because, as McNabb pointed out in Church and the Land and in his later 1929 essay “The Family,” the Catholic family is the natural and necessary primary unit for the new distributist communities, and so it is odd that the training was restricted to single men.

            Distributism also gave birth to other religious and non-religious organizations in both England and the United States dedicated to the resistance of capitalism and socialism through the ownership of small property, such as the Southern Agrarians and Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker Movement. What makes the Catholic Land Movement unique among these is its local English focus and its dedication to the creation of small communities centered around Catholic agrarian families. The Catholic Church in England took on the distributist project and its training centers and fledging self-sufficient communities were the first physical manifestations of the economic and social theories promoted by Chesterton, Belloc, McNabb, and other local leaders.

Works Cited

Belloc, Hilaire. The Servile State. Boston: Le Roy Phillips, 1912.

Belloc, Hilaire, ed. Flee to the Fields. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003.

Carlyle, Thomas. Past and Present. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1843.

—. “Signs of the Times.” In Thomas Carlyle: Critical and Miscellaneous Essays. Vol. 2. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1869. 56-82.

Chesterton, Gilbert K. The Outline of Sanity. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2001.

Jebb, Reginald. “The Community.” In Flee to the Fields. Ed. Hilaire Belloc. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003. 81-92.

Maxwell, George. “The Restoration of the Crafts.” In Flee to the Fields. Ed. Hilaire Belloc. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003. 119-130.

McNabb, Vincent. The Church and the Land.

—. “The Family.” In Flee to the Fields. Ed. Hilaire Belloc. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003. 69-77.

McQuillan, John. “Training for the Land.” In Flee to the Fields. Ed. Hilaire Belloc. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003. 21-24.

Rerum Novarum: Encyclical Letter of Our Holy Father by Divine Providence. Pope Leo XIII on The Condition of Labor. May 15, 1891. In Seven Great Encyclicals. Ed. William J. Gibbons. Glen Rock, NJ: Paulist Press, 1963.

Robbins, Harold. “The Line of Approach.” In Flee to the Fields. Ed. Hilaire Belloc. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003. 48-62.

June 25 Response

Laura J. Davies

June 25, 2007

CCR 720: Agnew

Reading Response

 

                What is the field doing with classical rhetoric today? The five readings we had for today – LaGrandeur, Lipson, Hawhee, Jarratt, and Campbell – each take up the question in a different way. As a whole, it seems as if classical notions of rhetoric are being stretched and expanded to apply to both modern concerns and issues and to understand and recover other ancient forms of rhetoric. It’s interesting the rhetorical weight placed on the classical Greek rhetorical theories and practices. Even as we try to recenter and reimagine the canon, Aristotle and Plato and other classical authors seem to be the golden standard by which we measure and admit as worthy other forms of rhetoric. What does that say about our field? Do these classical notions have some sort of truth in them that we recognize as valid, and so our use of them as an assessment or as proof for our arguments is legitimate? Or do we need to reconsider our notions of rhetoric as a whole and think again about what we prioritize? Maybe a little of both?

            It interested me that in Campbell’s article, he makes a point of stating that African rhetoric is not just based in orality; that in the ancient African cities and the medieval city of Timbuktu, there is some evidence that Africans used written text for recording and preserving information. Campbell’s backhanded dismissal of orality seemed counterproductive to his argument, which was in part, I believe, to expand the notion of ancient rhetorical practices beyond the Mediterranean basin. Why is he using Western notions of rhetoric, which were largely based in written texts, to prove the viability of ancient and medieval African rhetoric? Again, in Lipson’s article, the emphasis seems to be on the presence of texts in Egyptian culture. Can there be a definition of rhetoric and an assessment of rhetorical practices that does not rest in Greek and Roman traditions? Or were the Greeks and the Romans the only ancient and classical thinkers who thought and wrote about the connection between language and reality and taught how to effectively communicate? I think there a problem when we say we want to search out and welcome in other alternative rhetorical practices and then feel the need to authenticate them according to our classical standards.

            Jarratt’s article, to me, seemed to be driven more by emotion than by clear academic argument. I was bothered by her critique of Bush’s post-9/11 rhetoric because, in attacking the “premodern” good/evil binary that he used often in the aftermath of September 11, she introduced and employed a new binary, that of premodern/postmodern, sophisticated/ignorant, and enlightened/intolerant. Because Jarratt fails to try to understand the logic behind the other side of the argument (at least a logic other than a conspiracy theory of censorship), her own argument is unbalanced and reads like a one-sided polemic. She could take a cue from the Sophists and Dissoi Logoi: that to effectively argue, you must first see all sides of the debate and understand the perspectives that your audience might be coming from, because if you are blinded to them and wedded to your own agenda, then you lose the moment and the rhetorical opportunity.

Notes and Quotes

LaGrandeur, Kevin. “Digital Images and Classical Persuasion.” In Eloquent Images: Word and Image in the Age of New Media. Eds. Mary E. Hooks and Michelle R. -Kendrick. Cambridge, Massacusetts: The MIT Press. 117-136. 

“Where once only words were malleable enough to be widely wielded as a rhetorical tool, in the latter half of the 1990s the digital image became prevalent, easy to manipulate, and consequently, easy to recontextualize, meaning that now just about any image is available to any computer user for any occasion” (117).

We can use either postmodern theories to interpret the persuasiveness of these digital images (as part of an increasingly situated and fragmented world), or we can turn to classical rhetoric to think about how these images might be complex, interrelated, and meaningful (118).

Kathleen Welch argues that 20^th century digital literacy is like ancient Greek literacy with its focus on orality and performance.

“Classical notions provide us with excellent, codified ways to think about the persuasive efficacy of images and words as interdependent and interactive things” (119).

Classical rhetoricians understood how the image could persuade the audience by tapping in on the emotions or by establishing credibility – Encomium of Helen mentions it, and Horace compared the affective quality of poetry with that of images (119).

“Fluency with images and their use has become crucial to controlling credibility and creating emotional appeal, and even, to some extent, logical appeal” (119).

Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric (the available means of persuasion) allow us to include images, and his work referred to images in his discussion of metaphor and emotional appeals.

Gorgias/Sophists saw the power of images to be equal to the power of words, and their emotive capabilities can overwhelm logos in an argument.

“Understanding the image…means comprehending its dichotomous possibilities: Its persuasive power might add to an argument, but its force and nonrational nature can distract one from a message’s logical appeal, or its lack thereof. I will return to this idea in the later sections of this chapter” (122).

Horace believed that “poetry imitates visual images” and that poetry could both please and teach at the same time – it was persuasive (122).

Images can be used as logical proof because they give the audience a meaningful comparison for an argument – this idea was first expressed by Campbell in the 18^th century.

Web images, especially charts and graphs, can serve as logical proof, especially when these images are placed next to supporting text. The two then work intertextually to advance the argument (124).

The Web allows the writer to use the images directly in the text instead of describing the image for the audience. The author’s “choice of graphics and their nature, arrangement, and movement (if they are animated) not only are important to instilling the proper emotion in the audience (and thus elemental to pathos) but are also part of what the audience uses, consciously or unconsciously, to decide if she, and hence her presentation, are authoritative and believable (and thus integral to ethos)” (125).

His model for evaluating digital texts based on the three classical appeals (125): He uses this to teach his students how to rhetorically analyze images.

1. Logos – how does the image work with the text to bolster the logic and rationality of the argument?
2. Pathos – how does the image enhance the emotional appeal of the argument?
3. Ethos – how does the image (and how professional its quality is) add to the credibility of the author

Two test cases

1.      A web page designed to persuade people to get Lasik eye surgery. The image adds to the logos of the argument by clearly showing what the surgery entails. Also, it seems so simple and easy to understand (pathos) and it appears scientific and informative, not commercial (ethos).

2.      A home page created by one of LaGrandeur’s students for an introductory assignment. The students in the groups were entranced by the image (as are the audience members, who don’t immediately recognize the poor quality of the words on the page.) The image was given the most attention, which is also seen in students’ preoccupation with fonts, layout, color, and design, and content takes a back seat.

“Like calligraphy, electronic fonts are as much art as they are signifiers of sound and words…Web designers have already begun using these fonts and other tricks of typography for their power to affect” (130). Connection to The Art of Hand Lettering

Gives example of web page of hate group that uses layout, fonts, images to evoke a powerful, in-charge aura – ethos. Also, the sans serif font and color choice (red) projects an aggressive and intimidating attitude – pathos.

Digital images are so powerful because they can now be easily made and spread quickly and widely.

Limits to the digital image? Images that are too big and therefore don’t download easily on older computers, the fact that the image overwhelms and distracts from the text content. Also, hyperlinks are distracting, forcing the reader to choose between clicking on the link or continuing with the current page’s content. Also, people tend to overuse images, resulting in an obstruction of logos on the digital web page (132-133)

Taking on Plato – “The integration of electronic media into the persuasive endeavor has made a virtue of digital facility by drawing attention to the material effects of graphical style and structure. When a Web site’s images are especially polished, pleasing, and well arranged, its readers often cannot help but be attentive – and even impressed or moved” (133).

Seems like the over-reliance on image (and therefore the construction of pathos and ethos overriding logos) in digital media plays into Plato’s fears that rhetoric can become mere flattery instead of invested in some sort of rationality or truth. The digital image is so easily manipulated and quickly takes precedence over the digital text. Could this be the old Plato-Sophist argument playing out? Seems like the Sophists would LOVE the freedom and versatility of the digital text, while Plato would be very wary, feeling like it clouds over solid arguments because style takes precedence.

“The dominant effect of graphical elements may be leading to the adaptation of an advertiser-centered model of Web design, with its profusion of flashy images and persuasive appeals that work on a subconscious, emotional level, rather than on a rational one” (133).

 Lipson, Carol S. “Ancient Egyptian Rhetoric: It All Comes Down to Maat.” 79-97. 

Her article explores the textual rhetorical practices of ancient Egyptians, which she says are centered around the concept and values of Maat. She looks mostly at letters. Her four claims:

            “1. A number of the popular textual genres present Maat as content – that is, they teach Maat.

2. In the letter genre, common in the everyday life of the culture, the rhetorical form embodies Maat: the written texts serve as rhetorical performances of Maat.

3. The letters use Maat indirectly as an instrument of persuasion.

4. Maat serves as a Superaddressee in the letters, in Bakhtin’s sense of a third voice or participant, an ultimate addressee beyond the writer and the immediate receiver.” (79)

What is Maat? “Both a goddess and a concept” (80). The concept is right behavior and correct order, that human beings are cosmically connected to the greater world and must act in harmony with it. It is interested in preserving this natural order.

Education was reserved for the elite, and students learned by copying and reciting instruction manuals supposedly written by famous people. One of them, The Instructions of Ptahhotep, urges its listeners to do good – to practice Maat – so that they will be respected and properly remembered and revered. Also, autobiographies that contained passages that spoke to how the person did Maat in their life were often recited at funerals. With these two genres – the instructions and the autobiographies – the members of the elite class were persuaded to also practice Maat in their life, which led to an ordered society. (82-83)

Lots of Egyptians wrote letters – they were gone for large public projects and they needed to communicate their needs to those in charge. Even if the individuals were illiterate, scribes would be hired to read and write for them. (85) Letters were written as a response to the person, so if the correspondence was an ongoing dialogue. Often, the text would be read aloud – a public text, usually read aloud by the scribe. The letters written by scribes would often be in the 3^rd person (86).

Lipson: the ending lines of these letters from the king speak of the his prosperity, which is “a ritual reaffirmation of the order of things. In the culture’s understanding of Maat, the king is the symbolic center of his people. For the people and the country to prosper, the king must prosper” (87). Also, there was a common abbreviation (l.p.h.) at the end of these letters, which stood for a prayer wishing for the king’s long life, prosperity, and health, which also reinforced the values of Maat.

“I suggest that the letter-writing conventions involve much more than formal conventions” – every aspect of them, from the opening greetings and explanations and the positioning of the subordinate person/person with power are done in accordance and for the maintenance of Maat, which ultimately contributes to a stable society (89).

People of lower levels of society appeal to Maat to persuade those in charge – it’s your duty to behave according to Maat. This power of persuasion given to the lower classes in their letter writing “allow a range of voices to engage in an ongoing pragmatic discussion about what it means to behave according to Maat, within a decidedly undemocratic system” (93).

What is the superaddressee? Someone like God – according to Bakhtin, “an audience ‘whose absolutely just responsive understanding is presumed’ (125-26)” (93). Lipson believes that Maat is the superaddressee in Egyptian culture – Maat will judge them and cannot be argued with.

The letters are always appealing to Maat, the superaddressee, for the correct interpretation of good behavior (Maat).

The written text was highly valued in Egpyt – letters were carved into permanent media, like pottery and stone. The letters were also valued: “There was not a sense that the administrative letters were transient objects, to be used for the immediate purpose then discarded…Rhetorically, then, the conventions of the letter genre seem to have been based on an understanding of long-term availability for multiple audiences and multiple purposes. These purposes range from persuasion within the immediate context to demonstrate the proper performance of Maat within a timeless, divine dimension” (94).

Just because some of these letters were copied down and buried with people, does that mean all the letter writing in Egypt was so highly revered and for the purposes of maintaining proper order in society? Could the appeals that Lipson points out that appear in several of these letters be just convention, like the God Bless You sentiments in letters written between people of the Christian faith?

Lipson writes that more study is needed to see how the concept of Maat and how it was rhetorically expressed changed over time.

Jarratt, Susan C. “A Human Measure: Ancient Rhetoric, Twenty-first-Century Loss.” 95-111. 

How do ancient conceptions of rhetoric and the rhetorical tradition/canon give us tools to use in times of crisis and trauma (citing September 11 specifically)? (95)

“Working from a view of rhetoric as both deliberative and performative, I look to ancient materials as resonant analogues for contemporary uses of public spaces as sites of contestation about violence and as scenes of mourning” (96). What is the purpose behind these short-lived rhetorical acts?

Huge outpouring of rhetorical response from the public (speaking, writing) that was different from the rhetoric produced by the national leadership. What were those resistance acts? What founding do they have in ancient Athenian rhetorical practices, which prized the free debate of the agora?

9/11 asked Americans to reconsider the boundaries of their nation and their own identities (98).

Jarratt: The Bush rhetoric post 9/11 – “’America’ is the center, both geographically and ideologically, a geographic center that is simultaneously a moral center, moral clarity coming down on command of the leader, not to be challenged. The effect, enforced overtly through censures of any questioning of government decisions, is an attempt to block the rhetorical participation of a public inhabited by citizens with the capacity for independent judgment” (98). A little extreme? Is that what Bush is really after?

Argues that Bush’s use of good/evil rhetoric places him in the realm of “premodern, cosmological rhetoric” (98). Does having firm values and a dislike for all things postmodern and relative consign you to existing only as an inferior, premodern rhetor? Do you have to sacrifice a firm belief in Truth to be accepted as a real academic?

“The victims of September 11 did not die in battle, but the circumstances of their death – and the ways they are mourned – placed them in the middle of a struggle over national identity” (104). They are appropriated for a cause – one of many instances we have studied where people have been taken on to support another person’s agenda.

Is evil not an accurate description of what happened? What word better describes it?

Assuming this conspiracy without giving any real evidence – what is Jarratt’s proof?

One year memorial – what would any president of any political party done differently?

Treatment of September 11^th  vs. the war in Iraq?

Are those who agree with Bush “premodern”? Is it really that one group is modern and the other is Neanderthal?

There is no attempt made to dignify the other side of the argument – it’s a new binary where one side is sophisticated and the other side is ignorant. It’s obnoxiously elitist.

The most important thing was not the people – it was the event, the problem behind it.

 

Campbell, Kermit E. “Rhetoric from the Ruins of African Antiquity.” In Rhetorica. 255-274. 

 

African rhetoric is conceived as almost entirely oral, but a study of the rhetorical practices of the ancient cities of Napata, Meroe, Axum, and Timbuktu prove that written, textual language was used for record keeping.

Modern ethnographic studies of current African rhetorical practices do not do justice to what might have been in the past – real historical research needs to be done into the historical records to see what happened then.

“Viewed historically, then, Africa has quite varied and complex uses of oral and written language, and any general theory or concept of rhetoric there must take these uses into account” (259).

Thousands of manuscripts from medieval Timbuktu have been discovered, some written in Arabic, but some also written in African vernacular with Arabic script. Lots of the manuscripts are government documents and treaties.

Campbell: “The oral tradition’s [in Timbuktu] epic poems…are perhaps the richest example of the region’s rhetorical values and practices” (268).

The griot – the orator who recites epic poetry and history and gives speeches and announcements, an advisor to the king or chief

“For even in the case of a relatively nonliterate society like thirteenth-century Mali (apart from the Islamic schools), history and poetry in the hands of the griot become a unique form of persuasion, an exhortation to act or precipitate action for the good of the people” (273).

Uses ethos, pathos to evaluate the little known rhetorical acts of the ancient Nubia and Axum people. Are Aristotle’s Greek rhetorical principles really that universal? Can we use him to evaluate the rhetoric of different cultures?

“At this point, we can simply conclude that Africa has rhetorical traditions that are oral and literate; ancient and modern; political, religious, and social – in other words, traditions that are as rich and diverse as any in the Western world” (274).

 Hawhee, Debra. Bodily Arts: Rhetoric and Athletics in Ancient Greece. Austin: U of Texas Press. 3-13, 189-196.

Draws connections between the ancient Greek practices of rhetoric and athletics to show that rhetoric is concerned with a whole body performance.

The comparison emphasizes delivery

“Athletics and rhetoric were thus bound together, as Isocrates points out, in at least two ways: 1) unified traiing in athletics and oratory provides a program for shaping an entire self, and 2) the two arts draw from similar pedagogical strategies wherein the respective instructors impart bodily and discursive forms of expression” (6).

Both rhetoric and athletics were based in the Greek cultural valeues of agonism and arête. Learning and performance are one with both pursuits (6-7).

How does learning happen? “When viewed terms of education, rhetoric’s relation to athletics hinges on a kind of knowledge production that occurs on the level of the body, displacing the mind or consciousness as the primary locus of learning” (9).

“The intermingling, mutually constitutive, agonistic practices of athletics and rhetoric, brought together at times by spectacular, uplifting festivals, at others by dark-toned, somber funerary rituals, were ultimately treated as bodily arts by the itinerant teachers of rhetoric who first approached these arts syncretically. Athletics and rhetoric thus came together as bodily arts that reinforced and perpetuated the lively culture of contact, movement, and sound so markedly Athenian” (191).

Agonism – the contest, the struggle

Short Paper 3: LaGrandeur

Laura J. Davies

June 25, 2007

CCR 720: Agnew

Short Paper #3

 The Digital Image: The Sophist’s Dream and Plato’s Nightmare? 

            The relevancy of ancient rhetorical principles and classical methods of evaluating and understanding arguments is underscored in Kevin LaGrandeur’s article, “Digital Images and Classical Persuasion.” The digital image, coupled with digital text, has most often been described and studied through postmodern lenses, which emphasize how the digitization of media reflects an increasingly fractured, multivocal, and decontextualized modern world. The image can be manipulated easily and freely inserted into a variety of texts without regard to its original source. It seems like the ultimate manifestation of many postmodern theories – that meaning is constructed in a specific time and space which cannot be translated easily into another rhetorical setting. LaGrandeur’s claim in his article is that there is another valid way besides postmodernism to interpret and recognize the rhetorical effects of digital images: Aristotelian rhetorical theories. If we rely on these classical understandings of rhetoric, we might begin to see the digital image in a new light, focusing on how its meaning is complex, yet also coherent and connected to the larger, non-digital human experience.

            LaGrandeur shows through both Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen and excerpts from Roman poet Horace that the image was seen as a powerful rhetorical tool even in the ancient world. Specifically, these classical authors saw the potential for images (and the description of images through words) to affect an audience emotionally; Gorgias points out that Helen was powerless in the face of rapturous images, which perhaps overwhelmed her rational sense. Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric (the available means of persuasion) seems to include images de facto, and he mentions images in his discussion of both metaphor and emotional appeals. Aristotle and the Sophists were aware of the persuasive ability of the image to allow pathos to supersede logos; a technique of the Sophists that Plato denounced in his proclamation that the Sophist practice of rhetoric is “mere flattery,” coating over bad logical arguments with pretty language.

            After his discussion of how the Sophists, Gorgias, Aristotle, and Horace saw the image as rhetorical tool, LaGrandeur jumps to the twentieth century to explain how the digital image works intertextually with the words on the screen to create an integrated argument that depends on both the image and the text. The difference here, it seems, is that LaGrandeur is arguing that the classical notion of the image-as-rhetorical-tool was that the image was used in addition to the text; it was an add-on. Now, however, the image is as much a part of the argument as the text; there are some digital Web-based arguments that are only comprised of images.

            How do we assess, then, the rhetoric of the digital image? LaGrandeur, when teaching his students visual analysis, goes back to the holy Aristotelian trinity: logos, pathos, ethos. He asks these questions: How does the image work with the text to present a logical, rational argument? How does the choice of image enhance the emotional appeal of the argument – what feelings does the image arouse in the audience? How does the presentation of the image and the entire Web page (its layout, professionalism, etc.) add to the credibility of the author? LaGrandeur uses these questions to analyze three different Web pages: a page created by a doctor’s office to explain Lasik eye surgery, a home page created by one of his students for an assignment, and the home site of a well-known hate group. With each example (explained not only through words, but through an image of the site as well), LaGrandeur shows how every part of the construction of the site – from the choice of colors, fonts and images to the wording and amount of the text – affects the overall credibility and effectiveness of the site. I was particularly interested by LaGrandeur’s discussion of fonts and how they, “like calligraphy,…are as much art as they are signifiers of sound and words.” The form of the font affects the reading of the text; style is as much a visual aspect of a good argument as the construction of balanced sentences or parallel structures.

            LaGrandeur articulates in his article the same fear Plato had – that rhetoricians will use enticing language and images to obscure weak rational arguments: “The integration of electronic media into the persuasive endeavor has made a virtue of digital facility by drawing attention to the material effects of graphical style and structure. When a Web site’s images are especially polished, pleasing, and well arranged, its readers often cannot help but be attentive – and even impressed or moved” (133). What would Plato’s response be to the digital revolution? Would he throw out his laptop and become a Luddite, relying only on the power of words to describe the world, because to rely on images leads to a slippery slope where emotion can overpower logic? Are arguments based on emotion less credible than those based on logic (and vice versa?) For Plato and Aristotle, logic and rationality seemed to rule the day – they agreed that appealing to the emotions of the audience and the credibility of the speaker were effective, but not as noble and true as sound logic. Does an argument that is skewed toward logic deny the essentially human nature of both the rhetor and the audience, a nature that relies on emotion as well as rational thought to make decisions and that finds value in moving words and images?

            I think Plato would also have a problem with digital rhetoric because it places the power of language and image in the hands of so many, not just a few tried and true noble rhetoricians. The digital world is remarkably democratic, and even novices, with the right frills and formatting, can create a site that lets them pose as experts. The image, then, takes precedence, and the image is much more easily disseminated and digested than lines and lines of text. It seems to me that the Sophists would love the freedom and versatility of the digital text, while Plato would be very wary, feeling like its clouds over solid arguments because style takes precedence.

June 21 Response

Laura J. Davies

CCR 720: Agnew

Response for June 21

 

Aspasia excerpts from The Rhetorical Tradition, eds. Bizzell and Herzburg.

 

Gale, Xin Liu. “Historical Studies and Postmodernism: Rereading Aspasia of Miletus.” College English 62.3 (Jan. 2000) 361-386.

 

Glenn, Cheryl. Rhetoric Retold: Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity through the Renaissance. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP.

 

Glenn, Cheryl. “Truth, Lies, and Method: Revisiting Femninist Historiography.” College English 62.3 (Jan. 2000) 387-389.

 

Jarratt, Susan C. “Rhetoric and Feminism: Together Again.” College English 62.3 (Jan. 2000) 390-393.

 

Jarratt, Susan and Rory Ong. “Aspasia: Rhetoric, Gender, and Colonial Ideology.” In Reclaiming Rhetorica: Women in the Rhetorical Tradition. Ed. Andrea A. Lunsford. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh Press. 9-24.

 

            I was fascinated by the methodological debate between Gale, Glenn, and Jarratt that took place over thirty-two pages of the January 2000 issue of College English. This debate seemed to be the next chapter of the Octolog, as all participants were debating what counts as evidence, what is legitimate history, and what are acceptable methodologies for historians of rhetoric to use.

The historical character of Aspasia has been the focus on much recent feminist rhetorical history scholarship. There are no known texts of Aspasia’s that survive; what we know today about who she was is limited to mentions of her by other classical authors like Plato and Plutarch. Some feminist historians, namely Cheryl Glenn, Susan Jarratt, and Rory Ong, have worked to reintegrate Aspasia into the Western rhetorical canon, a project that challenges historiography because there is so little hard evidence to back up the claim that Aspasia was an important and influential person in the development of 5^th century Athenian philosophy and rhetoric.

Xin Liu Gale, in her January 2000 College English article, argues that Glenn and Jarratt have gone to far in their recovery efforts of Aspasia. Glenn names her method both “postmodern and historiographical,” thereby emphasizing her own agenda and historical/rhetorical situation as the historian, giving her, according to Gale, leave to abandon traditional historical methods and imagine and create connections between the known facts and the unknown (365). The problem, Gale points out, is that Glenn has so little evidence to go on – a few passages from Plato’s Menexenus and cursory mentions in a couple other classical texts – that the celebratory story she creates for Aspasia (she was a central figure in 5^th century Athenian philosophy and rhetoric, the composer of Pericles’ speeches, and a teacher of rhetoric to both Socrates and other women) is necessarily fictionalized (the facts are imagined and injected), but presented and defended as historical truth. You can’t have it both ways, Gale argues. A feminist historian cannot string together a few quotes and add her own imagined ideas, no matter how careful they are thought out, and call it true history, positioning Aspasia as a forgotten genius of rhetoric. Gale claims that Glenn just doesn’t have the evidence to back her retelling of Aspasia; it’s mere conjecture.

Gale also argues against Jarratt and Ong’s feminst/sophist methodology they use to recreate the history of Aspasia. That methodology is problematic, says Gale, because it is rooted in the postmodern belief that all is relative and that there is no truth, only small situational truths that suddenly appear and then disappear according to different contexts and historical/cultural situations. Without the ability to agree on some sort of truth, Gale argues, it is impossible to evaluate the validity of one methodology over another, leading to a breakdown in rigor in scholarship. It seems to Gale that Jarratt and Ong are reading their own perspectives and modern feminist agendas into Aspasia, using her at times as an historical construct created by classical authors like Plato to make a point about women or foreigners or sophists in general and, at other times, claiming her as an actual historical figure to prove such claims like she was Socrates’ teacher who taught him the inductive Socratic method. Again, Gale argues, you can’t have it both ways – your methodology must be consistent and your history must be based on facts, not fragments excerpted out of context to fit your preferred retelling of a story.

I think Gale is right – Glenn and Jarratt and Ong crossed a line in historical scholarship. They appropriated the scant textual evidence on Aspasia to a larger feminist agenda. It bothers me when scholars delve through the historical record to find a character that, if properly handled and packaged, will work to primarily further their modern arguments. Do we really need Aspasia? Can’t we believe that women, even in 5^th century Athens, were smart? Can’t we acknowledge that it was a different reality 2400 years ago, and that it makes sense that women’s work was not recorded, for women did not have a place in the public sphere? It seems a little absurd for us to obscure that fact by digging around to try to find a woman like Aspasia to fill the hole that is necessarily there. It’s almost as if feminists are desperate for an Aspasia, an intelligent classical women, to legitimize women’s role in the rhetorical canon, and they will go far beyond traditional, evidence-based historical methodology to invent that character. Is this really necessary for the success of feminism?

Oh – interesting note – the Johnstone article opens up with that anecdote about Edmund Morris’ biography of Ronald Reagan, which was later exposed to be largely fictionalized. Morris was condemned by fellow historians for his blatant use of imagination to recreate the life of Reagan and his insertion of himself as a fictional character in Reagan’s life story. Have you read that biography? Are Glenn and Jarratt and Ong allowed to use their imagination to recreate the history of Aspasia because they are feminist historians (Gale’s question on whether or not just stating that they are feminist/postmodern historians gives them leave to fictionalize where there are holes in the evidence), and Morris is not, because he is a traditional historian writing about traditional things, like presidents? Double standard?

   Notes for June 20, 2007 

Aspasia excerpts from The Rhetorical Tradition, eds. Bizzell and Herzburg.

 Gale, Xin Liu. “Historical Studies and Postmodernism: Rereading Aspasia of Miletus.” College English 62.3 (Jan. 2000) 361-386. 

“I believe that feminists’ reconstruction of alternative rhetorical histories has brought to the fore important and interesting questions concerning truth and method, the role of interpretation, the definition of history and historiography, and the influences of postmodern theory on historical research.” (361)

  

“I wish to help develop a sensitivity to the complexities of writing alternative histories in the institutional context and, meanwhile, provoke and challenge feminists to search for more productive, more coherent, and more convincing ways of reconstructing women’s rhetorical histories in the male-dominant academy” (362).

 

“It is a paradox that feminist historians have to find a way around: they have to challenge the traditional masculine assumptions about women and women’s ways of thinking and writing and at the same time seek their colleagues’ acceptance of the legitimacy and credibility of their research and scholarship” (363).

 

In the process of writing Aspasia into the rhetorical canon, feminist historians “have to address a series of questions concerning truth and evidence, interpretation and representation, and other theoretical and methodological issues in their historical studies of the Miletian/Athenian woman. In doing so, feminist historians make these questions the subjects of inquiry in their own right” (363).

 

Gale is looking at Glenn’s, Jarratt & Ong’s, and Henry’s treatment of Aspasia. They all try to resurrect Aspasia from the scant mentions she has in historical texts to an accomplished rhetorician and philosopher who had tremendous influence in 5^th century Athens.

 

Glenn’s celebratory retelling of Aspasia’s story, as a women whose status as a mistress and a foreigner allowed her to transcend the traditional male/female roles in Athenian society, is what Richard Rorty calls “Geistegeschichte” – an imaginative construction for a contemporary purpose. “Read as a feminist tale of a talented woman whose intellectual and political accomplishments were erased from male history, Glenn’s Aspasia story is exhilarating and inspiring, for, after all, according to Rorty, one of the best things about contemporary feminism and about feminist writing is its abandonment of notions of objectivity and reality” (364).

 

Glenn’s history is “postmodern and historiographical” which emphasizes the historian’s own agenda and situation, allows the historian to abandon traditional historical methods, and imagine and create connections between the known facts and the unknown (365).

 

“[Glenn] aims at establishing a series of historical truths about Aspasia’s accomplishments and, by moving the focus away from the Athenian woman’s identiy, Glenn attempts to establish what Aspasia ‘really’ was in history as opposed to her (unfair) portrayal by men. But this concern with historical reality brings Glenn’s historiography closer to traditional historical studies than to the kind of history writing that Rorty describes” (366). Glenn uses modern and historical sources to try to prove her telling of Aspasia, when it’s apparent that there is no true history about her. But is the evidence Glenn presents valid enough to support her claims about Aspasia?

 

“Should we eschew the traditional concern about validity, reliability, and adequateness of historical sources when we purposefully turn away from the traditional way of doing history? Does the postmodern view of history and of doing history necessarily entail an abandonment of the traditional concern for truth and evidence?” (366) Can you read history through your lens if you’re a feminist – does that give you a right to do that?

 

“while Glenn’s allegiance to postmodernist and feminist theories and methodologies is articulately announced, her Aspasia stories nonetheless reveal a deep contradiction in thinking: on the one hand, we are asked to accept the postmodern belief that we are never able to obtain objective truth in history; on the other hand, we are asked to consider the reconceived story of Aspasia as a ‘truer’ reality of women in history, a rediscovery of the obliterated ‘truth’ independent of the existing historical discourse of men” (366).

 

The retelling of Aspasia is neither complex nor problemitized – she is a female hero. The male/female hero/despised is just reversed.

 

Plutarch called Aspasia’s school a school for young courtesans – Glenn called it “an academy for young women of good families” (167). Glenn is taking fragments out of historical texts with no regard to their context and twisting them to suit her own agenda.

 

It’s not very valid to take random mentions of Aspasia, written hundreds of years apart from each other and for different purposes, times, and by different authors, and throw them together without a careful examination of these competing rhetorical situations and use them to paint a rosy coherent picture of Aspasia.

 

“Those who have read Donald Kagan’s study of Pericles’ life and learned about his philosophical training and political convictions would likely demand more than three brief quotes to convince them that Aspasia wrote Pericles’ speeches and influenced his political policies” (168).

 

Gale’s point: “Had the story of Aspasia been written as a feminist fiction, we would not have to take truth-claims in the story seriously. But if the truth-claims are presented as historically true, we inevitably require that these truths be supported with adequate and validated historical evidence, even when we are postmodernists. When a historian intends for a semifictional work to be read as less distorted history that reflects a truer historical reality, he or she undermines the validity of the argument” (368).

 

Without a willingness to agree on the existence of truth, we cannot debate or evaluate research methodologies – postmodernism cripples us. (369)

 

“The assumption that because the story of Aspasia benefits women it is necessarily good is actually a rhetorical strategy that should be viewed with skepticism” (371). It’s not enough that Aspasia is a women’s interest (like section C of the newspaper) – Aspasia needs to be valuable to the communities of history, philosophy, rhetoric, classics, feminism, and gender studies.

 

“We need to resist rather than allow partisan or community interests to dictate our research method and research outcome” (371).

 

We can’t get away with privileging our own agendas and views by just stating that we are feminists or some other group – to do so would mean becoming just as narrow-minded as the male traditional historians the feminists claim they are countering.

 

Jarratt and Ong do acknowledge that all cannot be known when it comes to classical rhetoric, and Aspasia or others might have influenced the creation of the Socrates method – do not hold her up as the one and only, but “their study depends so heavily on interpretation and speculation, with a preoccupation for their feminist goals, that it accentuates the question of the roles that interpretation and speculation play in writing history” (373).

 

Jarratt and Ong use the same Plato passage from Menexenus to show that Aspasia was a construct created by Plato to poke fun at people who are ignorant enough to listen to sophist outsiders instead of “true” rhetoric AND to prove Aspasia is a historical reality who was Socrates’ teacher. (373)

 

Can a “satirical text with fictitious scenes” be treated “as historical evidence?” (373).

  

Jarratt “is intent on writing women into the history of rhetoric for the purpose of exposing male oppression and exclusion in order to liberate and empower women” (375).

 

“Jarratt advocates changing the genre of history to accommodate ‘literary’ or ‘mythic’ quality” (376). Her feminist/sophistic historiography rejects any grand narrative or Truth – she believes only in the situated truths of particular times and circumstances.

 

Jarratt is equating women with the sophists – they both are outsiders, marginalized. Her new history is still exclusionary – it excludes men and does not allow for moments when women can be in power and men can be marginalized. (377)

 

Good questions: “Should a feminist historian consider acceptable only women’s texts that reflect only the feminine traits, female syntactic structures, and other characteristics attributed to owmen by men? Should a feminist rhetorical history include women rhetoricians who wrote in the mainstream rhetorical tradition and whose works reflect the male rhetorical traints and dominant ideology?” (377).

 

Henry, according to Gale, does it right – she traces how Aspasia has been taken up through history, starting with the classical texts and Heloise in the 1100s. She has “written a social history of an ancient woman who has fascinated literary artists, historians, philosophers, pornographers, women, and men alike for centuries” by combining feminist scholarship with traditional historical methods. Henry’s “meticulous treatment of historical sources is the main reason for the success of her Aspasia study” by tracing how Aspasia has been constructed over time (379).

 

Henry bases her argument on Aspasia on the “examination of the histories, fictions, art pieces, and scholarly works in the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries.” Her argument is that “nearly all the later works are amplifications and exaggerations of the characteristics identified in Aspasia’s bios in the first centuries” – that as the years go on, authors add their own spins to who Aspasia was to further what they want to be (380).

 

Henry: “When we need Aspasia to be a chaste muse and teacher, she is there; when we need a grand horizontal, she is there; when we need a protofeminist, she is there also” (qtd in 381).

 Glenn, Cheryl. “Truth, Lies, and Method: Revisiting Femninist Historiography.” College English 62.3 (Jan. 2000) 387-389. 

Glenn charges that Gale is setting up a binary – credible truth on one hand and feminist/fictional subjectivity on the other.

 

“Every history writer faces this missing link. Thus, the text of history writing initiates a play between the object under study and the discourse performing the analysis. And even the most conscientious, ‘traditional’ (however that word resonates), and conservative history writer plays this game” (388). Paraphrases White – history is narrative-making, representation, interpretation.

 

Histories are active: “they fulfill our needs at a particular time and place…they never and have never reflected a neutral reality. In choosing what to show, how to represent it, and whom to spotlight, all these maps subtly shape our perceptions of a rhetoric englobed” (388).

 

History should not ask what is true or false but rather questions of knowledge, ethics, and power (389).

 

These new histories won’t always be understood or welcomed (389).

  Jarratt, Susan C. “Rhetoric and Feminism: Together Again.” College English 62.3 (Jan. 2000) 390-393. 

Says Gale misquoted her and skewed what she said. Why begin with a petty thing like that instead of offer a counter to how Gale says history should be done? Why not show why your history is good?

   

June 18 Response

Aristotle. Rhetoric. In The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present. Eds. Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzberg. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001. 169-240.

Atwill, Janet M. “Rhetoric and Civic Virtue.” 

Haskins, Ekaterina. “Choosing Between Isocrates and Aristotle: Disciplinary Assumptions and Pedagogical Applications.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly. 36 (2006) 191-201.

Aristotle’s Rhetoric is considered to be one of the most important primary documents for rhetorical studies. In this extensive treatise, Aristotle defines rhetoric as being primarily involved in public political discourse and having three major forms: forensic, deliberative, and ceremonial. In the excerpts contained in The Rhetorical Tradition, Aristotle explains how a rhetorician might use rhetoric – which, in his definition, is “the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion” – most effectively. He points out that there are three major appeals a rhetorician may use to sway an audience: an appeal to rational logic through example and enthymeme, an appeal to the audience’s emotions about a situation, and appeal to the speaker’s own ethical character, which must be created within the speech itself. Aristotle goes on in Rhetoric to list four major commonplaces or topics that speakers can use to construct enthymemes or examples for their arguments and twenty-eight other, more specialized lines of reasoning that may be used in particular situations to disprove or prove a point. Aristotle’s Rhetoric is also concerned with explaining what a rhetorician must know to effectively persuade: he must know the audience intimately, so that he can tap on the emotions, examples, maxims, and enthymemes that would most appeal to them. The rhetorician must understand that the ultimate end for all people’s actions – their purpose – is happiness, and understand what constitutes virtue and goodness.

I was really glad that I was assigned to read Aristotle’s Rhetoric – finally! – because it forced me to sit down and read it. I feel that just by reading this text, I will be a better writing teacher in the fall. Reading this primary text made me appreciate several of arguments historians (like Sutherland) we read this semester made in their articles – that it is important to return to the primary document and not rely on secondary interpretations for understanding our scholarship. I always knew that the appeals and the classification of types of rhetoric came from Aristotle, and I always spend time in my class teaching ethos/pathos/logos, but now that I’ve actually read the original explantion of it, with all of Aristotle’s careful examples and explanations, I feel like I will be better able to explain to my students how and why it’s important and effective to persuade and argue in these ways. It was a valuable reading for me, and I think I will reread it several times this summer to fully appreciate and understand what it says. I’m just dumbfounded that I went so long without reading Aristotle for myself!

I was struck by Haskins’ argument about the importance of juxtaposing Aristotle with other, less considered rhetoricians like Isocrates. I agree with Haskins that Aristotle is important and deserves his prominent place in the canon – his treatment of rhetoric is thorough, detailed, smart, and directly applicable to pedagogical and practical needs, even though it is considered to be more theoretical than practical. However, no one explanation of rhetoric is sufficient: it is a discipline that deals with all aspects of human life, with every imaginable subject matter in every possible community. Isocrates provides many important counterparts to Aristotle that are especially valuable to students, such as the declaration that rhetoric is not confined to the public political sphere and the assurance that the rhetorician need not understand justice and virtue completely before speaking, that those truths are discovered through the act of rhetoric instead of a necessary precursor to it.

Distributist Literature Review Draft

Laura J. Davies

June 13, 2007

CCR 720: Agnew

Literature Review Draft

   When Religion Inspires Political Action: The Catholic Land Movement 

           

            In the early twentieth century, there were three competing visions in the Western world for a new political, economic and social order: capitalism, articulated first by Adam Smith and rapidly adopted through industrialization and urbanization; socialism, explained by Karl Marx and initially implemented through communism in the Soviet Union; and distributism, promoted and defined by G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc as an alternative to a life either spent in service to money or to a conglomerate state. Distributism was taken up in both Britain and the United States through organizations like the Southern Agrarians, the Catholic Worker Movement, and the Catholic Land Movement. The Catholic Land Movement, founded in Glasgow in 1929, was one of the first unified organizations dedicated to actively promoting and realizing distributist ideas. Although the writings of Chesterton and Belloc were essential to the Catholic Land Movement for both describing the aims of distributism and actively arguing in intellectual and political circles for it, the Movement’s local leaders, who included both clergymen and Catholic laity, were instrumental in explaining distributism to the populace and recruiting people to the Movement through sermons, published essays, and pamphlets.

            This literature review will survey the founding papers of the Catholic Land Movement, which were circulated in England between 1925 and 1934. The transcripts of sermons and many of the pamphlets and weekly and monthly newsletters are not widely available, so I am currently trying to locate archives that have these documents. So, in this literature review, I am working with essays, excerpts, and collections that have been recently reprinted by IHS Press, an independent publishing house located in Virginia. The Catholic Land Movement had a unique take on distributism – it took the economic and political principles of distributism and infused them with Catholic and Christian social and moral aims. The Movement also was one of the few distributist organizations that actually moved distributism from an academic conversation to actual physical action, which required the mobilization of people beyond the inner circle through the rhetoric of the podium and the pamphlet. In this literature review, I will investigate these two themes present in the founding papers of the Catholic Land Movement: how the Movement changed the general principle of distributism to fit its specific Catholic beliefs and aims and how the Movement described its plan of action for implementing distributism in the English countryside.

            G.K. Chesterton’s 1926 book The Outline of Sanity is his explanation of how distributism can counter what he sees as the evils of capitalism and socialism, the prevailing political, economic, and social visions of the times. For him and others, like Hilaire Belloc, the only solution to the rampant urban unemployment, unequal distribution of wealth, and degrading of the quality of manufactured goods that result from industrial capitalism and the totalitarian unity of a socialized state is a society formed by free, independent, property-owning farmers and craftsmen. In The Outline of Sanity, he equates the consolidation of property by big business and the state with the death of the individual, and argues that men and women cannot be truly happy and productive without economic independence, which comes from the ownership of property. Hilaire Belloc, in his preface to Flee to the Fields, concurs on this philosophical principle by declaring that “there is no freedom without property and therefore, as freedom is natural to the desire of man – a desire for the restoration of property when it has been lost is natural” (16). Herbert Shove, a member of the Catholic Land Movement and an economist theory, explains in more detail the economic impact of capitalism that distributism hopes to counteract. Shove writes in “The Rise and Fall of Industrialism” that England’s economy had been transformed by industry so that it only produces low-quality, inessential items and exports them in exchange for food and other vitals, which has ended self-sufficiency and led to the rise of a greedy, wasteful consumer culture.

            This consumer culture is not just an economic problem or a loathsome dumbing down of folk culture and peasant knowledge for the Catholic Land Movement: it is a religious crisis. Because many Catholic priests in England saw distributism as the answer to the vices of the city, they collected together to push distributism – getting people back to the land on subsistence farms and in small, self-sufficient communities – as the only answer. Harold Robbins, in his essay, “The Line of Approach,” points out that industry’s effect on the poor working class is an important Catholic problem because 95% of England’s Catholics lived in the cities, and the vast majority of them were poor factory workers. In “Training for the Land,” Rev. John McQuillan points out that this distributist movement is essentially Catholic, interested in developing Catholic communities in England’s countryside. Part of the argument for the common religious bond that is preached through the Catholic Land Movement is explained by George Maxwell, a member of one of the Catholic Land Movement’s training farms, in his essay “The Restoration of the Crafts.” The new distributist communities will be dependent on hard-working individuals, and Christians believe that “work is sacred,” and therefore the Catholic settlers’ commitment to their work as an expression of their religion and an act of submission to God will ensure the community’s survival.

            In his essay, Maxwell argues that “a civilization in which men and women worship God in their work,” which is the vision of the Catholic Land Movement, “will be a new civilization, and no civilization was ever built in a day” (128). Thus, the actual plan articulated by Chesterton, Belloc, Fr. Vincent McNabb, and others for the full realization of distributism in England through the Movement is necessarily vague. However, as McQuillan describes in his chapter, “The Origins,” in Flee to the Fields, the Catholic Land Movement took many proactive steps in the late 1920s and early 1930s to begin to resettle Catholics from England’s cities on the land that had been turned over to sheep grazing in the enclosure movement of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The Catholic Land Movement was founded in Glasgow on April 26, 1929, and grew in the next year to include four more city-chapters in England: London, Birmingham, Manchester, and London. These associations published newsletters, newspapers, and pamphlets, such as The Cross and the Plough, that carried the message out to the populace.

            The leaders of the Catholic Land Movement had the challenge of converting factory workers to farmers. This transition was facilitated, as Reginald Jebb describes in “The Community” and McQuillan in “Training for the Land,” by the creation of four training centers in England. These working farms recruited young single men who wanted to escape city life for the promise of a more fulfilling life through distributism and taught them the huge variety of tasks necessary to becoming a self-sufficient small farmer. It was the plan, as McQuillan notes, to establish a training center for women, but due to insufficient funds, it was never realized. It was not ideal, as Jebb notes, that these training centers did not allow for the support of entire families, for as Fr. Vincent McNabb argues in “The Family” and Fr. H.E.G. Rope claims in “Looking Before and After,” two essays included in Flee to the Fields, the family is the natural, organic fundamental element of the new distributist community.

            The capitalist and socialist states, which separate families by sending parents away from the home in order to work and take over the education and care of the children, destroy the family unit, and only distributism, which keeps the family together, joined in a common pursuit for survival on the land, can revive it. McNabb develops this argument more fully in his book, The Church and the Land. Known as one of the most radical of the distributists, he argues that Catholic doctrine proves that “the rights of the parent are prior to the rights of the state” by recognizing the fact that “families must have preceded states” (120). The Catholic hierarchy of Britain agree with McNabb and other distributists in their “Declaration by the Archbishops and Bishops of England and Wales on the Subject of Education,” in which they declare that the family, not the state, is the measure of all things, including the education of children. Another important element in these new communities is a permanent priest, as Mgr. James Dey writes in “The Church and the Land.” The Catholic Land Movement depends, therefore, on the redistribution of priests from the city to the countryside as more Catholics leave the city and settle on small farms.

            The Catholic Land Movement was interested in settling as many city workers on the land as possible. Therefore, rampant use of agricultural machines, which reduce the number of people needed to work the land, would be antithetical. In “The Case for the Peasant,” K.L. Kenrick argues that the Catholic Land Movement must be careful to invest in men, not machines (what he claims is the fatal mistake of capitalism.) Chesterton, at the end of The Outline of Sanity, agrees, but states that distributism, in its realization through the first settled communities of farmers and craftsmen, must be flexible, and it would be foolish to write off all technology and state assistance, for both might be necessary for the success of the fledging communities. Many of the authors of the founding papers of the Catholic Land Movement concur with Chesterton, pointing out that government assistance in the form of tax breaks, land grants, and subsidies would help the new distributist communities afford the land they will live on and afford to focus on their own development and survival.

  

            I realize this is largely historical background to the distributist movement, but it was necessary to start here in order to understand the scope of the material I’m dealing with. I’m especially interested in the publications of the Catholic Land Movement – I want to investigate more deeply how they framed their arguments and how they appealed to the public through sermons and pamphlets. There was success in the beginning of the Catholic Land Movement, but then it died, and I wonder why it died – was it a lack of persuasion on the state level? There is also an interesting years-long debate between Chesterton and H.G. Wells about distributism and socialism. The two argue for their respective world visions through letters, essays, and books. What the modern world would be was an important topic to discuss in the early 20^th century, as everything, from warfare to the means of producing goods to the structure of communities and family life, was rapidly changing. So here are some questions I have for the material I’ve gathered so far:

1. What were the training centers like? How did people find out about them?

2. Who wrote the newsletters and papers associated with the Catholic Land Movement (The Cross and the Plough and others)? What was the purpose of these publications?

3. Why were the training centers for women never established? What were they going to teach?

4. Where is distributism today?

5. Why did the Catholic Land Movement fail?

6. What role did noted preachers like Vincent McNabb play in the Movement?

7. What role did the masses have in the Movement?

Works Cited

Belloc, Hillaire. “Preface.” In Flee to the Fields. Ed. Hillaire Belloc. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003. 15-18.

 

Chesterton, Gilbert K. The Outline of Sanity. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2001.

 

“Declaration by the Archbishops and Bishops of England and Wales on the Subject of Education.” In Flee to the Fields. Ed. Hillaire Belloc. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003. 78-79.

 

Dey, James. “The Church and the Land.” In Flee to the Fields. Ed. Hillaire Belloc. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003. 93-104.

 

Fahey, William E. “Introduction.” In The Church and the Land. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003.

 

Jebb, Reginald. “The Community.” In Flee to the Fields. Ed. Hillaire Belloc. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003. 81-92.

 

Kenrick, K.L. “The Case for the Peasant.” In Flee to the Fields. Ed. Hillaire Belloc. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003. 105-118.

 

Maxwell, George. “The Reconstruction of the Crafts.” In Flee to the Fields. Ed. Hillaire Belloc. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003. 119-130.

 

McNabb, Vincent. The Church and the Land. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003.

 

—. “The Family.” In Flee to the Fields. Ed. Hillaire Belloc. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003. 69-77.

 

McQuillan, John. “The Origins.” In Flee to the Fields. Ed. Hillaire Belloc. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003. 21-24.

 

—. “Training for the Land.” In Flee to the Fields. Ed. Hillaire Belloc. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003. 63-68.

 

Robbins, Harold. “The Line of Approach.” In Flee to the Fields. Ed. Hillaire Belloc. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003. 48-62.

 

Rope, H.E.G. “Looking Before and After.” In Flee to the Fields. Ed. Hillaire Belloc. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003. 131-144.

 

Shove, Herbert. “The Rise and Fall of Industrialism.” In Flee to the Fields. Ed. Hillaire Belloc. Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2003. 25-46.

 

June 11 Response Bibliography

Kaufmann, Charles. “The Axiological Foundations of Plato’s Theory of Rhetoric.” In Landmark Essays on Classical Greek Rhetoric. 101-116.

Black, Edwin. “Plato’s View of Rhetoric.” In Landmark Essays on Classical Greek Rhetoric. 83-99.

Isocrates. Against the Sophists. In The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings From Classical Times to the Present. Eds. Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzburg. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001. 72-75.

Isocrates. From Antidosis. In The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings From Classical Times to the Present. Eds. Patricia Bizzell and Bruce Herzburg. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001. 75-79.

Jaegar, Werner. “The Rhetoric of Isocrates and Its Cultural Ideal.” In Landmark Essays on Classical Greek Rhetoric. 119-141.

June 11 Response

Response for June 11 

            Edwin Black’s essay, “Plato’s View of Rhetoric,” from the collection Landmark Essays on Classical Greek Rhetoric, argues that, contrary to popular scholarly opinion, Plato did not have a negative view of rhetoric. Instead of despising it, he thought that rhetoric was a potentially powerful and valuable tool for achieving the ideal state (99). In Gorgias, Plato attacks the Sophist practice of rhetoric. Sophists did not use rhetoric to pursue true knowledge; rather, they did not attach any moral or ethical rule to rhetoric, using it to persuade an audience to any end. Black points out that in Gorgias, Plato proves Gorgias’ definition of rhetoric wrong (Gorgias says that rhetoricians know the difference between the just and the unjust, and that they must act justly, and Socrates points out that rhetoric is used towards base ends.) Plato does not say that rhetoric is evil or useless, he is just attacking the type of rhetoric used by the Sophists, which he defines as flattery.  Black goes on to consider Phaedrus, and through his analysis of this dialogue, coupled with his discoveries about Plato’s attitude towards rhetoric in Gorgias, he finds a common Platonic rhetorical theory. Rhetoric is not just political speech; it is “all discourse which influences men” (92). Rhetoric depends on the dialectic to discover true knowledge and “rhetoric is a special psychological application of [that knowledge]” (92). In Plato’s mind, true, noble rhetoric is essential for the proper functioning of the state, and the good rhetorician can use rhetoric to control the citizens of a state. Charles Kaufmann, in his essay, “The Axiological Foundations of Plato’s Theory of Rhetoric,” from the same collection, expands Black’s observation of the undemocratic nature of Platonic rhetoric to a full-scale critique of Plato’s vision for rhetoric, which Kaufmann claims to support totalitarian states.

            Isocrates provides an important counterpoint to Plato. Both Isocrates and Plato criticize the Sophists for their willingness to use rhetoric to debate trivial matters and for unjust ends, but unlike Plato, who believed that rhetoric was to be reserved for the few who knew episteme, or knowledge of the true forms, Isocrates held that rhetoric is to be used in order to achieve episteme. Rhetoric is about discovery, then, as much as it was about persuasion and delivery. The practice of rhetoric depends on a rhetorician’s flexibility and ability to read the situation, things only achieved through practice, not through philosophical dialectic debate. Isocrates, in Antidosis, makes the point that nothing that is “done with intelligence [can] take place without the help of speech,” or rhetoric, and that “in all our actions as well as in all our thoughts speech is our guide” (75). Isocrates was known as an educator, and he firmly believed in the value of all types of education; even learning about geometry and astronomy is useful to people who won’t apply that knowledge later, because it is the act of learning and challenging your mind that you become more able to understand and learn other disciplines and truths. Isocrates had a more practical vision of rhetoric than Plato – he believed that through careful study, a person who had some talent for rhetoric could gain the wisdom and knowledge necessary to be a rhetorician who influences people to do just things. This careful study and acquisition of knowledge and wisdom will do more than make a person a more effective speaker: such a man will “feel their influence not only in the preparation of a given discourse but in all the actions of his life. It follows, then, that the power to speak well and think right will reward the man who approaches the art of discourse with love of wisdom and love of honor.” Isocrates believes that it is a natural progression for a man who is so invested in the study of what is just and the true nature of things to be an honorable public speaker and citizen.

            Is Isocrates the answer to the problems inherent in Plato’s rhetoric, as pointed out by Kaufmann and Black? Could his version of rhetoric be used to support a totalitarian state? I think his refusal to demand that the rhetorician know all before he speaks opens up the possibility for more to speak – you do not need to know the outcome before you deliver your speech, for the speech is an exercise of itself, dependent on audience, and the speaker will come to a truer understanding of the world through delivering the speech.

Short Paper 2 on Kaufmann

Laura J. Davies

June 10, 2007

CCR 720: Agnew

Short Paper 2

 A Good Totalitarian State? 

            Plato’s discussion of the nature, uses, and purposes for rhetoric, contained in his two dialogues, Gorgias and Phaedrus, announce a new direction for rhetoric, one that is radically different from the rhetoric practiced and taught by the Sophists. His principles for rhetoric – that it exists in all forms of human discourse, and that it, in its ideal form, should be used to promote noble and just ends – are thought of as the underlying principles of classical rhetoric, infused in one way or another in the traditional canon of classical rhetoric. Contemporary rhetorical scholars have found these two dialogues rich for analysis, and the rediscovery and renewed interest in the rhetoric of the Sophists have provided an important counterpoint to Platonic rhetoric. In his essay, “The Axiological Foundations of Plato’s Theory of Rhetoric,” Charles Kaufmann argues against other scholars, who affirm Plato’s commitment to a noble rhetorician who seeks justice, by showing how Plato’s rhetoric supports the actions of totalitarian, repressive states. Through his reexamination of Plato’s rhetorical principles, scholars today can begin to question the motives of the rhetoric described and supported in the traditional, 2400-year-old canon of rhetoric, and start to see how the reintegration of other schools of rhetoric, such as the Sophists or other lost or overlooked forms, might truly transform rhetoric into a discipline that can be used for social justice, not social control.

            By studying both the Gorgias and the Phaedrus dialogues, Kaufmann is able to discover and name four principal characteristics of Platonic rhetoric: (1) rhetoric exists in all forms of human discourse, public and private; (2) the rhetorician must be informed through episteme, the highest form of knowledge, knowledge of the transcendental forms; (3) dialectic is a necessary precursor to rhetoric, as the dialectic is responsible for discovering episteme, and rhetoric is only concerned with its delivery to an audience; and (4) “rhetoric functions to guarantee doctrinal conformity and social control” (102). Plato’s rhetoric is necessarily elitist; as he admits in the Gorgias, there are few true rhetoricians, for there are few people who can achieve knowledge through episteme. Since the rest of the masses are hopelessly ignorant of true knowledge, rhetoric, practiced by those special few, is essential for instructing and persuading them to move towards noble purposes. People can’t think for themselves, and therefore, rhetoric is not a democratic art. Plato places the power of rhetoric into the hands of a single philosopher-king ruler, and in his vision of utopia, that philosopher-king uses rhetoric to control his citizens, making sure they follow his idea of a noble life everywhere, in both private and public spheres. It is the responsibility of the state to ensure the goodness of its citizens, and rhetoric (or propaganda or censorship) is the tool to achieve that end.

            Kaufmann’s picture of the Platonic state, governed by Plato’s rhetorical principles, is very grim. In it, people are denied the power of the podium and are subject to great amounts of state intervention and oppression, for “the only legitimate use of rhetoric, within Plato’s state, is for the dissemination of doctrine. All expression in the state, be it song, story, history, myth, panegyric, or oratory, is censored to serve the ends of the state” (115). I found Kaufmann’s argument compelling, as he was determined to examine Plato’s rhetoric from a new perspective, divorced from the praise and reverence it has accumulated as Western rhetoric’s foundation. What is Plato really saying, Kaufmann asks, and he’s not afraid to call the kettle black. In thinking about his argument, I tried to adopt his own methodology – to strip the known of its acquired nuances and to see it anew, in an opposing light. So I took Kaufmann’s critique – that Plato’s rhetoric supports totalitarian states through its maintenance of hierarchy, limitations on who may speak, and use of lies, censorship, and deception to persuade the masses to pursue the ruler’s objective – and turned it upside down, as I posed this question to my husband: “Would you like to live in a totalitarian state ruled by Jesus?”

            The heart of that question is whether or not a totalitarian state can be a good thing. Could there be a ruler whose strict censorship and propaganda policies are executed for the benefit of the people only? Although at first, the thought of living in a Jesus-utopia with fascist methods of control seemed intriguing and radical, my husband and I decided that a noble totalitarian state could not exist, for it depends on the state assuming complete control of the citizens. The more power the state takes, the less power individuals and smaller social units, like the family and the community, are allowed to exercise on their own behalf. Total control by the state takes away all freedom and choices, killing off free will. Jesus, and other potential good dictators, I believe, would believe that human dignity springs forth from freedom and independence, not dependence, and Plato’s version of rhetoric only exists in a society that is completely dependent on a few skilled rhetoricians to explain what action the masses should take. Because Plato refuses, in his limitation of rhetoric to the few, to acknowledge the intellectual worth of all people, human dignity is not valued in his state. Also, I believe that a society that relies on one rhetorician to explain what it is to be noble can never become completely just, for true nobleness only is achieved through the individual struggle to attain knowledge and to act according to that knowledge. No one can give you that knowledge. You need to obtain it yourself, and a state that denies you your right to pursuing that struggle through the “freedom of speech, the marketplace of ideas, and reasoned disagreement” is denying you your essential humanity.

            I wonder what Plato’s defense to Kaufmann would be. I think Plato sees rhetoricians as skilled performers, much like doctors. Would Plato counter Kaufmann by asking him if he would entrust his medical care to the whims of the uneducated masses? Is rhetoric a learned skill, or is it an essential human characteristic?  I think Plato would argue that rhetoric is an art that requires intense study, a knowledge of the supreme characteristics of things, and a desire to seek and form a just social state. I think many current rhetoric scholars would argue the opposite – that rhetoric is practiced in all spheres of human life by all peoples and cultures. Does Plato have a point? Should rhetoric be valued more in society – should we think of a politician who skillfully uses it the same way we would a neurosurgeon? Or are we all our own unique rhetorical geniuses? I think the definition of what rhetoric is and who should practice it always must come down to a question of ethics, then; it seems impossible to divorce rhetoric from philosophy, unless you want to reduce rhetoric to a skill set, a handbook for public speaking and writing.