It is clear that Rhetorics is a changing discipline. Royster and Kirsch want to infuse hope and care along with those changes -- infusing them into a field not formerly known to take care or seek hope. It doesn't seem to be only Rhetorics experiencing this change. Though I have no valid sources at this point, I do hear hints. My mom is studying for her LAC and tells me all the time of how the world of Psychology is beginning to look to new and different ways to understand mental illness, emotions, and the individual. I hear whispers of viewing the Universe as "alive" in Quantum Physics. Hope and Care.... and confusion.
I think whenever any discipline changes the way it performs, especially when the very behaviors being changed are now set in the cold granite of longstanding tradition, the result can feel too much akin to chaos. First, there are those within the changing landscape that struggle in fear of losing their validity (in Rhetorics, ethos is essential). Then, there are those emerging prodigies initiating the change that find themselves suddenly overwhelmed with the responsibilities of a budding new way of doing things, and the undeserved disdain of their elder peers. And more, there are those fledglings barely finding their ways into the discipline that wonder if they are the rope for some political tug-of-war they had no desire to partake in. Most of this occurs in whispers in private correspondences or the darkened shadows of office water coolers or other such places normally unoccupied by all the players, where whispers are allowed to go unnoticed. This, though it sucks, is natural. It is part of the process of change.
The prize, when the pendulum slows, will be a discipline that actively seeks the comfort of hope and care. A discipline that will offer the Rhetor opportunities to “take the time… to think consciously about [their] work in its wholeness…” (139). A discipline that engages the practitioner to see how “knowledge is fluid” when we “pay attention to the ways that ideas travel in order for us to become more consciously aware of patterns of intellectual and social engagement” (138). A discipline that seeks “to broaden and deepen our sense of what constitutes […] rhetorical performance […] to add texture and vibrancy to the methodologies that we are using in the field…” (138). A discipline that strives “to stretch the boundaries of our thinking and our capacity to see more, to see differently, and to be better positioned to interpret more adequately…” (137).
I think the 'chaotic' quality of a shifting discipline you bring up is a good point to address. Ramus is the rhetorician I'd jokingly deem most 'chaotic' of the authors we've studied, and did he ever want to revolutionize the field...
ReplyDeleteStill, if a field cannot adapt whatsoever to suit new ages and new people, it's going to become obsolete. Also, an unchanging view of rhetoric would indeed blot out hope if it similarly lacked the capacity to make room for new (and perhaps formerly-ignored) rhetors.