let's go to school: an epic blogarrhea
Music: Junip: Fields (2010)
Carole Blair, a trusted mentor and friend since I was a graduate student, alerted me earlier this week [Sept. 27th] that someone was trying to take us both out front to the shed---the one festooned with spotlights and a little manger and glowing, plastic wise men---for a public spanking. She was speaking of a publication in which our scholarly personae are punished for doing harmful and misguided work under the aegis of rhetorical studies. I use the tired metaphor of "spanking" deliberately, because this "attack" is unquestionably personal in tone and implication: it's not about our work; it's about us, about picking a "fight" and hoping that we'll respond in a public way.
After discussing how and if we should respond to this author's attempt to publicly shame us, we concluded it's probably not worth the effort---and may needlessly draw attention to an essay which, frankly, isn't very good. In fact, it's sorta awful---the kind of thing that, if it were turned in as a seminar paper in a graduate class, would probably suffer pools of red ink. It's the kind of thing that I usually smack down---if it happens---in my own seminars. The allure of responding to this "attack" is, in some sense, the ease of doing so. But---and here's the rub---responding to this essay in print also means that we would end up producing what the author apparently wants: a reaction. And with a reaction, of course, comes attention.
There is an academic disease that we might term "dissin' publicity syndrome." It's not new---it's actually centuries-old. The syndrome is an outgrowth of the ideology of publicity: getting noticed is more important than being right or doing good work. (Peacocks know this, yes?) The syndrome is premised on this logic: by attacking others, you'll get noticed. That's certainly true, and most of us can count any number of folks for whom this has worked in recent memory. In the "entertainment news" industry, Perez Hilton comes to mind immediately. As a new grad student observed last week, unknown hip-hop artists will often "diss" a well known one to get noticed, and this gesture has become part of the craft itself (thanks for the insight, Tyler). In high school, a "geek or freak" could sometimes improve his or her social standing by picking a fight with one of the more popular kids (or worse, the lesser popular kids [cue bad memory]). And don't get me started with "political attack ads."
Academics often engage in "fights" in print, but there is a difference between these melees and doin' the (hip-hop) dozens or deploying a political attack ad. Barry Brummett and Rick Cherwitz, two of my colleagues here at the University of Texas, often joke they gave each other tenure by arguing with one another in print about "epistemic rhetoric." These are scholars who regularly dine together at lunch. They argued heatedly in print, but the arguments were never personal or of the "dissin'" kind. The field of philosophy is pretty much a history of such bickering, however buried the target of critique might be (Levinas' digs come to mind). But these "fights," while often heated, are usually about the idea or concept, not the person.
For me, "dissin' publicity syndrome" (DPS) refers to the pathological conviction that you can just sadistically attack someone to make a name for yourself, like an aspiring hip-hopper or unknown politician. DPS is not the familiar academic game of taking someone's argument or work to task. This must be done, and has to be done, for work in the humanities to remain vibrant. By "DPS," I mean ad-hominem pot-shots lacking any purchase, a stylistic approach divorced of substantive engagement.
The peer review process, in part, was set-up to stop DPS from happening, but when that process fails, DPS scholarship---like shit---happens.
So, I blog about my reaction to this recent attack essay with some hesitation, because I think it's very far from a genuine academic engagement. My work and thinking has been critiqued many times before---and often justifiably so. But in the wake of most of these critiques, I ended up with new friends with whom I have had a drink or dinner (and one of whom is now a friend and co-author). If you are someone prone to grandiloquent declaration---which, I confess, I enjoy---you do open yourself up to public critique. But when is critique fair or in good humor, and when does it constitute DPS scholarship?
Let's just say it: critique is most productive when the assumption on both sides is that either party is "equal" in some way, usually intellectual. Critique works best when parties on either side of a question are assumed to be relatively intelligent human beings. Critique gets ill when one party states the other is stupid or inferior in some way or manner, and the critique hinges, not on the worthiness or value of ideas or arguments, but the status or the character of the individual making them. There are exceptions, of course (Heidegger comes to mind---but even then, it's hard to escape his insights). Although I didn't always enjoy it, the three previous critiques of my work in print always assumed my sincerity and intelligence. This most recent "hit job" on Carole and me is a great example of DPS scholarship because it begins from a place of superiority; the critique does not come from a place of assumed equality. Assumed equality is, with nods to Labermas, a professional courtesy.
A relevant aside: Even if you believe you are smarter than those whom you wish to critique, it is professionally (and morally) a very, very bad idea to suggest as much in print. Aside from the fact you are probably wrong, being an academic means you must also navigate social reality; and social reality admits of a plurality of intelligences. Some of us are brilliant at thinking through ideas along a cold plane of logic. Some of us are brilliant at insights that come through metaphorical juxtaposition. Some of us are brilliant at stating things in such a way that they resonate with an emotional color that another person cannot quite capture. This is to say that intellectual competence is multiple, not singular (it's one of the reasons why I value my poet friends; they make may jaw drop consistently). The biggest mistake I have seen younger academics make is that they fall into thinking that intellectual intelligence is measured by one variable---that what it means to be "smart" can be gauged by this or that criterion or thing (the worst example of this: the dolt who faults you for not having read such-and-so a scholar's work). The fact is that being a member of a community means that you are among a multiplicity---a large, complicated, throbbing community of active minds. DPS scholarship attempts to isolate one set of criteria as the "measure" of smartness or value. DPS says, "my way is the only way, and you don't measure up."
How is this different from beating one's chest?
But I digress . . . . Is DPS scholarship all that bad, however? From the standpoint of its own logic, getting attacked in print is something like getting a parental advisory sticker put on your new album: it's an advertisement, and it may encourage folks to read your work. But then, like the political attack ad, the double-sided dull edges of this publicity razor can also discourage others from reading your work. In the recent attack essay I soon address, the work of five scholars is so radically decontextualized that alerting readers to the attack-piece risks "contaminating" new audiences (much like book reviews can function, unfortunately). So, the question I've been dithering over for the blog is this: do I respond or leave it be?
In the end, I'm comforted by two facts. First, people are often smarter than we tend to suppose. Part of the reason we think others are not smart enough to think for themselves has something to do with driving automobiles on a road and our experiences with others doing the same. Driving on I-35 comes to mind. That's a flip example, but the point is made: it's just our human habit to assume anyone who does not occupy the same body can't understand the same way I do. [cue Sartre].
But, I'm also constantly reminded as a teacher that young people are not the stupid dupes this or that television poll or alarmed Parents-Against-Texting group would have us believe.
Second, I also realize that most of RoseChron's readers are known to me by name and face, and I consider most of y'all "friends" (and not in a Facebook sort-of way). Lately readership has dropped to about 50 discrete viewers a day. I suspect I am friendly with most of you.
So, I reasoned, an informal response to this DPS essay, in this space, would be Old Kinderhook. A password-protected response would be especially ok, since I could limit who reads it. That said: if I gave you the password to this post, it's my hope that you will not distribute it to others whom you don't know. I don't want to give this publicity seeker any more attention than he deserves. At the same time, I am pissed this thing was published. I don't want to be "public" about being pissed---but I do want to talk about it and work through it. So, I reckoned, a password protected post might do the trick.
I also thought I might actually have a little fun in responding to the attack essay in this venue: I have no length constraints. I have no editorial limitations. I am, in fact, the editor---much like the author of the piece in question. Unlike my attacker, however, I am not constrained by word limits. What if I blogged a response as an endurance performance, as a kind of bloggish marathon? Insofar as the attack on my work concerned it's stylistic and argumentative excesses, what if I responded in excess? What if, for the sake of pleasure and form, I protested way, way too much? Could I respond in such a way that the excessiveness of my response took on a kind of formal grotesqueness?
I resolved that the exercise of response-in-excess would not only be fun, but potentially insightful. At this moment (Friday, October first, nearing midnight) I am uncertain what this insight will be. Perhaps it is the depths of my own narcissism and insecurity---or perhaps it is the limit of academic stupidity? Nevertheless, I have decided that this experiment in blogging tomfoolery could be achieved if I did it jolts and starts---not all at once, but over a series of days (or weeks). Here follows, then, the rules I have set for myself for this blog post:
1. I will respond to the attack essay as faithfully as possible to the argument set-forth.
2. I will engage the author in a spirit more charitable than he engages my or my colleagues' work.
3. I will back up my response with evidence.
4. I will give myself as much time as I give my own students to write answers to comprehensive exam questions (this rule was supplied by Matt Morris---thanks dude). This means I must be finished with this blog post in two weeks, by October 15th. [Later edit: Sorry Matt, I failed!]
5. I can work on the this blog entry no more an hour at a time (basically, the time it takes, more or less, to smoke a cigar---which I'll probably be doing anyway).
With these ground rules set, I now commence my response to the DPS essay attacking my persona. I begin by contextualizing the essay. Then, I will summarize the argument the author advances in general terms. Finally, I will move to a close reading of the attack essay. A line-by-line analysis would be ideal, but not even Buddha has the patience for such an endeavor (indeed, Buddha would forgo the whole exercise---duh!). But I promise to be close when such nose-to-the-page sniffage is warranted. Finally, as for my conclusion: I have no idea at the moment how I will conclude. If you want a preview of that, you'll need to do some serious scrolling.
I'm lighting a stogie now. It's an Oliva V, Robusto.
THE CONTEXT OF THE ATTACK ESSAY
With that elaborate, "anxious" wind-up, here's the story: Mark J. Porrovecchio, a 2006 Ph.D. in rhetorical studies from Pitt, now an assistant professor at Oregon State, had a great idea. In the early 70s a number of heavy-hitting scholars in our field formed "The National Developmental Project on Rhetoric," under the auspices of the Speech Communication Association (now the National Communication Association) and the National Endowment for the Humanities. These scholars held two conferences in order to "outline and amplify a theory of rhetoric suitable to twentieth century concepts and needs." A number of the position papers at these conferences were edited and published in a widely-read and referenced collection titled, The Prospect of Rhetoric in 1971. As a graduate student, Porrovecchio wondered why the "issues" discussed in this volume were still discussed today (although what he means by "issues" is unclear). He spearheaded a new edited collection, Reengaging the Prospect of Rhetoric, recently published by Routledge (2010), in which contemporary rhetorical scholars take-up and respond to one of the original 1971 essays. The papers from the Wingspread conference and its follow-up in St. Charles, Illinois, are foundational to what my colleagues and me do today. The idea of thinking about where we are today in "rhetorical studies" in relation to these formative essays is timely. The National Communication Association (NCA) is nearing its 100th anniversary, and a number of books on the history of this organization and the "field" associated with it have recently appeared. The timing is of this volume is perfect.
From what I've read of the book so far, most of the authors "riff" on an essay from the 1971 collection to produce something new (Beseecher's contribution is especially insightful and provocative). As is the case with most edited collections, Porrovecchio also contributes a chapter, which is titled "'The Cult of Unintelligibility': Continued Queries about the Nature of Our Discourse(s) / A Response to Barnet Baskerville's 'Responses, Queries, and a Few Caveats'" (I've uploaded a PDF copy here). This is the chapter that critiques my scholarly persona, as well as that of many others.
PORROVECCHIO'S ARGUMENT IN GENERAL
In the broadest strokes, Porrovecchio argues that the original essays of The Prospect of Rhetoric were concerned with discerning the confines or boundaries of the field of rhetorical studies. He suggests these formative thinkers were animated by an "anxiety" about what is and is not "rhetoric," and worried about carving out a "tradition" that was distinctive from other fields of study. Barnet Baskerville's essay in that collection, "Responses, Queries, and a Few Caveats," is advanced as a kind of jeremiad: from Porrovecchio's reading, Baskerville was concerned that his colleagues were obsessed with finding respect among academics in the wider academy, and this was causing them to borrow too much from other disciplines at the expense of establishing their own distinctiveness (temping a "cult of unintelligibility"). Having reread the essay, I think Baskerville is less of a Chicken Little than he is characterized, but we'll go with it for now.
Porrovecchio suggests that Baskerville's warning still needs to be heeded almost forty years later, but the areas of thought rhetoricians are borrowing from are no longer those of Baskerville's concern---philosophy, social psychology, and literary criticism---but rather cultural studies and postmodernism. As he sees it, what has been distinctive about rhetorical studies in "[speech] communication" are the "historical (perhaps a better word would be traditional) dictates of the spoken and the written" (153).
What Porrovechio means by "historical," "traditional," "spoken," and "written" is not defined for the reader. He seems to assume these terms are commonly understood (when, in fact, I've been arguing that such an assumption about "speech" was the reason for its demise as a titular term). He also seems focused on situating a proper object of rhetorical studies as concerning "the podium and the page" (153). Regardless, rather than explaining what he means by "traditional," "historical," "written," and "spoken," he proceeds by defining these terms negatively, largely in respect to what they are not (or should not be).
A clearly stated thesis is decidedly elusive.
Nevertheless, in the mode of charity, I think the argument can be described as advancing two major claims: (1) The brand of rhetorical studies situated in the speech tradition has so diversified its "object" that the field is presently incoherent; and (2) to make ourselves coherent and academically respectable, we need to limit our objects of study to spoken and written texts. We have a claim of fact, followed by a claim of policy: the situation is X; to improve X, we should do Y.
As one might imagine, however, both claims of fact and policy are shot-through with claims of value, and it is those claims with which I shall take issue below. By way of preview, however, I do not necessarily disagree with the claims of policy Porrovecchio advances at the end of his essay (many of which I have also made in print). I mention this only to point out that X does not demand Y.
As for the factual claim (let us term this "claim X"), Porrovecchio has two sub-claims: (a) what "counts" as "spoken and written" discourse has exploded beyond all coherence; and (b) the (or "our") object of study has been eclipsed by "tools and tricks of other areas of inquiry." In other words, the incoherence of rhetorical studies is a consequence of expanding what counts as a written and spoken object, as well as the result of borrowing too heavily from perspectives and approaches to humanistic inquiry that are not our own.
To this end, Porrovecchio makes two moves: first, he identifies three scholars as "opening the door," so to speak, to the proliferation of objects and the importation of foreign perspectives: Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, Celeste Condit, and David Zarefsky. Then, Porrovecchio identifies two scholars of rhetorical studies whose work represents the explosion of the object and the importation of foreign perspectives respectively: Carole Blair and Joshua Gunn. Blair and Gunn's work, he argues, are conspicuous representatives of how rhetorical studies has been led astray, taken away from a center in history and tradition. To restore disciplinary order, Porrovecchio argues that we should: (1) teach the history of the field in our classes; (2) emphasize the continued relevance of spoken and written discourse; and (3) investigate the ways in which contemporary communication technologies provide a continued role for spoken and written discourse.
In short, Porrovecchio argues that rhetorical studies was, and remains, an incoherent discipline because we cannot buckle down and study the "traditional" object of speech and writing, and we have scholars like Blair and Gunn to blame.
At the general level, I would object immediately to the founding premise of Porrovecchio's argument, that rhetorical studies is incoherent. Presumably, coherence is achieved by either a consistency of method or object or both (dictates, of course, of scientism). Having just taught a doctoral seminar on this subject ("The Object"), I would say that no academic field has been made coherent by an object or method in the humanities. Even a cursory examination of what a given field considers its object of study will show widespread disagreement---and it is this disagreement that is constitutive of a discipline. Fields are made coherent only in reference to institutional history, which is why I agree with Porrovecchio that it needs to be taught. I would suggest the solution (the Y) Porrovecchio offers to the condition (the X) is right. The problem, of course, is that he grossly misunderstands---if not willfully mischaracterizes---the condition. Claim X is mistaken. And grossly so.
PORROVECCHIO'S ESSAY: UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL
Now that the broad-strokes have been painted (at least, as best as I can reconstruct them), let's engage Porrovecchio's essay more closely. In the interest of clarity, I shall quote the original essay in italics, so that my commentary is easier to distinguish from that of the essay. Insofar as I think his essay is a product of diss publicity syndrome, what interests me in is not so much the words on the page, but the performance of his argument in relation to those words. The opening epigraphs of the essay get at it quickly:
. . . the questions run too deep for such a simple man./Won't you please, please tell me what you've learned?---"The Logical Song," Supertramp (1979)
See chameleon, lying there in the sun, all things to everyone . . . ---"Run Runaway," Slade (1983) True, some people will publish just about anything if it is mystifying enough, if it deploys the right theorist, politics, or disciplinary agenda. ---"ShitText," Joshua Gunn (2006).
Epigraphs are dependent on enthymematic logic: the reader supplies the punch-line, so to speak. Here, Roger Hodgson's brilliant pop ditty about having the wonder of life beat out of him by the British educational system is referenced (penned when he was a teen, but later recorded with Supertramp), followed by a warning by glam rock royalty Slade (their catalog revamped/recycled for most readers of RoseChron by Quiet Riot), which is then followed by a quote from a letter to an editor written by someone I think I know quite well. Taken collectively, the overriding suggestion is that the author is about to take something to task---and that something is critical/cultural scholarship in rhetorical studies. So the message, of course, is that critical/cultural scholarship is a chimera, a smokescreen, something that kills the wonder of the natural world. The critical/cultural bent in rhetorical studies profanes something more "natural" or "genuine." The glam-rock message is that we need to "run runway" from this.
As much as I adore pop music references, the first two songs credited here are cynical in sentiment---one about education, the other, about certain lovers, and contrast sharply with the quotation from my piece. Presumably the epigraph penned by me is cynical as well, however, that's not "in the original." Here's a fuller context of my epigraph:
You know, scholarly constipation produces pristine scholarship but sometimes lacks a sense of humanity. True, some people will publish just about anything if it is mystifying enough, if it deploys the right theorist, politics, or disciplinary agenda. But as dangerous as taking scholarly risks may sometimes be, communication studies scholars need to be taking them more often, and the disciplined sphincters of our scholarly conversations (editors and reviewers) need to stop pinching-off creative or unusual work as ‘‘shit.’’
In the theme of "gotcha," I might note the phrase "will publish just about anything" is italicized in the original and not in Porrovecchio's epigraph, but we all make mistakes I reckon. Nevertheless, in the actual context of the essay, my remark is far from cynical. The epigraph isolated by Porrovecchio is actually not in the spirit of the song lyrics he cites (apparently approvingly): despite the fact that scholarship is often a theoretical "fashion show," we must nevertheless persist in doing creative scholarship!
The article I penned that Porrovecchio references here is titled "ShitText: Toward and New Coporphilic Style," which was published in the 26th volume of Text and Performance Quarterly in 2006. The essay was not written in the key of rhetorical studies, but rather, performance studies, and more specifically, for a special issue on the topic of the seven deadly sins. The sin explored by the essay was "pride" (and to a lesser extent, "gluttony"). The citation, however, is not from the essay I actually penned, but from a heavily edited cover letter to the editors, which they wanted to publish with my essay (actually, they were more interested in my deliberately indecorous cover letter than the essay itself). Nevertheless, the context stripped from the epigraph is my adoption of a playful persona for an audience that expects and enjoys playfulness. To align this statement with cynicism certainly "misses the boat" or spirit of the piece, and to suggest it is a commentary on rhetorical studies is certainly misguided (it's about scholarship in the humanities in general). The "spirit" is precisely what Porrovecchio is intentionally missing.
These epigraphs set-up the opening section of Porrovecchio's essay, which is titled Caveat Emptor, "Let the Buyer Beware." The "subtle" message of the entitle and epigraphs, of course, is that the forthcoming essay is a warning about the "goods" some folks are "selling" (again, critical/cultural studies). Porrovecchio begins:
There is something unseemly about beginning an argument by admitting defeat. Yet that is what I am forced to do. For you see, my basic position is simple: rhetoric, at its best, conforms to the historical (perhaps a better word would be traditional) dictates of the spoken and written. I realize that position puts me in a bind from which I cannot escape. The last forty years have clearly demonstrated that, contrary to my position, theorists and critics of rhetoric have: (1) expanded the notions of what is spoken and written, and also (2) moved beyond the spoken and written. The details are too obvious. The podium and the page still exert influence on the scholarship of rhetoric in [speech] communication. They do so, however, amidst a crowded field of theorists and critics who would rather turn their attention---indeed their careers and passions---to rhetoric of other varied sorts. So my argument ends where it begins.
Reading this first paragraph, I am reminded of Lysias' speech in Plato's famed dialogue, The Phaedrus. It begins:
Listen. You know how matters stand with me; and how, as I conceive, this affair may be arranged for the advantage of both of us. And I maintain that I ought not to fail in my suit, because I am not your lover: for lovers repent of the kindnesses which they have shown when their passion ceases, but to the non-lovers who are free and not under any compulsion, no time of repentance ever comes; for they confer their benefits according to the measure of their ability, in the way which is most conducive to their own interest.
Socrates criticizes Lysias for a bad introduction: it fails to contextualize the argument or define its key terms, leaping right into an argument with the assumption that the hearer knows what is at stake. Porrovecchio begins by assuming that the reader shares his frame of reference, that we know what is meant by "the spoken and written"---or that the reader might agree rhetorical studies is a "crowded field of theorists and critics" who have abandoned "the written and spoken." At the very least, this address assumes a readership that is not new to rhetorical studies; it implies one that is familiar with some unspoken sentiment. Opening as Porrovecchio has signals an allegiance, perhaps a certain choir. The shared sentiment he assumes is, of course, that rhetorical studies is no longer concerned with "spoken and written discourse." It is only on the basis of this sentiment that Porrovecchio can begin in a defeatist mood: if it is the case that rhetorical studies has abandoned spoken and written discourse, only then can Porrovecchio begin by suggesting his argument will fall on deaf eyes. His concluding statement, "So my argument ends where it begins" implies a inevitable conclusion---which is odd, since none of the sentences mounted here point logically to such a conclusion.
Let us take stock of the titles of current essays featured in the leading journal of rhetorical studies from the speech tradition, The Quarterly Journal of Speech:
Stephen Obeys Gencarella, "Purifying Rhetoric: Empedocles and the Myth of Rhetorical Theory."
Martin J. Medhurst, "George W. Bush at Goree Island: American Slavery and the Rhetoric of Redemption."
Kathleen F. McConnell, "In Appreciation of the Kind of Rhetoric We Learn in School: An Institutional Perspective on the Rhetorical Situation and on Education"
Christa J. Olson, "Performing Embodiable Topoi: Strategic Indigeneity and the Incorporation of Ecuadorian Identity."
Hmm. The first essay concerns Empedocles' possible contribution to the study of rhetoric (oratory); the second concerns a presidential speech; the third takes-up the "rhetorical situation" as developed by Bitzer from an institutional standpoint; and the forth addresses public address in the history of Ecuador. All of these essays seem concerned with history and spoken or written discourse. If these four essays are any measure of rhetorical studies in the speech tradition (and I would wager they are), then Porrovecchio's defeatist attitude seems hastily adopted, or at least hyperbolic. Most charitably, the author begins in the key of polemic.
Porrovecchio continues:
My only hope, then, is to shore up some ground by highlighting "at its best" [the historical/traditional dictates of the spoken and written] and doing so from within the specific parameters of [speech] communication. Even then, that is a curiously antiquated retreat. What acclaim is to be gained by moving back while others move forward?
Aligning himself with a "lost cause" (which has not really been established as "lost"), Porrovecchio announces his "hope": to court acclaim. The author begins by trumpeting what he is about to argue is unpopular and perhaps "antiquarian," but he hopes to recover something that has been neglected. He looks to Barnet Baskerville as his beacon:
Perhaps my pragmatic sympathies are at play when I turn to Barnet Baskerville's 'Responses, Queries, and a Few Caveats' for support. His essay highlights what are, to me, some of the best arguments in support of my case. Baskerville points, first of all, to the odd way in which some have decided to act as if the matter of redefining rhetoric has been settled once and for all. The issue is what necessitated such a shift, and whether or not that shift has placed us in good stead with our interdisciplinary cohorts.
Here we have the announcement of a piety---"my pragmatic sympathies," "my case," and so forth. Allegiance to a particular perspective or way of thinking is fore grounded as more important to a secondary observation, that "some have decided to act as if the matter of redefining rhetoric" is a done deal. I see no evidence of anyone "acting" this way in The Prospect of Rhetoric, if only because the charge of the two conferences was to define the scope or rhetoric for the times.
Porrovecchio continues:
Baskerville posits that this desire to redefine is based on the anxieties (his term) of those who do their work in [speech] communication. In the place of quaint suggestions about adjusting ideas to people (and vice versa), or adapting discourse to its end (with a fair amount of latitude), scholars and critics have instead turned to an unwieldy assortment of, at times contradictory and occasional opaque, definitions. Baskerville also hints at some of the ways in which our accumulated history might resolve our anxieties. These suggestions would, I admit, re(s)train our focus in [speech] communication. Again, I realize I am not going to win. So I only ask to be given a fair hearing.
In short, what Baskerville said in 1971 is still relevant to us today, as we are still goaded by anxiety to appropriate an "unwieldy assortment" of definitions of rhetorical stuff from other fields. What is curious in this introduction, however, is Porrovecchio's repeated admission of "defeat"---casting his argument in war metaphors and, more specifically, in the rhetoric of the lost cause.
Porrovecchio seems to be staging a civil war.
Now, how the embrace of a "lost cause" thematic escapes "anxiety" is unclear to me (anxiety, by definition, is about a lost cause---or at least an elusive one). And again, I would disagree with the fundamental assumptions of this opening gambit: that stabilizing an "object" would somehow stabilize rhetorical studies---or that somewhere back in disciplinary history we "had it" and "lost it" (whatever "it" is). Such an introduction reminds me of Kanye West at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2009: "Now Taylor, I'm, I'm really happy for you, I'm let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time . . . . "
After this strangely defeatist introduction, Porrovecchio launches into his "set-up," with an occasional reference to Barnet Baskerville's writing: "Case Closed and Wide Open." Here he notes that Baskerville diagnoses his colleagues in 1971 with an inferiority complex, and then observes:
It seems to me that our anxiety [in rhetorical studies] has not decreased as we have moved further into the profitable realms of interdisciplinarity. Every so often, learned members of our guild pick up their sabers and do battle over whether or not it is to be big or small rhetoric, rhetoric as uniquely practiced within [speech] communication or rhetoric as a variegated bloom of multidiscipline hybridity. The arguments often devolve into pettiness and then, as if on cue, into silence. The work continues to be done.
Notably, such assertions go without references. Nevertheless, the assumptions made in these statements are worth underscoring: discussions about the scope and place of rhetorical studies are "wars" or "battles"; interdisciplinary work is conducted for "profit" or "gain" (as opposed to, say, intellectual pursuit, curiosity, insight, and so forth); and discussions about the place of rhetoric in the academy or in respect to the public "at large" are pointless. It's a rather Hobbesian view of the discipline---and one that does not resonate with my experience at conferences, nor with what I read on the pages of "our" journals. Much effort is made by the author to stage a fight, both in his choice of metaphor and in his sweeping generalizations that---to modify Sly Stone's response to Marvin Gaye---"a war is goin' on."
Although I would very much agree that academic dispute is often "petty," at the same time, I suggest that arguments about a field's scope and object are constitutive of all academic disciplines. That is to say, disagreements and discussions about "what is it that we do?" constitute a given field. This blogged response to Porrovecchio is part of this kind of discourse. Porrovecchio seems to suggest rhetorical studies is unique in its disagreements about object and limit, but such a suggestion really betrays an ignorance of the history of higher education in the United States, as well as that of other academic disciplines---hell, even of Plato.
Having supposedly established, via Baskerville, that rhetorical scholars were (and are) anxious, Porrovecchio moves on to suggest the dominant response to this anxiety has been a celebration of "unity" in "diversity or vigor" (155). He isolates a special symposium on "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Rhetorical Criticism" in a 2006 issue of Rhetoric Review as the contemporary exemplar.
Edited by Richard Enos, for Porrovecchio the special issue seems to celebrate diversity of object and method as evidence of a strong and robust discipline. Whereas he cites Enos' introduction and Richard Jensen's essay on social movement rhetoric approvingly for wanting to preserve the best insights of the past, Porrovecchio takes issue with the perspectives of Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, Celeste Condit, and David Zarefsky. He believes they betray our forebears by celebrating interdisciplinary approaches and defining rhetoric too broadly. For example,
Karlyn Campbell . . . seems conflicted in setting forth her three principles [of what? Porrovecchio never explains]. She sagely notes that rhetoric is a contextual thing, as varied as the cultures in which it is found. She also, and this seems in keeping with Enos's introduction, explains that "the study of rhetoric is the study of language, how language shapes perception, recognition, interpretation, and response." Again, this is a valuable truth. But how then to read these principles against her first one: "Rhetoric is ubiquitous. Never ask if there is rhetoric; where there is culture and language, there is rhetoric. The challenge is to discover its cultural forms and functions." The claim of ubiquity is, I fear, a hangover from the confusion that animated the conferences leading up to The Prospect, a desire---contra Baskerville and others---to do away with boundaries in favor of open and enveloping fields ripe with academic purchase and promise.
The implication here is that one of the most venerated---and I can say without question, most intelligent and insightful---theorists and critics of rhetorical studies was somehow befogged when she wrote her essay. The charge here is that Campbell is confused and contradicts herself. Let us examine the claims of Campbell that Porrovecchio suggests are contradictory:
1. Rhetoric is contextual and best defined in culturally dependent terms.
2. Rhetoric concerns the way in which language influences thinking and responding.
3. Rhetoric is ubiquitous because it can be found wherever language and culture exist.
Now, Porrovecchio is suggesting number three contradicts one and two. I cannot, however, discern how these three claims are incompatible. To say that rhetoric can be discerned anywhere language is used is not inconsistent with saying rhetoric is better understood in its cultural context, or that rhetoric involves how people perceive and respond to the world. Porrovecchio claims these statements are "confused," presumably at the level of definition, implying an error in reasoning. His conclusion, however, implicates his problem is actually one of value: Campbell would "do away with boundaries in favor of open and enveloping symbolic fields ripe with academic purchase and promise." Campbell's confusion, in other words, is that she would sell-out the home team for the insights of other disciplines because they are more profitable. To whom it is not clear, nor is the meaning of "profit."
I confess I'm not sure what "open and enveloping symbolic fields" are; they sound maternally lysergic (sign me up!).
To call Karlyn Kohrs Campbell on the carpet for abandoning "tradition" or "history" is not simply baffling, it's downright stupid. I mean "stupid" here both in the "what?" and in the traditional sense: "lacking intelligence or common sense." Professor Campbell is primarily known for her work analyzing the public speaking of historically prominent women and presidents. Perhaps Porrovecchio means to indict her (almost single-handed) introduction of the ripe field of feminism and women's studies to rhetorical studies? His penchant for the pugnacious and "conservative" suggests this might indeed be the case, but we don't know for sure. It's never made clear.
Porrovecchio continues by arguing Celeste Condit bests Campbell's preference for "wide open spaces" in rhetoric because she argues for an expansion of what counts as "language." The Mac-Daddy of disciplinary betrayal, however, is none other than David Zarefsky, who "represents the post-symbolic, posttexual push that makes rhetoric disappear into the ether . . . " (157). Porrovecchio cites a passage from Zarefsky in which the respected scholar suggests that the stability of "the text" is dubious and that "rhetorical criticism" denotes a particular approach to "anything resembling a text." Porrovecchio objects that such liberal interpretations of what does and does not count as "rhetoric" are "too charitable" and are born of a herd mentality, of wanting to play nice:
If anything is subject to rhetorical criticism, then it begs the question as to what can and cannot be considered a rhetorical conceptual foundation. This open-endedness is, I augur, the result of reading too much into too many things. But it is also a result of being too charitable---in print, if not in person or private---regarding our peers' work. (157)
Porrovecchio "augurs," but alas the verb is misused; usually an inhuman object or event "augurs" a future outcome (that is, "portends"---here, Porrovecchio uses the term to diagnose, not predict). Nevertheless, Porrovecchio seems to be saying that the liberal interpretations of what "counts" as rhetoric or rhetorical criticism are really motivated by social mandates: Campbell, Condit, and Zarefsky are willing to go "big tent" with rhetoric because they want to "play nice." These scholars are not thoughtful or wise; they are, rather, playing an academic game for the sake of academic respectability and "profit." "Championing our diversity as a sign that we are healthy is fraught with problems," augurs Porrovecchio (I think he means the term "avers"). "If each and every practitioner can claim to be doing just fine while engaging in projects that contradict one another, then the term rhetoric is simply code for doing whatever makes you feel good."
Of course, Porrovecchio sneaks in an unsupported claim here in this "if/then" logic: that rhetorical scholars engage "in projects that contradict one another." What projects does he have in mind? And how do they "contradict?" What is the nature of this contradiction? There are no answers to such questions, just assertions in the abstract. I suppose we might imagine that Campbell's work with Stanton, Condit's research on the rhetoric of inquiry/science, and Zarfesky's interests in the oratory of LBJ and Lincoln, are what Porrovecchio has in mind---but even so, he never makes the case. One wonders if professor Porrovecchio has read the work in our shared field; but even if he has, his set-up for the next section---"High Ground and Low Art"---indicates that having a working understanding of widely read scholarship rhetorical studies is beside the point, because he admits he is deliberately hasty in his generalizing:
I recognized these sorts of generalizations will not stand. But it does pay to recall Baskerville's observation that "'traditional' has become an opprobrious term. The old ways will no longer do." While I hesitate to suggest that the authors about to be discussed mean to be abusive or scornful of traditional approaches to the theory and criticism of rhetoric, especially as it relates to [speech] communication, there are nonetheless, explicit signs of dismissal.
The "contradictory" work Porrovecchio has in mind, of course, is that of yours truly and Carole Blair. Campbell, Condit, and Zarefsky are held out as the diplomats that made my and Carole's work possible, and our work is---by virtue of its existence---an affront to "the old ways" or "tradition." To this point in the essay, however, the reader has yet to be told what "the old ways" of which Baskerville spoke consist. Nor has Porrovecchio devoted as much as a sentence to defining what he considers "tradition" to be. So far, we have been told the "old ways" concern spoken and written discourse (although, I should note, Baskerville---like Hunt---were particularly wedded to oratory; how the "written" gets written into the tradition by Porrovecchio is dubious, if not a contradiction itself). Porrovecchio assumes the reader "gets" where he is coming from, which is less of an intellectual position and more of a disposition or affective conviction. In popular parlance, we would describe this disposition as "conservative." What seems to be at stake is less an intellectually rigorous set of principled observations about what rhetoric is, and more an emotion-centered conviction about what rhetoric is not. The homology between his argument from conviction and the contemporary Tea Party movement is obvious: referencing a coherent past that never was, Porrovecchio wants to argue for "taking back our discipline" (from whom? David Zarefsky?).
Again, Porrovecchio notes that in my and Carole's work there are "explicit signs of dismissal" [of tradition]. He continues:
This points, of course, to the fact that there are at least two schools of fetish:
What a minute. "This" is not a clear referent. Presumably, by "this" Porrovecchio means my and Carole's "explicit signs" of dismissing "tradition." Notwithstanding that such a claim has not been established, nor that what is meant by "tradition" is clear, he continues that our dismissals "of course" (that is, obviously) index a "fact" that there are "two schools of fetish." Let us pause and marvel at his logical prowess: a yet-to-be-established observation makes obvious a "fact." Huh. So what is this fact?
. . . there are at least two schools of fetish: the old and the new. While I will freely admit of a dalliance (or two) with the former, I wonder if the authors below will admit to the same with the latter. What specific reasons do they offer for moving beyond a more traditional orientation to what is meant by spoken and written discourse?
What does Porrovecchio mean here by "fetish?" Traditionally understood, a fetish concerns the attribution of magical powers to objects that do not, in or of themselves, have magical powers. So, to what "old" and "new" does he refer? And do we agree that scholars of rhetoric attribute magical powers to these? Such a statement, while poorly written, seems to stage a "battle": Porrovecchio aligns himself with a "traditional orientation," which he "fetishizes," while Blair and Gunn are . . . what? Fetishists of the "new"?
It is probably obvious to most readers that what we have here is bad writing and fallacious argumentation, a Fox News brand of scholarship. Before a case is made, Porrovecchio is offering conclusions---which I suspect makes reading his essay, even for those who are not invested, something of a cringe-fest. The reasoning here is fodder for teaching fallacious argument, too: without evidence, Porrovecchio claims Blair and Gunn make statements that are explicitly dismissive of "tradition," however, what "tradition" is has not yet been defined or discussed. Then, presuming we are against "tradition," he asks rhetorically, "what reasons do they offer for moving beyond a more traditional orientation . . . . ?" One wonders how such writing made it through a peer review process. The reasoning here reads like a dialogue in the author's head with cardboard figures . . . .
Oh, wait a minute. Porrovecchio was the editor of the volume in which his essay appears. Presumably, then, the press had blind reviewers. One wonders who they were.
Just before launching into his (personal) attacks, Porrovecchio stages the set-up:
[Blair and Gunn] do offer reasons, often complex ones, for their orientations. Yet I would posit they have nothing to do with the limits of traditional approaches. They have to do with anxiety. Limitations can lead to refinement. They can also lead to rebellion. Some scholars within [speech] communication, anxious to shed our inhibitions, first reached out to nondiscursive artifacts, modifying the traditional by way of novel interpretations. More recently, scholars have decided to jump back and forth amidst the porous interdisciplinary boundaries of rhetoric, claiming [speech] communication as their base while trafficking in the tools and tricks of other areas of inquiry. That first tendency blurs the line between what is rhetorical and what is rhetoric. The second runs the risk of turning rhetoric into a Trojan horse whereby different interests (and, yes, agendas) gain traction under an established educational awning. It is best to now deal with both of these tendencies in some detail.
This is a straw-person argument based on an "if/then" logic for which the "if" is radically unstable. The condition of "if" is that Blair and I find "traditional" approaches to rhetoric "limiting." Both Carole and I see ourselves as working within a certain "[speech] communication" tradition, so it doesn't make sense that we would find our tradition limiting, but rather, encouraging what it is we do and argue. I suppose Porrovecchio would argue that my and Carole's understanding of the speech tradition is "revisionist" and inaccurate, so the "if" would stand with him on the right side of historical understanding. While I cannot speak to Carole's position on "tradition," I do think we come at our critical work from a similar perspective: like our forebears, we're interested in explaining how objects of culture have persuasive effects on people. What is "different" in our work from that of, say, the speech tradition in the early-to-mid twentieth century is a focus on embodied experience (affect)---but even then, there was a very strong interest in precisely this dimension of persuasion in the early field ("speech," first and foremost, was understood as bodily). It would seem, then, that Porrovecchio really understands the "traditional" focus of rhetorical studies to be on written texts---texts that absent the body-in-feeling. If that is the case (and there's no way to tell from the essay), then Porrovecchio's understanding of "tradition" is rather revisionist itself.
The next section of the essay is a critique of Carole Blair's scholarship titled "Grin and Blair It," which rather smugly suggests her work is a test of one's endurance. After summarizing Blair's essay with Marsha S. Jeppson and Enrico Pucci, Jr. on the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington DC, Porroveechio charges them with advancing a "self-excepting fallacy." Why? Well, it's never quite clear. Porrovecchio launches his criticism by noting Blair et al's contrast between modern and postmodern architecture, the latter championing "function" over style in an effort to provide those experiencing it with a variety of interpretive perspectives and choices.
the contention that modernist architecture stressed function seems to support a relative, socially constructed choice: the goals of style and form are merely made secondary in this instance. If we are to honor the diversity of critical (and, one could add, architectural choices), what good is there in an absolute and paradoxical stance on relativism?"
Now, this quotation would seem to be missing a context---it assumes a lot. But it is just poorly written. The rhetorical question implies another "if/then" argument: if postmodern monumentalism disavows or undermines clarity of intention, then what point is there in taking an "absolutist" stance on this? Porrovecchio seems to be suggesting that, by arguing postmodern public monuments invite a variety of interpretations from those experiencing them, Blair, Jeppson, and Pucci undermine their authority as critics insofar as their mandate as critics is to judge---to say that postmodern monuments offer a variety of interpretive choices. Again, this is a "gotcha" criticism that seems to be making no other point than "gotcha"---except, of course, Blair et al aren't really "got."
Porrovecchio continues by arguing that the "postmodern" critique of a "authorship" is also problematic:
. . . although the authors/creators [of monuments] hold no sway as legitimate sources of judgment, the text comes to embody the self-same powers that the authors dismissed earlier. The authors argue that 'conflicting claims are legitimized by the symbolic gestures of the Memorial.' But note the localized function of the disorder the authors discuss: it occurs within the shifting scope of the text. As such, theory folds in on itself and comes to contain all the necessary ingredients for discussion . . . .
What "self-same powers" the author claims Blair et al. "dismissed earlier" is not clear, and his summary of the arguments he critiques is much more vague and abstract than in the original. Regardless, I think Porrovecchio misses the boat because he rejects the starting premise of their essay: there is no "transcendental signified" here; it's not that judgments or choices are not made about these monuments, but rather, that the "ground" for both is contingent, changing, and particular to each person experiencing the monument. What Blair and her colleagues are describing is that the way in which the veterans memorial works "rhetorically" cannot be explained by an author-centered model; it has suasive effects, but those effects are created by an ever-shifting constellation of agency that displaces the "actor" to an apparatus or complex of people and symbolism. Porrovecchio desperately wants to locate some sort of stability in a person, which of course is what Blair and her co-authors are arguing the monument challenges (that is, the postmodern inversion is that symbolicity is more in control of us then we are of it). Porrovecchio's difficulty with this essay is rather simple: he has never read---or refuses to think about--- poststructural arguments. His real problem comes out in what appears to be a throw-away comment about "the nightmare":
Those important elements [forms of discursive influence not discernable with "traditional criticism"] seem to be the suggestive, if tentative, observations of critics wiling to commit to a judgment based on their discretion. Those very same elements provide no safeguard---really, a nightmare world of rationality and autonomy that some critics seem bent on bashing---against error in matters of theory and criticism. But they also don't suggest that the power of rhetoric extends beyond the frail control of human hands" (161)
The accusation here is that Blair, Jeppson, and Pucci get to argue anything they wish because they have done away with a referential basis of truth---as well as reason and the transcendental subject. The problem with these authors for Porrovecchio is that they no longer subscribe to an understanding of rhetoric as centered in a rational man crafting an intended message. He snidely suggests that the "world of rationality and autonomy" is characterized by "some critics" as a "nightmare," but there's no basis for saying so. Blair, Jeppson, and Pucci never say that that there is no "autonomy" or "rationality," nor that either concept is outmoded. Rather, they argue that the rational man speaking well just doesn’t help to make sense of the memorial, and that certain poststructural theories do. Porrovecchio suggests that Zarefsky and others are guilty of "reading too much into too many things," however, such a diagnosis seems to be his own critical protocol.
So, for example, he next turns to Blair and Michel's reading of Mount Rushmore. "I make no claim to Borglum's (the creator) rationality . . . . But I do question, yet again, the suggestion that a pile of finely crafted rocks can create rhetoric" (162). After a paragraph summary of this rather long essay, Porrovecchio concludes it results in "an engaging literature review-cum-cultural study to further establish that rhetorical entities are themselves capable of producing rhetoric." Now, the critique doesn't extend beyond such observations; apparently the unspoken upshot is supposed to be a kind of incredulity: "What? Do they really argue rocks make rhetoric? Ridiculous!" Of course, Blair and Michel do not argue this; rather, they only point out that the symbolic is alive (like, oh, Frankenstein's monster, in a sense)---that Mount Rushmore is a complicated rhetorical site that no one person (or group of people) can control. To suggest that this rather complicated analysis reduces to "rocks make rhetoric" is not only a misreading; it's rather nasty.
Porro-what's-his-name (I tire of typing it, with a hat-tip to Mirko) then cleverly moves to his attack of "Gunn" (not "Gunn's work") under the entitle, "I Don't Need a Gunn." Yes, I remember fifth grade taunts on the playground, and fifth grade humor is fun, but really? Even "Shooting Blanks" or some play on Gatlin would have been a better fun-poking. He begins:
My point regarding Gunn is different from my point with Blair's and her coauthors' positions [Note: Gunn is not afforded a position; Gunn the persona is the target]. Gunn favors readers with a wealth of wonder: humor, irony, a certain ease of exposition when discussing complex ideas related to psychoanalytical theory. [Note: why the extra syllable? The word is "psychoanalytic," not "psychoanalytical; someone has not done his reading.] I don't suspect Gunn to be trafficking in rhetoric all the while suggesting a discussion that is rhetorical. What I question is the tone of his discourse and the necessity of using rhetoric to animate it. He can conjure with the bset of them, so why add extraneous notions to his positions?
Argumentatively, we have the Lysias syndrome again: before the case is set-out, it's already made. Gunn claims rhetoric, but he is not doing rhetorical studies. But for such a claim to make any sense, the reader must be familiar with who Gunn is and the character of his work. I suppose, since, uh, I'm the Gunn of which he speaks, this should be flattering. But really, it's just sort of sad because it's so badly written---if only because this is the kind of conclusion that requires at least a couple of examples (some evidence). The examples will come, but one should note that none of them ever address this claim ( that Gunn does not "do rhetoric").
The introductory paragraph does not end here, however, because it gets nastier. So, why does Gunn evoke the term "rhetoric" when what he does is not really rhetorical studies?
My suspicion is that he has found, after much toil and trouble, a safe harbor in [speech] communication. As such, Gunn engages in the time-tested and near universal strategy of theoretical alignment. [Note: LOL projection phrase . . . is this tongue-in-cheek or earnest? I worry the latter.] By advancing an accepted argument promulgated by accepted scholars, one can then extend the range of their reach by adding a personal touch or two. This enables Gunn to play more and more the provocateur in discussions where his thesis is less and less risqué. If the reach of his theorizing is acceptable enough (leaving aside Baskerville's question about the need for more rhetorical critics), then the critical extensions are less prone to change. A captive audience is, after all, bound to listen.
First, what does this last line mean? "A captive audience is, after all, bound to listen. I can't make sense of it semantically at all, but if I turn to the affective gesture of the phrase, Porro-what's-his-name seems to be suggesting that Gunn's derivative style is somehow spellbinding. (righteous!) Usually, however, when you accuse someone of being derivative or of merely hocking someone else's wares you don't mean to suggest she is mesmerizing---unless you mean to suggest she is deceitful. Porro-what's-his-name immediately moves to a discussion of my "self-effacingly" confessional essay on publication in 2003, which suggests that deception is the subtextual charge here.
So, reading the subtext, let's summarize Porrovecchio's introduction to his critique: Gunn is a charlatan for two reasons: (1) he claims to be doing rhetoric, but he only does so because "[speech] communication" tolerates his presence; and (2) his presence is tolerated because he advances the widely accepted arguments of respected others dressed up in "humor, irony, and a certain ease of exposition." Blair and her coauthors are misguided because they expand the object domain of rhetoric too far; Gunn, however, is an outright fraud.
It takes a little of my "ease of exposition" skill here to clean up the muddy writing in order to see the mud that is actually thrown. There are two observations to be made about Porrovecchio's style of argument. First, such a series of claims demand evidence; if my work is the status quo, then as a debate guy Porrovecchio should know he has the burden of proof. Now, for the first claim, Porro-what's-his-name needs to demonstrate a place in which I make a claim about rhetoric, and then show how the term "rhetoric" is unnecessary. If I'm "not doing rhetoric," then the reader needs to be shown where the slight of hand occurs. The second claim is that my work reduces to riding on an accepted argument of someone else, then adding a "personal touch or too." This, I think, isn't a difficult task with a number of my essays (it is, after all, a "near universal strategy"). Lets see, however, if evidence for either claim is ever offered (to play like he does, I'll let the cat out of the bag: he doesn't).
The second observation about styles of argument, however, has to do with professional responsibility. Targeting someone's work or position as problematic is one thing (this is what we do for a living in scholarship much of the time). Targeting someone's person, "the emperor has no clothing!" is quite another. In some academic circles, calling someone a fraud is a rather serious charge (Zizek has been attacked this way repeatedly, but has usually been invited to respond when it is done). I think Porrovecchio's muddled word-work is designed to mask the ad hominem character of what he's actually saying. Here's my point: this kind of essay would never make it through peer review. Were this an essay published in a journal, he would have been directed to focus the ire on the work. That this essay appeared in a book edited by its author should be underscored.
Lest y'all think I'm just overly sensitive here, let's now look at what he actually proceeds to "argue." Again, we have the Lysias problem of assuming the general reader is familiar with the work he is critiquing:
In 2003, Gunn self-effacingly described himself as a "scholarly adolescent" so as to introduce a sort of confessional discussion. That he chose to speak of what is, I know, a common experience is not strange. Nor is his choice to publish a particularly wicked rejection letter, amongst [among?] several lesser ones, to bolster his case particularly novel. Yet his willingness to apologize for misdirecting his ire (he thought it was Associate Editor Lauren Alleyne of the journal Telos who penned the poison, but came to find out it was Senior Editor Paul Piccone) in print and on his blog speaks to his willingness to engage in dialogue.
Ok, I know what Porro-what's-his-name is writing about---but do you? Does the general reader of his book? I chose to wrote about the politics of peer review---but Porrovecchio never explains this is the topic. Worse, does this paragraph make a point or claim? Presumably, the claim is that I am willing to engage in dialogue. Buried in here, however, is a dig that I was "trigger happy" in my essay---that I made a gaff (he makes these little digs routinely). Still, it's not clear how this aside about my willingness to "dialogue" and misfire supports the argument that I don't do rhetorical studies and captivate readers by dressing up the widely accepted positions of other, more respected scholars.
Perro-what's-his-name is referring to an essay I was invited to write for a special issue of Communication Studies in answer to the question, "what constitutes publishable rhetorical scholarship?" I was asked to contribute an essay from the position or perspective of a graduate student or early assistant professor (the rest of the contributors were established scholars). So, from the onset, Porrovecchio provides no context. He also gives the reader no sense of what he's actually referring to with my "apology." In my essay, I publish parts of a very nasty rejection letter sent to me by a Telos editor, and it was signed "Lauren Alleyne." Years later, Lauren emailed me to report that she didn't actually write the letter, that Paul Piccone actually wrote the letter---and she never saw it. After Paul died, she discovered he had maliciously wrote the letter and put her name on it, and only in retrospect did she remember that he said one day, "you just wrote a nasty letter" . . . She emailed to apologize to me, but also to explain she didn't do it. I asked the editor of CS to print my apology to Lauren (who agreed it was a good idea). The lawyers of the publisher requested that we not mention Paul or explain the situation, so . . . we couldn't, and didn't.
What's my point? My point is that Perro-what's-his-name is suggesting I was somehow disingenuous in print, when the fact of the matter is that Lauren and I were "played"---and maliciously---by Piccone (as graduate students, mind you). What's even more telling is that Porrovecchio mentions having read my blog about the incident. Here it is. Porrovecchio knows the "whole story," but omits the details supplied in my blog on the incident in order to suggest "misdirecting [my] ire" is a moral or scholarly shortcoming. Again, I can't decide if this is playing "dirty" or just plain stupid.
Porro-what's-his-name continues his critique by riffing on a comment I make in the CS essay: to be playful in one's writing makes you a target.
For while Gunn can recognize the existence of coding which [sic] would label him 'postmodern' only to do injustice to his aims, he is also able to adopt the countercoding which [sic: apparently we're British] would describe those who aren't particularly playful or liberal in orientation as outside what would constitute productive theoretical and critical practice. This isn't to suggest an error or even a problem per se. [er, so why linger?] The issue I wish to focus on is how Gunn's blending of the confessional and personal---his experience is symptomatic of recognized experiences within the discipline---with the theoretical and critical---these tendencies which I have experienced entail dispositions that we should avoid---creates quite a jumble. [no less a jumble than this last sentence!] Is Gunn right to question the boundaries of our disciplinary commitments? Of course he is. Is he to be praised for exposing some of the less agreeable approaches to academic practice? No less the same. But to what extent can we take his lived experience as sufficient grounds for mounting a wholesale refutation?
This last series of questions is problematic, since they sneak-in a series of claims that have been neither established nor argued: (a) Gunn questions the boundaries of disciplinary commitment; and (b) Gunn uses his lived experience to mount a "wholesale refutation" of [what? the discipline?].
Of course, the essay about rhetorical criticism that I published was in response to an editor who asked me (at a conference bar) to reflect on my experience as a beginning scholar to help make sense of publishing in rhetorical studies! As the editor details in his introduction to the special issue, he is a social scientist and found himself befuddled by the "blind reviews" he was getting for rhetorical articles in the journal. So he asked a series of folks to help him make sense of it. In fact, all of the essays in this special issue were "confessional" in tone. Admittedly, my contribution was more bold in taking the charge at its word, and mine was the only one to publish parts of rejection letters. Nevertheless, Porrovecchio's suggestion that combining personal reflection (or "confession") and theoretical argument should be avoided overlooks that this was the charge from the editor and the character of the special issue (indeed, the editor's introduction begins with the confession his fingers are nervously poised on the keyboard). And I suppose I should point out Baskerville's essay, presumably the inspiration of Porro-what's-his-name's critique, is written in a personal-reflective mode.
Regardless of the gotcha, the claims in Porrovecchio's rhetorical questions also presume the reader knows the argument that I advance in the essay. Curiously, he never sketches the argument. So, let me: My argument was that "what makes for publishable rhetorical scholarship" is not written down, but embodied and dispositional. One learns how to publish in our field by "feeling it out," so to speak, and "feeling it out" is done by working-through peer reviewer letters. I make recourse to Bordieu's notion of the habitus, and show how each blind reviewer often reviews from a habitus that cannot be explained with words alone---feelings guide the process. If pointing this out is challenging the "boundaries of disciplinary commitment," ok. Even so, my arguing that the standards of worthy scholarship are embodied and dispositional hardly constitutes a "wholesale refutation" of rhetorical studies.
So, in these first three paragraphs that critique an early essay I wrote, here's the argumentative flow: Gunn is a charlatan because he claims to do rhetoric when he does not, and because he advances already accepted positions by respected others, which he dresses up. This spellbinds readers into taking him seriously. Then, non sequitur one: He misdirected anger in print to a person who didn't deserve it, but his he is willing to engage in dialogue. Next, non sequitur two: He blends confessional with "the theoretical and critical" to mount a "wholesale refutation" of [lets go with this] the rhetorical tradition.
Is this an argument?
Porro-what's-his-name continues by answering his last question: "But to what extent can we take [Gunn's] lived experience as sufficient grounds for mounting a wholesale refutation?" He answers:
It is a refutation by way of historical revision/reclamation. Central to this retelling is demonstrating that disciplinary practice has rested on an unstable humanist foundation. As Gunn notes later in the same year, "the imagination connotes a lack of control or the absence of individual agency, which has been a fundamental concept in U.S. rhetorical theory." The path has already been detailed by other scholars. His telling is no less intricate. He traces out three paradigms in the theoretical development of imagination, noting how they coincide with developments within the disciplinary approach to rhetoric.
The movement here is rather convenient, and weird. I wish my scholarship was as programmatic here as Porrovecchio suggests. The logic of the transition is that my "confessional" evidence of the peer review experience is linked somehow to my critique of humanism. I reckon that is true, at some level, but how that is so is not clear. My problem with his writing is not so much that he is "wrong," but rather that he doesn't take the space to explain to those readers unfamiliar with my work how this is the case. My beef is that this attack has no interest in---or respect for---"the audience."
To explain: presumably, Porrovecchio is suggesting that my observations about how the peer review process is "embodied" are directly related to my arguments about how concept of "imagination" in rhetorical studies unseats a commitment to individual autonomy. With about five contorted moves I can explain how this is the case, and I confess it's an interesting point from a navel-gazing perspective, but Porrovecchio doesn't even bother to elaborate. And why? Because what Porro-what's-his-name is really intent on saying is that I'm derivative: that I piggy-back Richard Kearney is his point. Yup, I do, and say so: in my essay I use Kearney's history of the concept of the imagination and show how this history helps to make sense of rhetorical studies' grappling with he concept of "the imagination." Kearney is brilliant, and he helps us (me) make sense of some of the impasses in our own theory. I reckon the critique here is that I bring this Irish-American philosopher into rhetorical studies? Is his problem that Kearney's critical observations about philosophers are improperly applied to rhetorical theorists? That Kearney's observations should have been arrived independently by my own noggin?
The charge is rather silly. I draw on Kearney's conceptual history of the concept of the imagination to show how the notion of the imagination in rhetorical studies by-passes the category of the unconscious (a point that I don't take from Kearney---I cannot imagine the dude has ever read work in our field). My argument is simply that rhetorical studies' anxiety about the unconscious caused us to overlook the intimate relationship between "fantasy" and "ideology"; if the unconscious had been taken seriously in the 1970s, ideological criticism would have arrived much earlier than it did in "our field." Yet Porrovecchio is lodged at the level of disciplinary integrity, not the concept. He seems obsessed less with intellectual development and more with the fact that I (and others) consult thinkers "outside of the field." "The tone is, for the most part, cordial," he says. This throw-away is telling, however, because it indicates that Porro-what's-his-name is concerned with the style of argument, not so much with what I am arguing. "Gunn does not want to reduce criticism to ether interior or exterior concerns; rather, he wants to productively engage both," continues Porrovecchio. Of course, he doesn't explain what is meant by "interior" or "exterior," here---assuming that the reader of his essay is familiar with my reference and discussion of a sadly, little read essay by my friend Thomas Frentz.
At this moment Porrovecchio passes over, rather quickly, a rather massive theoretical impasse in the material in question, and the principal issue of the theoretical humanities today: what is the relationship between the individual and the collective, between the individual and structure. Cast alternately as the problem of "mediation" or the place of "articulation," this reference to the "interior" and "exterior" is a pretty big deal. That, however, is not the concern of Porrovecchio. Rather, his concern is to how my "program" to dismantle the humanist subject is somehow a betrayal of "the tradition":
The resulting program is . . . always and everywhere tied to 'the critique of the humanist subject.' That his has become a sort of Straw Man is not my point. [Again, so why mention that it is a Straw Man in passing? So that you do not have to prove it, of course.] In trying to apply Gunn's observations, however, we quickly run up against problems. If those who are criticized admit of the contingent and provisional nature of rhetoric, it would seem much of the heft in Gunn's observations disappears. If those who are criticized question the ends and aims to which Gunn's theorizing is being directed, they are then likely to be labeled as traditional (the counterpart to being called, I guess, a postmodernist). For a theoretical approach predicated on being more open and inclusive, it seems to suffer from some of the same defects it hopes to dismantle: a suspicion of (an)other viewpoint, a willingness to break down the world into rigid binaries, and language which [sic] creates divides of the sort that make merging theory and practice difficult.
Again, we are faced with some sloppy argumentation here. What "observations" of Gunn's are we to "apply?" I have many observations (e.g., I observe that people don't use their turn signals in Texas)---which does Porrovecchio have in mind? The basic argument that I advance in this essay is that the concept of the "imaginary" may be a middle concept, the place where collectivity and structure and the individual meet-up. I still believe the "imaginary," whether that of Lacan, Castoriadis, or Taylor, is a conception of social being that has a lot to offer us. But, of course, Porrovecchio is not interested in my actual argument. He wants to suggest that I dismiss "the tradition" in favor of "the postmodern." Strangely, in this essay that's precisely what I argue we should not do---and I needn't count the litany of times I've argued "postmodern" is too much used when "posthumanist" is meant.
Let's look at, again, the argument offered in Porrovecchio's summation: (1) "If those who are criticized" say that rhetoric is "contingent," then (2) the "heft" of "Gunn's observations" disappears. Ok, but: who are those criticized? And what are the observations in question? That the concept of the "imaginary" can articulate the individual and the collective? The claims ooze about on the surface, but when you go to pick them up ya can't get no traction. The second if-then follows: (1) "If those who are criticized question the ends and aims" of my thinking, then (2) "they are likely to be labeled as traditional." That is, if you do not agree with my argument, then you are a traditional fuddy-duddy. But where, exactly, do I say this? I confess my primary theoretical habit has been to show how the assumed "tradition" actually recommends poststructural observations---how the two can work together---so it's difficult for me to agree that I am othering "those who are criticized." I wish I knew who these folks were---Baskerville and Porrovecchio? The arguments are rather vague and at the level of insinuation, but when one presses for the specifics, there's nothing to pick-up.
The staggered flow of Porrovecchio's attack then jerks another way:
Gunn's more recent theoretical discussion is no more helpful. But what does it add to his project of dismantling the humanist subject? He opens his "ShitText" with a jest: "I defected from rhetoric to announce I am now a performance scholar/practitioner." Surely this is an audience specific joke . . . .
Um, it is. The essay was published in Text and Performance Quarterly. The audience of that journal often has a suspicion of the r-word---they are suspicious of rhetoricians. It's a joke making light of that fact. Yet what Porrovecchio decides to deliberately do is cite a couple of places in which I compare "shit" to "risk-taking" in scholarship and then say:
Some will posit that this is just "argument by quotation," with his comments taken out of context and bent to suit my own present needs. I must object and extend this analysis.
Is citing a series of quotations "analysis?" Or is objecting to what he is doing---citing out of context---a snide smokescreen? He tries to explain:
For a pattern of It isn't.
Ah-ha! "This sort of discussion" appears to be the "it" in question. Earlier Porrovecchio referenced tone, and so, it would appear that, again, the issue here is one of style. Porrovecchio objects less to my argument, and more to the way I like to argue. This is fine, but we have strayed from what I thought was the original argument, that I am a charlatan, and by extension, that my critique of the humanist subject is misguided. Now, it appears, it's the way I make my critique that is at issue. If we understand that Porrovecchio is conflating argumentative style and substance, his critique is easier to follow:
So I will do him the courtesy of continuing to highlight his approach [my emphasis] by way of a piece of his criticism. Most recently, Gunn seeks to "engage rhetoric" as a form of love or deceit; nothing amiss here. From Plato to Richard Weaver to Scott, scholars of rhetoric have engaged in similar discussions. He also wants to examine the substantial cheese that is Kenny Rodgers's [sic: sloppy! it's Rogers] and Dolly Parton's "Islands in the Stream." Odd. But so what? If Blair can talk/for to walls, Gunn is more than able to dissect a song . . . ."
After spending some pages on Blair's work to highlight its sophistication, here Porrovecchio collapses on to a rather flip dismissal (she talks to and speaks for walls and rocks). One would think such a crass statement is enough to sink a reputation. But perhaps this aspiring star's gamble is smarter than my horizon of optimum complexity? Nevertheless, what's is point here? Porro-what's-his-name is simply saying, "can you believe this guy is taking a pop song by Kenny and Dolly seriously?" Like, OMG!
That Porrovecchio's point is none other than "can you believe it!" is made plain by the next bit:
So it goes for several pages, a hip merger of less than revelatory observations and cutting edge theorizing. [Note: there's no attempt to explain what my argument actually is] Then what I will politely call "the downturn" occurs. Gunn boldly states that "one can argue that love is shit, or more succinctly, that love is shit. I am less concerned that this would seemingly translate into a depreciation of rhetoric and those traditionalists who ply its wares.
Of course, that's exactly what Porrovecchio is concerned with. His habit is to say he is "not" arguing something that he is arguing. This is classic Nancy Boy humor, although something tells me Porrovecchio is not that clever (or queer). Case in point:
For you see, I pause and ask myself what an undergraduate, parent, or member of the public is to make of this extension: "Shit is a reminder that there is a horrible, unsymbolizeable excess or gap in our symbolic reality---that something always eludes us." I even pause to consider what I am to make of this observation. In perhaps the most charitable reading I can provide, Gunn has argued against his own argument and done so masterfully.
Ok, so: what's my argument, Nancy? And how does my "style" contradict my argument?
If, as Gunn urges, "rhetoric traditionally conceived is fundamentally a false promise," I wonder what gains are to be had on this side of the dichotomy. If the true merit of a nontraditional approach is to be found in plumbing the depths of ourselves, in adopting "irony and the coming frame," then I simply have to ask: is he seriously kidding?!
Such a series of statements comprise a classic equivocation fallacy. In the context of the essay, by "traditionally conceived" I am referring to rhetoric as an appeal to identification. Here, however, Porrovecchio means "tradition" as that specific to "[speech] communication," two very different "traditions." And while the "rhetorical tradition" is quite clear and punctuated historically (Plato and Aristotle to Burke), what Porro-what's-his-name means by "tradition" in "the field" has still yet to be defined, described, or argued for anything other than a focus on texts, "spoken and written." Is my comment about the conception of rhetoric as identification concerned with critiquing a focus on spoken and written discourse? Of course not. The logic here is fallacious. The classic example: (1) all men are rational; (2) women are not men; (3) therefore, women are not rational. What is meant by "men" here slides between the generic and the sexed; similarly, Porrovecchio switches-out two "traditions." Is it deliberate, or sloppy? I worry the former, but hope so for his sake.
Of course, what is meant by "this side of the dichotomy" is woefully unclear: what dichotomy, exactly?
It is clear upon close reading, however, that Porrovecchio is really concerned with style---with my choice of examples, with my finding "rhetoric" in the popular, and with . . . my (scholarly) persona:
It is clear that this approach [to rhetoric? to scholarship? to what?] has resulted in a certain degree of cachet in [speech] communication. It is also clear, and this speaks to Gunn's anxieties as much as it does the general anxieties I am discussing in this essay, that he has run up against the edges of a project which attempts to merge theoretical and personal insights in novel and engaging ways. As a scholar who has "been trained to think about differences between audiences and how to adapt one's messages to address those differences," Gunn has succeeded and failed to make his case to interested and various audiences. [LOL: what does this sentence actually say?] He has dealt with both distortions and attacks regarding his own positions. Gunn has, as all scholars and critics have, contradicted his own positions, in his case reinforcing "the same liberal-humanist politics of toleration that a lot of queer theory tries to challenge and dismantle."
What are the claims of such a paragraph? (1) Gunn's approach to scholarship is "fashionable"; (2) Gunn has "run up against the edges" of merging the autobiographical and theoretical; (3) Gunn succeeds and fails; (4) Gunn is contradictory. None of these claims are supported, and two of them are meaningless (2 and 3). In the last line he cites my confession that what I argue in scholarship and what I teach in the classroom are often at odds, but that's a point I'm careful to make and discuss all sorts of places. The ends of each are (and should be) very different, depending on the purpose. The last point is especially juicy and important to probe, but Porro-what's-his name has proved time and time again is that his concern is not the issue, but rather, how the issue is deployed.
Porrovecchio concludes his attack by expressing optimism that I will "grow up":
Surely Gunn has pondered these and other issues, attempting, it would seem, to restate and revise his positions as he continues to grow as a scholar and shed his "scholarly adolescence." The reactions his work as accrued are in reference to his words, as spoken and written. At their best, both push [speech] communication forward. At their worst, they suggest the limits operative in both traditional and newer approaches to rhetoric: they are often judged by what the discourse suggests and not by what was intended.
Here, of course, Porrovecchio reveals his reading protocol: surface feeding and superficial reading. Gunn and Blair's work are to be "judged by what the discourse suggests and not by what was intended." We might alter that last bit to "what was actually written," as I hope is made clear in this epic post. The truth will out---and out it does. This is the DPS confession on a stick: "I'm gonna get choo by what your style suggests, not by what choo mean!"
Porro-what's-his-name decides at this moment to issue a warning: "Theories that try to explain too much often end up doing too little." A platitude, to be sure, followed by the observation that writing provocatively encourages "misinterpretation." His final flourish:
If the most obvious result of an attempt to dismantle the rational-autonomous humanist superstructure is a discussion of pop ditties and fecal matter, Gunn has surely proved that theory and criticism can be personally, if but that, therapeutic.
Such an "if/then" gets to pass without comment; it's nonsensical. But I feel his gist.
The final two pages of Porrovecchio are something of a tack-on, almost a throw away. It's not really worth the time to read closely, because the moves are fairly commonplace. He argues that we need to teach the history of our field and that this history should not be dismissed. His second recommendation is that we need to remember "spoken and written rhetoric" is important. He begins:
Some, myself included, are occasionally guilty of too stridently dismissing the novelties of critical and cultural studies, of postmodernism, of psychoanalytical theory.
Hmm. Who are these "some?" I think he probably has Jim Aune in mind, whom Porrovecchio thanks in the endnotes (note 55), and who wrote of my work:
I and others have remarked, perhaps too intemperately, on the conflict between rhetorical and cultural studies in communication, which has often manifested itself as a dialogue of the deaf.
But rather than join Aune in the gesture of bridging a perceived divide, Porro-what's-his-name argues:
But the same can be said of those in the other camps who would label us antiquated and out of touch. [us?] If it is a cheap shot to simply dismiss some theory as "jargon-y," then it is equally dismissive to suggest that speech is a dead term of art when it comes to rhetoric. The world is not comprised of cultural relativists on one side and autonomous rationality coveters on the other. Speaking for the side I prefer, I often find it amazing how easily a call for fluid discussion and ironic qualification is more accurately a chance to browbeat persons whose passions tilt toward the traditional.
"Browbeat?" That's a rather strong claim, but no examples are offered of such scholarly violence. Uh, um. And, yeah: what does it mean, then, when a poststructual fanboy named Josh publishes relentlessly about the import of "speech" over the past six years? It means, I fear, that a certain Mark J. Porrovecchio has not done his homework---most especially when his last point is that "Technology Has, Contrary to Popular Tales, Increased the Need for Theorists and Critics Attentive to Spoken and Written Dimensions of Rhetoric." Alas, Mr. Porrovechio apparently did not read my review essay, "Speech is Dead, Long Live Speech," in which I make a similar claim, with a little help from Walter Ong.
So, how to conclude? I'm not sure. I've spent some weeks---an hour here, an hour there---working through my response to this "attack." I'm pretty certain I'm the only person who has "read" this post in its entirety, and with good reason. The exercise in some sense is a waste of time (except for the fact that Van Morrison is on the radio now, and . . . I love to write to music that I love). The exercise is an indulgence. And this is the reason why Carole and I decided not to respond to this guy: to what end? Does a response to such an attack forward thinking? Does a response to this kind of thing really contribute to our field or our thinking about it? What "good" is to be made from responding to a poorly argued DPS?
I suppose the only "good" would be to publish a response that exposed this "binary" between "tradition" and contemporary scholarship to be a false one. Yet, this can be done by writing criticism that does just that. In other words, the best response to Porrovecchio's charges is the work he critiques itself. What good would a published response do, other than point-up that this guy is a bad arguer? And how is that worthwhile to anyone other than academics who make scholarship out of arguing what academics is or should be?
We should be in the business of critiquing the culture around us, not each other. That's what I like about rhetorical studies in communication---we're constantly directed outside. Does it really matter that we draw on whatever theoretical resources that help us to make sense of the "outside?" I suppose for some folks it matters quite a bit (we have to justify what we do to deans, after all), but . . . I think those who have endured this post would likely agree my time is better spent making sense of the world than of Porrovecchio's bad writing.
I won't do this again. Porro-what's-his-name's beef really comes down to a yearning for a cocoon, a home base, a "tradition" to call our own. Outside of institutional history, we ain't got one. Get over it. What rhetoricians do well is "read" and explain how things influence, broadly construed. From monuments to movies, we're about making sense of what escapes consciousness. I think we are pretty good at doing that. What "gang" or "club" we belong to may be important, but it's secondary to the mission. We think critically and teach others how to do this. That's our job. That's our mission.