ACJ Special: Kuypers

Volume 4, Issue 1, Fall 2000

Must We All Be Political Activists?
Jim A. Kuypers
Senior Lecturer and Director of the Office of Speech
Dartmouth College
jim.kuypers@dartmouth.edu

Barnett Baskerville asked, "must we all be rhetorical critics?"1 More recently, James Darsey asked, "must we all be rhetorical theorists?"2 In similar vein I ask, "must we all be political activists?" I pose this question after reading the Quarterly Journal of Speech editorials penned by Robert L. Ivie. These essays are, frankly, a rallying call for academics who wish to use criticism as a tool to engage in political activism within the academy.3 If you have not yet read these editorials, I encourage you to do so; for they mark a dangerous moment in the development of rhetorical criticism. I feel these editorials are indicative of what George Will described as the "manifestation of a notion common on campuses: Every academic activity must have an ameliorative dimension, reforming society and assuaging this or that group's grievance. From that idea, it is but a short step down the slippery slope to this idea: All education, all culture, is political, so it should be explicitly so."4

Professor Ivie's perspective on criticism is not wholly his own. What he has done is collect and codify left-leaning critical trends which have developed in criticism over the past twenty or so years. His herculean effort has produced an articulate distillation of a particular philosophy of engaging in criticism. The perspective he presents to us not only deserves our attention, but demands it as well. In this essay I will touch upon three ideas that I feel need to be addressed by scholars who wish to understand the implications of this new perspective. First, I will touch upon Professor Ivie's assumptions about how critics have engaged in criticism; second, I will advance a reading of Professor Ivie's perspective which demonstrates that his conception of criticism will eventually enervate both critical and artistic freedom of expression; finally, I suggest that Professor Ivie's perspective does not contain a viable mechanism for accessing responsibility for the criticism produced.

ASSUMPTIONS

The assumptions underpinning Professor Ivie's rhetorical project are seen in the first editorial: "the critic's perpetual quest for the good life . . . seeks an outcome inescapably partisan in its implications. Ideology . . . becomes the unavoidable product of rhetorical scholarship."5 This contested assumption of the dominance of the ideological turn in criticism continues in the second editorial.6 There Professor Ivie states that "the critic's evaluation operates only tacitly as an undeveloped or unacknowledged endorsement of one set of priorities over others."7 In my opinion, however, the crux issue is advanced in the third editorial where Professor Ivie constructs a dialectical opposition between criticism that produces knowledge about rhetorical transactions and criticism that is a performance of rhetorical knowledge (rhetoricity of criticism). The assumptions prevalent in the first two editorials are firmly ensconced within this oppositional construction. Professor Ivie has asked us to believe that criticism is both "an enactment and a representation of reality defining practices. . . ." If this is the case, Professor Ivie reasons, then a critic's performance "produces knowledge of rhetorical praxis that strategically promotes one interest over another."8 Please note the word "strategically." With this strategic word choice, we are asked to implicitly agree with the proposition that critics actively engage in criticism to promote political and ideological ends. This move clearly is away from any notion of an objective criticism; even objectivity as a goal is denied.9

Some readers might assume at this point in the editorial fusillade that the political and ideological constructions are unconscious, and thus simply need to be exposed and rooted out--everything will be fine, then. Not so. In the fifth editorial productive criticism is clearly defined: "a detailed and partisan critique. . . ."10 It is in the sixth editorial, however, that the meaning behind a critic's actions become clear. Whether we believe we do or not, a critic now "intentionally produces a strategic interpretation, or structure of meaning, that privileges selective interests . . . in specific circumstances"--in short, reifying the status quo.11 By the seventh editorial the purpose of criticism is made clear: those who engage in rhetorical criticism are, or should be, advocates: "criticism, as a specific performance of general rhetorical knowledge, yields a form of scholarship that obtains social relevance by strategically reconstructing the interpretive design of civic discourse in order to diminish, bolster, or redirect its significance. [Criticism] is a form of advocacy grounded in the language of a particular rhetorical situation. . . ."12

The perspective Professor Ivie advances leaves the old practice--an ostensibly objective reconstruction of the situation--for a new practice: active and partisan reconstructions of a rhetorical transaction in order to promote the political ends of the critic, thereby making for "relevant rhetorical scholarship." Yet nowhere in his editorials has Professor Ivie actually demonstrated that the "objective" accumulation of knowledge about rhetorical transactions actually reifies the status quo. Or, even if criticism were to do so, Ivie's perspective assumes that all critics believe the status quo inherently evil or that they wish to alter the status quo. There is bold question begging here, but the five core assumptions Professor Ivie advances prevent him from dealing justly with them:

Critics already construct social realities in the descriptive phase of criticism.
These constructions privilege a certain hierarchical social order that may actually reify the social structures allegedly oppressing humanity.
The critic cannot, not, do this.
Therefore, the critic must actively become a political partisan when engaging in criticism.
Critics, already do this, however, so we might as well admit it, and do it openly.

Although Professor Ivie's assertions lack evidence, there exists a small yet vocal coterie of rhetorical scholars who will no doubt be seduced by the siren song of this well crafted perspective. To Professor Ivie and this group I will momentarily give the benefit of the doubt, imagine the above referenced assumptions as true, and point out two important considerations for them to ponder as they embrace a perspective which disguises political commentary as rhetorical criticism.

FREEDOM

When I speak of freedom I am referring specifically to freedom of expression, both critical and artistic, that critics require to be truly productive of insightful scholarship. Critics must be free to analyse any rhetorical transaction, from any perspective, free from constraining and imposed political viewpoints. Yet Professor Ivie introduces a dangerous consideration. He argues that the critic's evaluation acts as an endorsement, conscious or not, "of one set of priorities over another," by the very fact of analysing a particular object. Furthermore, he argues that critics must critique by "alerting us . . . to better alternatives for constructing our character as a people. . . ."13 How is this effected, one asks? By critics addressing only the "serious issues of our times. . . ."14 Once a critic discovers the serious issues, he must then face the judgment of fellow critics who, according to Professor Ivie, "must critique critical performances from the strategic perspective of vested interests--adopting, revising, and rejecting knowledge claims according to the personal and institutional ends they promote."15 In short, products of criticism must now be analysed and judged based upon the "hierarchy of interests" they allegedly promote, rather than upon any insight or knowledge they provide.

Professor Ivie's sixth editorial is quite clear in advancing the claims I have just reviewed: "productive criticism strategically reconstructs the interpretive design of speech (and other forms of symbolic action) in order to diminish, bolster, or redirect its significance."16 Aside from the fact that this type of action is not rhetorical criticism, but a mode of practice bordering on mendacity or dissimulation, it presents the critic as a partisan political actor--a social activist. To be effective, a critic employing Professor Ivie's perspective must "invent social knowledge," "manufacture practical wisdom," and "be active." In short, criticism must be reduced to determining "how a case might be made for a preferred solution."17

How does this limit freedom? By constraining the choices for objects of study, methods of investigation, and insights to be shared. Professor Ivie's perspective clearly favors social activism and social re-engineering. So, we are now at constructing better alternatives and preferred solutions. My question to Professor Ivie and those embracing this perspective is simply, Whose better alternatives and preferred solutions, your's? Also, who determines the "serious issues of our times"? The critic? No. Isolated academics? I think not. Perhaps the media? With what we know of agenda-setting, agenda extension, and other media practices, I think this unrealistic as well. In this publish or perish world we academic critics inhabit I think the editors and senior departmental members become the determining force. One has simply to review what Professor Ivie published as editor to see what he thinks are serious issues and preferred solutions. Indeed, one has only to read his sixth editorial to witness his embrace of a narrow vision of urban-liberal ideals.

So, faced with an editor embracing Professor Ivie's perspective, how many critics seeking professional publication will choose to write on topics they feel might not be liked, or speak out in opposition to a point of view embraced by that editor? How many critics attempting to be published will dare to articulate what might be perceived as a "conservative" position, when editors who embrace Professor Ivie's perspective on criticism will clearly prefer more radical means and objects of criticism?

With Professor Ivie's notion of productive criticism we confront a very real danger of relegating criticism to automatic reproduction of the correct and current political passions of those in charge (something to which we are dangerously close to today already). Be that as it may, let us again imagine Professor Ivie is correct. Let us suppose that his brand of productive criticism is what we need to advance as a discipline. What then? Well, Professor Ivie has stated that the purpose of criticism should no longer be the accumulation of knowledge.18 The twin pillars of human knowledge, insight and understanding, are inadequate. So what will be the new hallmark of significant rhetorical scholarship? Professor Ivie's fifth editorial asserts that knowledge is gained from a "detailed and partisan critique. . . ."19 Rhetorical theory takes its valuation from the "force and salience of the criticism it inspires," a criticism which "reveals and evaluates the symbols that organize our lives. . . ."20 However, it is a criticism that bypasses full description, generation of knowledge, and aesthetic appreciation. It is a criticism which instead "yields a form of scholarship that obtains social relevance by strategically reconstructing the interpretive design of civic discourse. . . ."21 In short, the critic must be an active engineer of social change.

RESPONSIBILITY

But there is a final consideration for those who would embrace Professor Ivie's notion of productive criticism. Who will take responsibility for the promulgation of the "better alternatives" for living? Who will take responsibility for purposefully manipulating another's speech in order to facilitate a particular political agenda? Most importantly, who will take responsibility for any change enacted through the critic's manipulations? There is a problem here that must be addressed before Professor Ivie's project continues. For as it stands now, his perspective does not address the issue of responsibility. As it stands now, the critic need not be responsible at all. Certainly we must take responsibility for our criticism. And as much as we might like it to be the answer, the seductive promise of self-reflection offered by the postmodernist camp is not enough.22

Although the old norms--including objectivity--may have flaws, we knew how to accept responsibility. Professor Ivie's project destroys the old norms and advances nothing in their place. Indeed, I envision a critic embracing this perspective to be a type of Boalian Joker running amok in and between the academy and society, the formal and informal, knowing no boundaries, no ethics save change, no control or direction save momentary and vague ideological commitments. It is, and unfortunately so, as if Professor Ivie's project confuses significant speech with significant action.

CONCLUSION

The ramifications of adopting Professor Ivie's perspective are of even greater concern when one considers the political climate within our discipline. I am of the opinion that the leaders of our discipline have gone too far in their attempt to foster social change, both within the discipline and society. Indeed, one may well agree with Maurice Charland when he states that the battle cry of "gender! race! class! . . . guide many postmodern left intellectuals."23 I suggest that this battle cry also undergirds the perspective advanced by Professor Ivie. This overt political force is detectable in the way critics are continually being made to engage rhetorical/communication artifacts with left-leaning political idealism as their guide--Professor Ivie, knowingly or not, seems to be just following the trend.

In 1978 Edwin Black stated that criticism ought to be disinterested and "has no relationship with its subject other than to account for how that subject works; it demands nothing but full disclosure."24 Professor Ivie's perspective is a far cry from this imperative; it literally murders the longstanding and widely accepted standard of an objective fairness. The broad field of rhetorical studies as today found in our journals, convention programs, and espoused by our association officers is overly composed of social and political activism. Black's call for full disclosure does not leave room for a sympathetic politicising of all rhetorical/communication artifacts. Hoyt Hopewell Hudson offers rare insight on how sympathy and regard ought not be mistaken for or justify advocacy: "The great instrument of moral good is the imagination. Sympathetic understanding is the secret to morals. We appreciate the existence of other objects and persons, and this is similar to Shelley stating, 'going out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own.'"25

It is important to note that Hudson does not use the term "appreciate" to mean "unquestioning admiration" or "affirmation"; rather he firmly believed "we can realize, and respect, the identity of something, without respecting the thing itself."26 With that sentence Hudson speaks to many today, especially those who tread the tortuous path of advocacy based rhetorical criticism. We may remain objective and appreciative, regardless of our personal wish to confirm or confute. Or as T. S. Eliot said, "We do criticism to open the work to others."

I believe Professor Ivie's critical distillation, if imbibed, will prove a harsh draught for our critical thoughts. The wall of critical objectivity has been breached, and if into this breach critics using Professor Ivie's perspective charge, we will feel the effects in four key ways. First, this perspective will encourage a tyranny of a correct political point of view. I firmly believe that those engaging in critical rhetorical theory are overwhelmingly left-leaning. Although leaning left or right within the political spectrum should have no bearing in one's academic work, Professor Ivie's project mandates an activistic criticism. The results will surely be a narrow brand of acceptable new left liberalism.

Second, this perspective will demand a correct performance of criticism. Critics will be expected to be advocates, not artisans. This will undoubtedly shut out the true critical impulse; it will act to discourage the development of sensitivity to the inner critical voice. All but critical theorists and practitioners will be held in disdain; eclectic critics will become living relics.

Third, this perspective will act to advance the "effects" of criticism as the means whereby to judge that criticism. Although Ed Black showed us that over-reliance on effects as a means of judgment is critically limiting and suspect, Professor Ivie's project will ultimately result with effects as the litmus test for good criticism. If actual change is not gained, then effects may well be redefined to assessing the correct articulation of the critic's vision for social change. I am inclined to believe that this will eventually produce sterile criticism which anticipates the political wishes of disciplinary gatekeepers.

Finally, this perspective will encourage those embracing it to turn a blind eye toward the appreciation of the rhetorical object under consideration. The enriching aspects of criticism that fuel our common humanity will be pushed aside in the critic's quest for a politics of meaning. A critic employing an Iviean perspective will possess the truth before he begins to write; thus we move beyond Hudson in that affirmation of some object or way of being in the world is the final end of criticism. The graceful beauty inherent in appreciation and understanding will be exchanged for the hard marching, rhythmically thumping black boots of critical theory.

The editorials penned by Professor Ivie seem to have their roots in the New Left ideals of the sixties. So being, they move us toward an ever greater, active partisanship in general politics, while concomitantly being positioned within the safety of the academy. These activist critics are increasingly attempting to involve themselves as political commentators, while at the same time remaining academic. The disappearance of independent critics in American society has created an intellectual vacuum that is being replaced with intellectuals from the academy. This is a dangerous trend; for example, critical rhetoricians, while advocating change, do not assume personal responsibility for the changes enacted.27

So, who must accept responsibility when the public calls for an accounting? The university, most likely. This then calls into question the mission of the university--education or politics? (As an aside, think of non-tenured faculty. How are they to stand on their own against disciplinary trends if research continues to be politicised?) By offering judgments and pronouncements for change, activist critics (and by extension, activists academics) invite public accounting for those same utterances which in turn call into question the purpose of the university. This questioning is well underway too, with many organisations monitoring our every misstep. See, for example, Accuracy in Academia and FIRE: The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Inc. These and similar groups are on the lookout for the worst political actions within the academy. We may not like to have these types of actions brought to our attention, but by boldly exposing them these organisations actually do the academy a favour. They force us to look at ourselves and make changes before various legislative bodies (representing the citizens who pay our salaries) force changes upon us. Although Accuracy in Academia and FIRE may be viewed by some as evil institutions gleefully wielding conservative axes that hack away at our academic freedoms, I see them responding to the worst of political excesses in the academy, where many exercise their freedoms without responsibility or fairness to all our students.

I am inclined to believe that Professor Ivie and others of similar political bent are playing politics within the comparative safety of the academy instead of taking their chances in the rough-and-tumble world of real politics. For example, we have disciplinary bureaucrats at the national level, so removed from the reality of those they purport to represent, that they actually moved to vote on a resolution to have the National Communication Association boycott the San Diego convention because proposition 187 passed. Fortunately, more prudent scholars prevailed and kept a few radicals from speaking for over 6,000 NCA members, and turning a nonprofit organisation into a political organisation devoted to left-leaning social activism.28 We have a similar mindset operating with NCA's recently announced association with the Southern Poverty Law Center--a liberal political action group. While we may well appreciate the publicly stated goals of this association, we should, I feel, heed the words of Richard Vatz:

Some of us in the NCA oppose the politicization of our professional association. Announced values, however worthy they may or may not be, for example, of the "celebrat[ion] of diversity" and the "advantages of a diverse society" as defined by a variety of organizations are hardly politically neutral goals.
At the very least, moves toward increased politicization of the NCA should be vetted and voted on by the Legislative Council, and apparently there are no plans to do so. . . .
The NCA serves its members best as a professional organization devoted to promoting communication scholarship and education, not to advocating political ends.29

We have too many academic activists in positions of leadership who seem to be making the academy into their personal engine of revolution. NCA president Raymie E. McKerrow, sensing this progressive impulse, has launched a daring initiative to have NCA begin publishing a nonpartisan "public intellectual" magazine.30 This would allow the more politically inclined to speak out, while leaving our more academic journals for scholarship. Now would be the time to undertake such a venture, for I sense increasing hostility toward NCA's sponsorship of academic activism. Already one national association, the American Communication Association, has formed as a no-dues, less political alternative to the NCA. The new generations--those scholars graduating in the late eighties and nineties--are of a different disposition than previous graduates. My impression from the conversations I have had is that many are tired of the constant agitation and arrogance of those advocating rhetorical scholarship as a tool for social change. The views of those in charge today will eventually be replaced by those more concerned with economic and disciplinary survival than in attempts to foster social change at the expense of institutional credibility. Self-indulgent activism will be tempered with practicality and disdain for the perpetual upheaval embraced by many academics today.31

For those embracing Professor Ivie's perspective on criticism, however, there still exists a tension between rhetorical criticism designed to produce knowledge about rhetorical transactions, and rhetorical criticism designed to perform rhetorical knowledge. For those who wish to practice the latter I have three challenges. First, prove your assumptions; or, at a minimum, show how such criticism will enhance and advance our discipline as a whole, and thus move beyond assuaging the political appetites of a handful of critics and disciplinary leaders. Second, provide guidelines for the choice of topics, methods, and judgments rendered so that academic freedom will not be constrained by any one "correct" political slant. This is to say, protect the rights of those who might speak in political opposition to your own ideological point of view. Three, provide a mechanism for accessing the critic's responsibility, both within the academy and without.

We should engage in criticism, not political partisanship. We should introduce knowledge for disputants to draw upon, not attempt to foster social change in line with our personal politics. Too often political partisanship in the academy turns into urban-liberal agitation-propaganda. If critics in our discipline wish to engage in such they should leave the academy. For as they seek political change they borrow from the credibility of the academy. As they do this, they rend the fabric that binds the university and the community it serves, for the community sees the university's mission as education, not politics. We should be professors, not social activists.

NOTES

1 Barnett Baskerville, "Must we All be 'Rhetorical Critics'?" Quarterly Journal of Speech 63.2 (1977): 107-116.

2 James Darsey, "Must We All Be Rhetorical Theorists?: An Anti-Democratic Inquiry," Western Journal of Communication 58.3 (1994): 164-181.

3 There are nine editorials, beginning with 79.4 (November 1993) and concluding with 81.4 (November 1995). Incredibly, to date (September 2000), they have received little critical attention. An early draft of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Speech Communication Association, San Antonio, 1995.

4 George Will, "Education is Giving Way to Indoctrination," Florida Times Union (17 September 1990).

5 Robert L. Ivie, "Where Are We Headed?" Quarterly Journal of Speech 79.4 (1993).

6 For the seminal essay on ideological criticism, see Philip Wander, "The Ideological Turn in Rhetorical Criticism," Central States Speech Journal 34 (1983): 1-18. See too, Philip Wander, "The Third Persona: An Ideological Turn in Rhetorical Criticism," Central States Speech Journal 35 (1984): 197-216.

7 Robert L. Ivie, "Criticizing Rhetorical Architecture," Quarterly Journal of Speech 80.1 (1994).

8 Robert L. Ivie, "The Performance of Rhetorical Knowledge," Quarterly Journal of Speech 80.2 (1994). Emphasis mine.

9 When I use the term "objective," I do not mean that critics ought to possess or are capable of possessing a scientific detachment from the object of criticism. This would surely produce a sterile criticism devoid of its lifeblood: the critic's intermingled intuition, insight, and personality. What I am suggesting is that the critic may approach the artifact under consideration with a fair and open mind. In this sense the critic sets aside personal politics or ideological "truths" and approaches the artifact with a sense of curiosity. The artifact under consideration ought not to be altered to fit the prejudgments of the critic, but be allowed to voice its inner workings to the world. The work of the critic is to make certain that this voice is intelligible to and approachable by the public.

This in no way detracts from the critic bringing to bear an individual stamp upon the criticism produced. Nor is it the antiseptic application of a method upon an unsuspecting rhetorical artifact. What it does suggest is that the critic must learn how to appreciate the inner workings of a text, even if personally the critic finds that text to be repugnant, or wishes it to be other than it is. In this sense, the critic is being "objective," or disinterested, when approaching and describing a text.

Judgments may certainly be made, and appreciation or disdain expressed, but they must be made after two conditions are met: one, the fair minded description of the inner workings of the artifact have been presented for the world to see; and two, the standards of judgments used by the critic are provided for all to see. In this way readers may themselves judge whether or not the critic imposed his ideology upon the artifact.

10 Robert L. Ivie, "A Question of Significance," Quarterly Journal of Speech 80.4 (1994).

11 Robert L. Ivie, "Productive Criticism," Quarterly Journal of Speech 81.1 (1995).

12 Robert L. Ivie, "The Social Relevance of Rhetorical Scholarship," Quarterly Journal of Speech 81.2 (1994). Emphasis mine.

13 Ivie, "Criticizing Rhetorical Architecture."

14 Ivie, "Criticizing Rhetorical Architecture."

15 Robert L. Ivie, "Scrutinizing Performances of Rhetorical Criticism," Quarterly Journal of Speech 80.3 (1994).

16 Ivie, "Productive Criticism."

17 Ivie, "Productive Criticism."

18 Ivie, "Scrutinizing Performances of Rhetorical Criticism."

19 Ivie, "A Question of Significance."

20 Ivie, "The Social Relevance of Rhetorical Scholarship."

21 Ivie, "The Social Relevance of Rhetorical Scholarship."

22 I address this issue in Jim A. Kuypers, "Doxa and a Realistic Prudence for a Critical Rhetoric," Communication Quarterly 44.4 (1996): 452-462.

23 Maurice Charland, "Finding a Horizon and Telos: The Challenge to Critical Rhetoric," Quarterly Journal of Speech 77 (1991): 72.

24 Edwin Black, Rhetorical Criticism: A Study in Method (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1978) 18.

25 Hoyt Hopewell Hudson, Educating Liberally (Stanford University, California: Stanford University Press, 1945) 72.

26 Hudson, Educating Liberally, 12.

27 Kuypers.

28 See Spectra following the 1994 Speech Communication Association meeting in New Orleans for information pertaining to this subject.

29 Richard Vatz, "NCA Should Not be an Agent of Political Advocacy," Crtnet News: Of Interest- #5091 (25 May 2000). Professor Vatz announces he has been a member of the Southern Poverty Law Center since 1989, showing well that a professional disinterestedness can be cultivated--even when dealing with one's political passions.

30 Raymie E. McKerrow, "Scholarship, Influence, and the Intellectual Community," Spectra (April 2000): 4.

31 For an interesting commentary on this point see, John Leo, "When Stability Was All the Rage," U.S. News &;World Reports 119.17 (30 October 1995): 27.