From the Forward, by Philip C. Wander, page xviii: “In short, politics and protest are not a diversion from or an obstacle to teaching and scholarship. They offer an opportunity for integration. […] For me, I was simply doing what ought to be and had to be done. Ignoring the issues, pretending that they did not exist, or that professors should not become involved in them was simply unthinkable. It would have required me to kill a part of myself.”
From the Introduction, by the editors, page 1: “First, while theory and practice in rhetoric have historically attended carefully to rhetoric’s democratic possibilities, most of that attention has focused on deliberation and consensus-building. Second, it has become quite clear to us that, at least over the last decade and perhaps longer, neither deliberative democracy nor consensus-building responds fully to the needs of activists.”
From “The Only Conceivable Thing To Do: Reflections on Academics and Activism” by Dana L. Cloud, pp. 11-24
“Activists were and are intellectuals as much as any professor, but at a level with political events, not one step removed. This activism was a manifestation of intellect in the service not of the production of abstract knowledge but rather of action based on knowledge” (p.13).
“As Gramsci explained, intellectuals should put ideas into the service of historical education, political analysis, and collective action. Criticism of prevailing ideologies and consciousness is part of intellectual work, but critique must happen in conjunction with practical political activity if it is to be relevant at all to the democratic project” (p.15).
“Critique is not enough. It is the system of exploitation that needs addressing at the point of production, the only place ordinary people have been able to win significant material gains. In those struggles, sexism, racism, and other oppressive ideas can evaporate quickly” (p.17) (Cloud then tells a story from her ISO visit to the 1997 UPS picket, and how just briefly bringing up the homophobia of strikers calling scabs fags to the strike captain was enough to make it stop throughout the line)
p.20 -story about how UNITE HERE did a joint campaign with San Diego queer activists around Prop 8 (the anti-marriage equality amendment) after Hyatt donated to the Prop 8 campaign, around boycotting Hyatt, and it was called “Sleep With The Right People” - NCA conference-goers pulled together an Unconference at a different hotel during the NCA weekend so that they could participate in the boycott and recruit other folks at the Hyatt NCA conference into the boycott while raising political awareness about it and still talk to one another
From “Speaking Truth to Power: Observations from Experience” by Lee Artz, pp. 47-55
“Understanding democracy as a political goal and a social process, rather than a pre-existing political condition, repositions social movement rhetoric from an oft-conceived role in appealing to established power to a more radical position as a means for mobilizing public action against power” (p.47)
“We note that persuasion must be evaluated by attentive audiences, but what conditions allow for audience receptivity? Motivations for persuasive appeals and for individual or group responses arise from rhetorical exigencies that demand human action (Bitzer). But what makes a problem more or less urgent for recipients of calls for action? Not the rhetorical appeal itself, because to be effective it must conform to the needs and interests of the audience. Publics and groups come to each rhetorical situation with pre-existing interests and needs. What are these needs and interests? Perhaps some prior rhetorical appeal has led to actions that have created current social relations with attending conflict and contradiction? Likely perhaps, but nonetheless, whatever their origin, needs and interests arise from the sociopolitical conditions being lived at the historic moment of crisis” (p.47-48)
“In a more contemporary case, the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq creates different issues for different social classes — without regard to their identification or agreement with any particular political argument. For or against the war, Halliburton shareholders and Hill & Knowlton PR account managers confront a different set of decisions than a National Guard private or a college professor. The rhetorical situation may appear the same — for or against the U.S. war — but the possible consequential actions entail some dramatically unequal behavioral choices” (p.48).
“Rhetoric will not stop a meteor hurtling through space, nor will the meteor disappear if we do not perceive it or believe in it. I suggest that some social relations create social conditions that have the same physical properties. Talk will not, by itself, stop war, inequality, oppression. Nor will the failure to perceive the inequality or injustice make it less real. Rhetoric may enable the privileged to turn away, but for those that suffer the condition remains. This understanding by no means derides rhetoric, that classic art of discovering all the available means of persuasion. But “all the means” means “all” of the mea.s We must not privilege argument without regard to social class; we must not omit the social relations of power in which and through which all rhetoric must pass. Capitalist hegemony needs us to accept the rhetoric of the marketeers” (p.49).
“Attitudes toward the war are influenced by persuasive appeals — to the extent that appeals resonate. But citizens (who have already internalized dominant cultural values) evaluate the arguments (which they hear from their preferred media) from disparate social positions that afford diverse experiences, consciousness, and constraints” (p.39).
“Rhetoric provided the spark only when the material culture was mature. After the working class grew to have economic power, the agriculture working class matured, the capitalist classes were betrayed by Somoza, the professional middle classes found no satisfaction in other alternatives, and the Christian life of the working classes found liberation theology, which spoke to their everyday material conditions; then — and only then — the FSLN led the Nicaraguan revolution” (p.51).
“Our field has a similar sociological blind spot: located close to the site of power, U.S. academics have a perceptual handicap that often cannot see capitalism and social class contradictions. Read any mass-communication, advertising, public relations, journalism, or media studies mass-market textbook. Most promote pluralist ideology and the myth of the ‘marketplace of ideas” (e.g. Folkerts, Lacy, and Larabee). There are few that do not at least accept the validity of the marketplace. Public interest is presented as one of the many market side effects. Even in rhetoric texts, the presumption of democratic pluralism remains; class inequality does not appear in the glossary of terms. Expectedly, activists hailing from these parts […] insist they will ‘speak truth to power'!’ Why? Who cares? Power is the source of the problem; power concedes nothing without demand, as Frederick Douglas so cogently noted; and power already knows its own truth. Speaking truth to power only reinforces power. We need to speak power to the truth of social inequality” (p.53)
“Rhetoric and activism? Three things. First, recognize the material conditions of our lives, especially the social relations of capitalism and its class contradictions expressed in neoliberalism, consumerism, individualism, two-party elections, and the quality and inequality of life. Second, identify those human agents capable of making fundamental social change— those social classes and their allies who have a vested interest, some predisposition, and the actual power to improve the human condition. Finally, present a rhetoric for a new consensual social power that underscores the truth of capitalist inequality, favors the building of participatory communities, and expresses the potential for new democratic social relations — in Gramscian terms, advance a hegemony by demonstrating the benefits of a new socialist culture. The task of rhetoric for social change is to speak power to truth” (p.54).
From “You Can’t Get There From Here: Higher Education, Labor Activism, and Challenges of Neoliberal Globalization” by Kevin Mahoney, pp. 147-158
“The failure to recognize the linkages between union work and academic work in a public university at the onset of the twenty-first century ignores the fact that both areas are under assault by the same neoliberal logic” (p.151).
“It is one thing to prepare an individual to enter a public sphere and argue for [their] position; it is quite another to prepare individuals to enter into relationships of solidarity and interdependence, and reconstruct their identities and practices” (p.152).
“The coincidence of postmodernism with the re-emergence of rhetoric has tended to bend rhetorical inquiry and practice toward studies of discourse and media consistent with English and Communication departments. While the work in these areas has been extraordinary and has deepened and expanded the scope of rhetoric, the notable lack of a similar engagement with political theory has denied current rhetorical inquiry a crucial link to questions of democracy and political struggle” (p.153).