Teaching rhetoric is a lot more like teaching art or creative writing than it is some sort of job skill. But you wouldn’t know that to look at what passes for a public speaking class these days. Farewell creativity, hello corporate conformity.
Strangely, departments that are dedicated to inquiry against ideological systems and the exposure of the ideological structure of the natural order are perfectly comfortable offering courses that are little more than box-ticking in terms of what type of speech you do, how many sources you have, and whether or not you have the three parts of the introduction completed properly.
This practice of fitting things into measurable units of reality (or whatever you’d call it) is a global trend. We are obsessed with conforming because conformity is measurable. We don’t have to think too much about it to understand it or place meaning on it. If we can look at it, and see if it has the parts, we are good.
Propriety is another way to define rhetoric. Concerns about decorum and appropriateness have always been subjects taught by rhetoricians, have sparked controversies, and are also powerful ways to thread the needle in argument if you are aware of and comfortable with the edge of the edge of the line. But part of appropriateness is being able to appreciate and understand just how close to the edge a rhetor can get. This requires some work, some creative attenuation to the moment by the listener and speaker, and is often lost in the desire to present it the “way it should be.” Although this appears to be propriety, it misses the mark. It’s propriety on propriety’s terms, not the contingent sense of the moment’s propriety as interpreted by the audience, waiting to be constituted with words.
This adherence to propriety is costly. Now we see nothing but cynical snippets and angry shouting in society. When we see a speech, it’s a drab, formal, and sad reading of an essay. The only people out there maintaining a semblance of the power of oratory are the storytellers and the slam poets. Remember the amount of media attention that Amanda Gorman received after delivering a poem at Joe Biden’s inauguration? If only Presidents could speak like this.
Rhetoric has been and will continue to be the creative art of influence. People will always need to create meaning out of a numbered of fractured bits of perception, time honored practices, and deeply held commitments to value. They will either be compelled to do this by community, friends, or family or they might feel that burning pressure in their heart to speak out against or for events and words surrounding them. Either way, the duty of the rhetoric teacher is to ensure that they are prepared to do so both mentally and emotionally.
Without this preparation one of the most vital forces in creating identity, community, and meaning that leads to induce important action just won’t happen. We are already seeing it through social media’s working over of our communicative norms – sharing memes with those who already agree with us is hardly inspirational. The orator has the capacity to cut through the situation with well placed words, getting everyone to reform themselves as the audience in the contingent moment, ready to discuss, consider, and act when the time is right.
