The New York Sophist

Here's my take on Biden's farewell address. I didn't think it was very good and actually was really kind of pathetic given what it could have been and what he could have focused on. I don't understand why this speech was not that much different than a campaign speech. I feel like he thinks he's leaving office too soon - but that's speculation on my part.

All we have is the words he said - so let's take a look at the structure, language, and arguments of this speech and see what he could have done better. Comments welcome!

I have a debate course nearly oversubscribed starting in a week. The course is a part of the University's new committment to having social justice imbedded in the curriculum.

I'm interested to see what topics they would like to turn into motions, and off we go. I'm teaching some light policy debate theory because it really does present some nice grounding for the students to figure out how to engage one another instead of just announcing the facts. 

I'm entering the class with one question: What is social justice? Would we know it if we saw it, or is that too easy? Is it a process, a moral attitude, a policy framework - what? 

I think I'll intervene with some ideas from the de-incarceration movement as well as questions about power and the U.S. Constitution - are the rights outlined in this document a good guideline or fundamental rights? 

I hope the students find the class valuable in a University and higher education system that communicate with great clarity, daily, how little they value the transformative, creative student experience and paint a future of having the attitude of consumerism, the attitude of a commodity, and the only path to success is being a commodity that consumes other commodities. 

This is a conference presentation by Dr. Lisa Piccirillo, a professor of mathematics at the University of Texas at Austin. This video is remarkable for many different reasons. Many of these reasons will have to do with math and her research on fourth dimensional objects. I have nothing to say about that so this is the wrong blog to read for mathematical insights. What I find remarkable is how this video violates a number of conventional views about conventions that those who should know better – rhetoricians – subscribe to either explicitly or implicitly.

The first thing here is that she is not reading a research paper, something that not only happens at rhetoric and communication conferences but is baked into the culture. She knows her material, is confident in it, and is expressing it in a way to communicate to the audience that it is interesting and valuable. Notice the grammar here: She is communicating that the material is interesting and valuable, not what we see at NCA, I am very interested in this material, this is my research. Instead, Piccirillo communicates the insights and thoughts about the research that she has had as a progression of that research. Perhaps she is able to do this because she’s actively thinking and working on this every day instead of throwing a presentation together the night before her talk after a couple of drinks at a Hilton or Sheraton bar – another cultural practice of NCA, RSA, and the lot.

Secondly, and really incredibly is the use of visual aids here. It is super rare for anyone to present at a conference in the way that they would be presenting this material in a teaching environment. Why do we not insist on having “a board” of some kind when presenting our work in communication or rhetoric? We do have power point, and she could have easily employed PowerPoint, Canva, or any of the numerous slide presentations here, but she did not. Is this part of the culture of the mathematics conference? Is it just what is done, or is there some reasoning behind it? I could have it wrong, but perhaps Piccirillo is using the board because it is an effective means of communication here. She organizes her thoughts, without notes, without a paper to read, using the board as a mnemonic device, or something that helps her get to where she wants to go after surveying where she has been in her living notes. The audience gets to have an easy to follow (for them, not me) source of the ground that she is surveying and moving through. It’s a map that is being revealed as she move through the thinking. At the end, the board is a reference she can return to in addressing questions, making clarifications, and generally orienting the audience toward what she would like them to walk away with. In my experiences at rhetoric and communication conferences, I have never seen anything that comes anywhere close to this. There is no consideration for the audience, there’s no attention paid to orienting the audience toward an interesting issue or work in the field. Instead, all orientation is about the presenter; it’s all about what brought them to the research and their personal investment.

I also think that it’s funny that it would be hard to convince rhetoricians and others who regularly attend NCA that a mathematics conference would have incredibly rhetorically valuable insights in a presentation that would put our own standards of presenting to shame. I’m guilty of it too, although I try not to be. I think that it’s super easy to slip into what’s culturally appropriate, the groupthink of the field, when one attends a conference. Also, there’s a performative opposition happening here: Picarillo’s topic is difficult to understand without years of specialized practice and familiarity with it, so the way she presents it is very much on the surface – she provides the audience the orientation they need to appreciate what she is sharing. She works on how to communicate it in a way that allows her to reach her point – she wants the audience to get where we are in terms of this research based on where we have been. Contrast this to NCA, where the topics are pretty easy to understand and get – popular Netflix shows, media coverage of politics, and the like – I think we feel, since it’s an academic conference, that the work should be difficult to understand and get since it’s pretty easy to access and get. So perhaps we read a lot of boring citations and complex quotes in our papers to convince ourselves, and our audiences of those like us. that we are indeed at a very intense, very intellectual, very deep conference – not just sharing our favorite moments from Bridgerton or the Marvel films, but really making some inroads in the theory of rhetoric, communication, or whatever theory de jour is the popular one that will call attention to the personality behind it.

Another big insight here is that the Harvard Mathematics department found this presentation good enough to post to YouTube for a global audience. They, and Picarillo I assume, agreed it should be shared for pretty much anyone to view who has internet access. Although this is a highly specialized video, that didn’t stop them from sharing it. And as of this writing, the video sits at about 1.2 million views, something that is shocking for a presentation in complex mathematics. This again points to the rhetorical value and insights from the presentation. No presentation from any conference in rhetoric can get anywhere close to this number of views I bet, primarily because our conference presentations do not invoke or use any rhetorical standards of effectiveness in which we claim expertise. What is our expertise if not how to give an incredible presentation? It seems of all things a mathematics professor has whipped us across the board in this without even trying. Her focus on her work and her interest in conveying the importance of that work to those interested is all she had to concentrate on in order to succeed here. It begs the question: What are we concentrating on when we present at NCA? What are we interested in? Who are we trying to reach? What are we trying to invoke in our audience? Is it care and interest in the questions that move us? Are we trying to advance interest in the field? I’m afraid that the answers I’m coming up with as I’m writing this paragraph aren’t great – I think many are trying to own the field rather than promote it. I think that people are more interested in their name appearing in a citation than appearing for a global audience on YouTube. I think most NCA attendees would rather have the lead essay in The Quarterly Journal of Speech than have 1.2 million views on YouTube because they have convinced themselves that publication in a journal that isn’t read or cited by anyone outside of NCA is the sign of “making it.” What is the value of rhetoric if it is kept in such closed quarters?

My final comments here are about the incredible value of the comments section for the promotion of the field. Looking at the comments for this video is incredibly insightful for anyone interested in rhetoricians.

This short sample here is mind-blowingly amazing insight into the minds of the audience. We don’t get this at the traditional conference. All I’ve ever received from the traditional Q&A is dishonesty. It’s a question, but it really all boils down to “Why am I not speaking about this and you are?” Our arbitrary and poor review process for conferences is part of it, but this kind of honestly is really only possible in the culture of YouTube. I am not sure if at the mathematics conference if there is the same academic dishonesty as the Q&A that I experience at communication conferences, but there are probably a few people like this there. I call them “snipers,” and these are people who attend a panel just to take down the speakers and show themselves (mostly) that they really are smart and intellectual people.

But this comment section is a refreshing change from this, showing the audience’s relationship to the speaker and speech in so many interesting ways – references to the accessibility of this talk, on the toilet no less, is an amazing commentary on where audiences can find meaningful rhetoric. Comparisons to popular culture, and a general appreciation for intellectual work are also here. It’s really something that helps the mathematics field cement themselves in the larger world and defend the value of university work.

Is this talk a keynote or a plenary? Perhaps. I ‘m thinking to the plenary presentations I saw most recently in Leiden at the Argumentation conference there, and they were way too structured for insiders to be this valuable. In this mathematics talk, the value is there – the commenters prove it. The audience is the judge of whether your rhetoric is effective. Although many of these audience members do not understand the specifics of the claims being made here, they understand that it is valuable and important to the world. This would not have been the case from the Leiden talks, where one presenter even announced that “Nobody cares about rhetoric.” You don’t need to say it, buddy. We all can see it. These videos would be lucky to hit 500 views, and engender a number of comments about how the talks prove that higher education is a failure. You don’t see those comments in this video at all.

Here’s more of the audience now going meta, speaking about her speaking style. There are also a large number of references to her attire and to her body, which might be dismissed as inappropriate or even sexist by many people in my field. But the comments about her attire, or her body, are created out of the topoi of contrast. They read her appearance through her speech. Her identity is identification, with what she appears consubstantial with.

This topoi of contradiction might also be contrast or it could be considered evidence of her overall excellence. The commenters point out how she “never skips back day” but at the same time indicate they cannot understand half of what she’s saying (although they recognize it as valuable and good). These elements together become reasons why the video and the speaker should be praised as someone who is amazing and incredible all around – an identity that the audience assembles through her delivery, style, and manifest content. The way she speaks and uses the chalkboard is as much a part of the manifest content as the point she wants to prove to the immediate audience (and the mediated audience on video that has the background to get what she’s after).

The meta comments on this talk provide some powerful insight into how rhetorically savvy the audience really is in the world. For example, they all buy into the argument that lack of notes means you are a serious expert. This is an important insight. If one reads a paper to an audience and purports to be an expert, you are really disadvantaging yourself with that audience. The comfortable cultural practices of a conference like NCA are not the best rhetorical model or practice for what really works and helps audiences understand and appreciate the work that is being done in rhetoric and communication. Even if we believe what goes on at NCA could not be understood by the general public, having it filmed and shared like this would change those unhealthy insider practices (the cult of the last minute presentation written on the plane). A difficult question: Why are the Arnold Keynotes not put on YouTube by NCA? Why are the Presidential panels not shared? It’s because these rhetorical research panels and talks are not for the world, they are for insiders only, which is a real shame. Think about how “insider” Piccirillo’s talk is and now look at these comments. What really is an exclusive talk if not the performance of one? Shouldn’t we be outclassing the mathematics field in YouTube by the millions?

The judgements on her nature, character, and who she is as a person are reflective on the rhetorical efficacy of her presentation. Although humorous for the most part, these “joking” comments only work as humor because they directly stem from her rhetorical choices in presenting. Anything the audience says must be taken in at face-value. Rhetoricians are the worst at this – they are suspicious of the general public’s ability to understand their “important work.” This video proves that sentiment wrong without doubt. It proves that this sentiment probably stems from a fear that perhaps the field isn’t intellectually tough or rigorous the way math might be. This might explain why so many rhetoric scholars don’t identify as such: “I study politics,” “I study race,” “I study argumentation,” the list goes on. It’s rare to find someone who says “I study rhetoric,” as such a claim seems baseless (see Burke, “The Paradox of Substance”). The fear that there’s nothing rigorous here warrants a creation of a performance of exclusion in our conference presentations and public talks. It warrants a gatekeeper mindset in our journals and our conference admission processes. We have to have the things that prove to ourselves that this is not something anyone could do, only the special, smart people can do it. But the value of rhetoric comes from teaching. It’s a teaching art; it’s a teaching field. It’s meant for people to access it and be able to do it with some instruction. The value of it isn’t intellectual; it’s in the preparation of others to be able to appreciate the intellectual, to appreciate complex thought and see a place for themselves in relation to that complex thought. It’s about appreciation and love for passion and dedication to a craft, an art, a serious realm of thought. And in these ways, Piccirillo is as good a rhetor as she is a mathematician.

Communication and rhetoric scholars work hard to indicate their identity as “serious scholars” outside of their rhetorical presentation, that they are complex and complicated theoretically, that most people couldn’t understand their complicated research. This math lecture shows that working to make something accessible and interesting – the realm of rhetoric – always engenders success with the audience even if they don’t have the background to fully appreciate everything you are saying. If only we actually followed the principles of our own art.

During the election , any election we are treated to numerous “persona on the street” interviews where people announce they are “ready for change.” Supporting change is like supporting our troops, willfully dodging the more difficult and concerning act of supporting what kind of change or what activities our troops are sent off to do. Supporting change in general – saying “it’s time for a change in X (the variable standing in for the place where government meets or the large, nondescript category of political activity like “the economy” or “Wall Street,” etc) is really saying that you don’t want to get into the important, specific, researchable elements of why you should support something. You just can’t be bothered to be engaged.

Photo by Stanley Morales on Pexels.com

This reminds me of the shocking, and continuously shocking frequency of poor opinion among those who should know better, i.e. professors. Many expressed to me no concern that young people were devouring the Harry Potter books at breakneck speed, claiming “well, at least they are reading.” When I pointed out they would have a different opinion if it turned out they were reading Mein Kampf, I was met with silence. Many colleagues opposed this with that bane of evil, the mobile phone: “At least they are reading and not on their phone all the time.” With the average mental age and culture of my colleagues hovering around 78 years old, I suppose they wouldn’t know that what one primarily does on a phone is read and write. Professors pine for the epistolary age, not even thinking about counting the thousands of words that students write every day on text message, mostly about the ineptitude of the professor to provide a meaningful class. I resolve in 2025 to eliminate my expectation that a professor should know better.

Supporting change, or reading, is also like supporting the university, or tenure. What good are these things as they are? Should they be defended for merely existing? There are many good arguments out there for tenure or for having universities, but we have abandoned most of them. In our froth to retain students, stay open, be competitive, we have reduced the entire arsenal of arguments to one: You’ll have no chance of getting a good job without these skills. But this begs several questions: What good jobs are out there that are directly connected to the university experience? And secondly, does the university teach or provide skills?

It’s anecdotal to be sure, but most of my students are ready to go for a career that isn’t much of one. They will work at one place, then another, then another – skills notwithstanding. What does work is their ability to speak, listen, communicate, and most importantly – rearticulate ideas back to the people who are sloppily groping their way toward a conclusion. The university provides a practice ground for expressing opinion in a meaningful way, a way that gets people to speak back to them or rearticulate their ideas to them so they can be re-expressed in a different way. This practice is somewhat essential not only for career oriented people, or someone who wants a job, but for people who plan to exist and function in a democracy. Expressing doubts about an opinion seems like an ability that the university could really get behind, particularly in a world where we frequently see someone shot or stabbed because of a disagreement about who was in line first.

Skill is a fraught term at best, generally a cover for discrimination – “She didn’t have the requisite skills for the position” is an unassailable position to take for an employer that discourages pushback. However, critical approaches on what counts as a skill reveal the term to often serve as a discriminatory smokescreen. Irena Grugulis, Chris Warhurst, and Ewart Keep note in the introduction to their book The Skills that Matter, most are your race, class, and luck of your educational experiences at a young age. Transferable skills tend to gravitate around whiteness, maleness, and middle-classness. So serving the corporate demand for “communication skills” or “teamwork” need to be interrogated by the university to determine if this is something that is actually demanded. Better yet, the University could just ignore the corporate demand for skill and teach appreciation, practice, and evaluation of critical thought through speaking and writing.

Tenure is another thing that’s easy to defend without a lot of specifics. Defending this as the ability to set the agenda for your research and then what becomes of your teaching seems pretty straightforward. The discussion of this kind of research freedom becomes easy to eliminate when the university, such as mine, pulls back all the research support it can. There’s little value to a tenured position if there is no sabbatical, no course reduction, no office to help you secure a grant or apply for a fellowship, and so on. A redefinition of tenure as having the expertise to evaluate whether students have demonstrated evidence of grasping, understanding, grappling with, or taking into consideration the elements of the course could be helpful. Things like assessment on objective measures fail because we then seek out what is easy to measure and measure it. It’s much more difficult and complex for a teacher to make a professional judgement on the quality of a student’s work and defend it. What is it based on? The professor should be able to show some example of what that quality would be like and explain the gap. This is the function of a rubric, as far as I understand it, but so many rubrics are boxes that contain points and serve as ways to distribute points to students who, from the first day of class, are preparing their case for passing during the last week based on the distinction between a 2.5 and a 3. The ancient argument of the sortie consumes many professors’ time at the end of the term as they hear “Well there’s not much difference here between getting 3 points and getting 5.” This reduces the professor and the student to equals who are at the mercy of the “syllabus as a contract” and interpreting it based on the objective standards of point distribution based on the rules established in this document. Instead, the professor should work on the articulation of what excellence is and how to meet it, with them as the gatekeeper of their field. Tenure is about quality standards, not a permanent protection from political disagreement. It should be thought of as where the power to interpret quality lies. This can of course extend to research as well at those institutions that are not quite to the point of being a “skill factory” like mine is quickly becoming. These confrontations on the level of critical interpretation are vital for students to practice articulation of why and how they might have met these difficult, non-objective standards of excellence set up by someone very well read, very practiced in what they are teaching.

Most young people are not invested in a career unless they want to be a doctor, an airplane designer, a bridge inspector – something like that. There are more than a few of them, and for these disciplines there are hard and fast abilities that need to be learned. Teachers are the best resource for determining what and how these things should be learned and understood. The core curriculum and the liberal arts come in to the grey areas of this – what to say when your boss indicates that perhaps a reduction in final checks of a wing, or a reduction in the quality of bolts on construction of a bridge would save millions, how will the former student engage? Will they feel a need to, or will they feel like they’ve done their part for the points in the box? Will they have a taste for engaging with those who are empowered to decide in ways that matter?

Getting into the specifics of change, reading, tenure, skill, etc is what the university should be up to. It should be a begged question detector – opening up the more difficult and taxing conversation that we are too lazy to have these days. Much easier to binge a series on streaming media which requires all the effort of a finger to indicate that you are “still watching” – yes, you are active! The university can be one of the last places where we have space and time to have this kind of tough and taxing engagement, an example of how it can be rewarding to “end” a conversation unsure, unrewarded, and unexpectedly thinking about it hours later when trying to go to sleep.

I got a new GoPro so what better way to break it in than to walk and talk through something on my mind about teaching.

I think what explains the lack of student motivation best is that they have only one measure to evaluate things in this world: entertainment. Is it entertaining? If not, they won’t do it.

How do we engage a generation of people whose only reason to engage anything is that they think it is entertaining?

On Friday I’ll post the second vlog on this topic. Subscribe to my YouTube channel to get the first look!