Snowflakes in a Blizzard

Oh boy. Well, Kastely’s article is published so it’s out there. Apparently it has much to say: Rationality=Bad, Individualism=Not Good (Bad). After reading much material from College English I’m very unconfident in the journal as a whole. Every article is an exercise in uncritical theory. I can demonstrate this fairly easy, but before doing so I’d also like to point out the dangers of this kind of rhetoric, coming from a pre-Bush era (1999).

It’s obvious that rational argumentation and formalism have proved ineffective in practice. George Lakoff, for instance, wrote about how Liberal (and Leftist) rhetoric has lost the battle because it still assumes rhetoric and actual facts are as effective as hype and soundbytes. And for the most part the anti-rationalistic urges embodied in so much 80s-90’s Theory were co-opted by Republicans and Right-Wing organizations (the New Right of the 1990’s). For example, consider the interventions at the debates about Health-Care in 2009. These were the same tactics used by the New Left in the 1960’s (e.g. Westboro Baptists using the same techniques of protest as 1960s activists).

So this anti-Rationalistic stance might be good for effective argument, sure. I don’t know if it is so good for ethics, nor very interesting to teach students. Form is supposed to be empty, but obviously empty formalism has its problems. Yet must the teacher fill the forms in on behalf of the student? Isn’t this the student’s purpose? The purpose of non USSR education? If not then education becomes indoctrination. Even if the indoctrination is tolerance and generally good it’s still indoctrination. I can’t accept it on any grounds. As to not being interesting, well, it’s pretty old hat by now to consider that rationality is often a cover for irrational urges, urges that harness empty forms in order to persuade. This is psychoanalysis itself, Greek Tragedy itself. Yes language is desire and hence rhetorical. (Duh.)

But if language is desire where does the critique of “expressivist” approaches to writing come in? Where is individual need and subjectivity to fit in these schemes? Well, for Kastely (et al) need is a “social construction” right? To me this is actually a rationalization in itself of the failure to be adequately rational, a failure of scholarship itself. This is all just bad faith and it worries me people get paid to theorize this kind of thing. Ironically, the whole chorus of “difference” is really the same everywhere it turns up. It is the same person in the form of so many 90’s Theory-ists bred on anti-science, anti-nature, and anti-individualism.  

 

Here’s the kicker:

Kastely critiques Toulmin for using “real world” problems by using Greek Tragedy. This is tragic in itself (if not comedic and absurd). A part of me likes this though (for its literary preference). But why is he critiquing a book from 1958? To my knowledge much rhetoric changed in the 1970s after Barthes and the same old difference types emerged on the scene.  Is it really an effective rhetorical move to critique a guy for referring to the real-world by referencing a fiction from a 500 B.C.? Maybe so, but effective doesn’t mean “right.”