Composition: History & Theory: 1980 - 1989
Berlin, James. “Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class.” (1988)
Description
Berlin claims that ideology influences every approach to writing instruction, that specific politicality exists in every rhetoric, and no one ideology can lay claim to truth. Therefore, no method of teaching is ever completely innocent. Pedagogical and ideological approaches always contain underlying (or overt) notions concerning the distribution of power and knowledge (truth). When considering rhetoric, Berlin explains, ideology provides the language to define four major ideas: that of subject (the self), other subjects, the material world, and the relation of all of these to each other. For Berlin, any discussion of rhetoric “must first consider the ways its very discursive structure can be read so as to favor one version of economic, social, and political arrangements over other versions” (477). What Berlin wants the reader to take away from this section on ideology is that it is pluralistic and can be given unique connotations depending on the historical moment and the competing theories in practice. Therefore, if rhetoric can never truly be a “disinterested arbiter” of the ideological claims of others because it is always already serving some form of ideology (477). Simply put, Berlin insists that we situate rhetoric within ideology.
Using Gorgan Therborn’s concept of ideology as a discourse, Berlin surveys three commonly used rhetorics, situates them historically and philosophically, and explains their ideological differences. Berlin suggests that social epistemology considers “the question of ideology at the center of the teaching of writing” (492). Berlin prefaces his survey by explaining how Therborn’s concept of ideology (Marxist and Socialist) is informed by Althusser and Foucault. Berlin discusses the three rhetorics—cognitive, expressionistic, and social epistemic—through the rubric of Therborn’s three ideological questions: “What exists? What is good? What is possible?” (479). He notes that inherent in ideology are power differentials and value judgments that hinge on people’s perspective of “the nature of things”, but that “power relationships […] are inscribed in the discursive practices of daily experience”; “ideology is always pluralistic,” yet its incarnations “support the hegemony of the dominant class” (479).
Given this understanding of ideology, Berlin supports the social-epistemic rhetoric in composition classrooms because its goal is to uncover the workings of ideology in students’ lives, whereas cognitive rhetoric, according to Berlin, ignores the question of ideology. Though expressionist rhetoric claims to challenge dominant ideology, its emphasis on the individual actually reinforces dominant capitalist individualism. Social-epistemic rhetoric is the only approach that acknowledges, engages, and critiques the social construction of reality and the individual. Knowledge is dialectical. The subject interacts with the community and the material conditions of her life, and all three interact with each other, forming each other. Because of this dialectical form of knowledge, Berlin urges teachers to empower students through dialogue and interaction in the writing class so as to “reexperience the ordinary” (491). Berlin focuses on Ira Shor’s use of social-epistemic rhetoric in the classroom and Shor’s approach reflects this dialectic. Students and teacher equally create the classroom and materials, and together create new knowledge, drawing on many disciplines, and always examining the material conditions their subject is located within. Shor sees this education as liberty, and Berlin endorses it. Using the work of Shor, Berlin explains that the absence of “‘natural laws’ or ‘universal truths’ that indicate what exists, what is good, and what is possible, and how power is to be distributed,” in social epistemic rhetoric means that, “no class or group or individual has privileged access to these matters” (489-90). For social epistemics, the goal of writing is a continual reexamination of knowledge and power relationships. With its emphasis on self-criticism and self-reflection, social epistemic rhetoric continually finds ways to interrogate the ideology of any pedagogical approach.
Because Berlin seems to place cognitive, expressionist, and social epistemic rhetorics in conversation with each other, “Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class” comes as close as any text can to enacting the dialectic rhetoric it prefers. This article is recommended not only for the historical perspective it provides but also for the benefits associated with “dialectical collaboration” which can lead to an active class in which student questioning can be rewarding as well as intellectually challenging for both the students and the instructor. In addition, Berlin enlightens students of their rights as knowledge-seekers to question the unquestionable and to delve into the mystery of knowledge, transforming them into skeptical readers and writers.
Two criticisms of this liberatory classroom as presented by Berlin concern the assertion that the relationship between teacher and students becomes equal and the claim that “the liberated consciousness of students is the only educational objective worth considering” (492). It is hard to believe that the relationship between student and teacher can ever be truly equal. The teacher must acknowledge the power inherent in her position within the system of the university. Certainly this power relationship need not be completely authoritarian and should be critiqued, but to assume it can be avoided is naïve. Seeing the classroom as only having one objective is also objectionable—how does the act of composing fit into Berlin’s higher objective, even as a means toward it?
Date of Upload
3/14/09