Comments on: Rhetorics Easy and Hard http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2006/12/08/rhetorics-easy-and-hard/ faults | sins | abuses Sun, 07 Sep 2008 07:40:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 By: bradley http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2006/12/08/rhetorics-easy-and-hard/#comment-49145 bradley Tue, 12 Dec 2006 16:17:00 +0000 http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2006/12/08/rhetorics-easy-and-hard/#comment-49145 I'm not sure how this fits with the discussion, but our local paper in Spokane ran an article a few days ago about voting patterns, showing which parts of the county voted at the county average, and which precincts voted either 5 or 10 percent above or below the county average. The lowest turnout in the county, about 30 percent with the county average near 70 percent, was in the precinct that encompasses Fairchild Air Force Base. Sure, lots of them are somewhat transient, but with the new air tankers a big deal in the local elections (what with Boeing across the Cascades and Fairchild being a refueling base of KC-135s I think it is) and this being a fairly Republican region, one would expect them to vote, one way or the other. It would be interesting to look at voting rates at other military bases across the country to see how this level of engagement plays out and what it might mean. What are the beliefs and values at play here? I’m not sure how this fits with the discussion, but our local paper in Spokane ran an article a few days ago about voting patterns, showing which parts of the county voted at the county average, and which precincts voted either 5 or 10 percent above or below the county average. The lowest turnout in the county, about 30 percent with the county average near 70 percent, was in the precinct that encompasses Fairchild Air Force Base. Sure, lots of them are somewhat transient, but with the new air tankers a big deal in the local elections (what with Boeing across the Cascades and Fairchild being a refueling base of KC-135s I think it is) and this being a fairly Republican region, one would expect them to vote, one way or the other. It would be interesting to look at voting rates at other military bases across the country to see how this level of engagement plays out and what it might mean. What are the beliefs and values at play here?

]]> By: mike http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2006/12/08/rhetorics-easy-and-hard/#comment-49068 mike Tue, 12 Dec 2006 01:43:54 +0000 http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2006/12/08/rhetorics-easy-and-hard/#comment-49068 Good point about the location from which cadets might feel or inhabit perspectives. There is, though, a sense of community here that feels much more tight than anywhere else I've taught, coming partly from the fraction of cadets who are prior service, partly from the strong family service traditions, partly from the whole immersion thing that goes on here, and partly from just the way the military is: in terms of camaraderie, my time in the military was the best job I've every had. While what I'm doing now is far more intellectually fulfilling, I won't forget the sense of shared commitment that was so immensely and uniquely rewarding when I was a soldier. And yet that tension between intellectual fulfillment and shared commitment that Joanna brings up is something that sometimes confounds and frustrates me here: cadets are soldiers first, and I know and respect that, but that means that they're not intellectuals, scholars, or students first -- and that frequently comes out in the attitudes about the place of academics. Good point about the location from which cadets might feel or inhabit perspectives. There is, though, a sense of community here that feels much more tight than anywhere else I’ve taught, coming partly from the fraction of cadets who are prior service, partly from the strong family service traditions, partly from the whole immersion thing that goes on here, and partly from just the way the military is: in terms of camaraderie, my time in the military was the best job I’ve every had. While what I’m doing now is far more intellectually fulfilling, I won’t forget the sense of shared commitment that was so immensely and uniquely rewarding when I was a soldier. And yet that tension between intellectual fulfillment and shared commitment that Joanna brings up is something that sometimes confounds and frustrates me here: cadets are soldiers first, and I know and respect that, but that means that they’re not intellectuals, scholars, or students first — and that frequently comes out in the attitudes about the place of academics.

]]> By: joanna http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2006/12/08/rhetorics-easy-and-hard/#comment-48822 joanna Sun, 10 Dec 2006 18:59:21 +0000 http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2006/12/08/rhetorics-easy-and-hard/#comment-48822 It's good that your aware of and welcome this shaking up of your ideas and rhetorics--that's what will take you far as a classroom instructor because, as Pi notes with her example, sometimes the theories we learn and the people we teach don't jibe as we'd assumed. Also, I think that as teachers, we have to respect the students' ideas and ideals, though I agree with Michelle's observation that in your case, the students' don't have the battle and career experience of soldiers yet. And I'm not suggesting that these ideas be left alone--if a soldier can't use the tools of rhetoric and the time that being in college affords to think through a lot of assumptions, then when will she ever have that time? At WP, you're training future officers who will be in charge of groups of people and strategic operations. While they obviously need to be trained in the quick here-and-now kind of thinking that one would need on the battlefield, they also need to be reminded of/enriched by/confounded by the questions raised in the humanities. We all do. Glad to see that you've posted, Mike. I've wondered if, like poor Charlie, you were trapped on the Metro and would never return, your "fate still unlearned." It’s good that your aware of and welcome this shaking up of your ideas and rhetorics–that’s what will take you far as a classroom instructor because, as Pi notes with her example, sometimes the theories we learn and the people we teach don’t jibe as we’d assumed. Also, I think that as teachers, we have to respect the students’ ideas and ideals, though I agree with Michelle’s observation that in your case, the students’ don’t have the battle and career experience of soldiers yet. And I’m not suggesting that these ideas be left alone–if a soldier can’t use the tools of rhetoric and the time that being in college affords to think through a lot of assumptions, then when will she ever have that time? At WP, you’re training future officers who will be in charge of groups of people and strategic operations. While they obviously need to be trained in the quick here-and-now kind of thinking that one would need on the battlefield, they also need to be reminded of/enriched by/confounded by the questions raised in the humanities.
We all do.
Glad to see that you’ve posted, Mike. I’ve wondered if, like poor Charlie, you were trapped on the Metro and would never return, your “fate still unlearned.”

]]> By: Michelle http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2006/12/08/rhetorics-easy-and-hard/#comment-48644 Michelle Sun, 10 Dec 2006 02:49:21 +0000 http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2006/12/08/rhetorics-easy-and-hard/#comment-48644 I have a question about this: <em>At the institutions where I taught as a graduate student, I’d have found it easy to dismiss such rhetoric from students as something spoken rather than wholly inhabited; as an idly mouthed rhetorical commonplace rather than a deeply felt credo.</em> and your ability to dismiss. I would fall on the side of dismissing to an extent. Although you go on to say that they have committed to this, they don't have the history or the experience behind them yet, so even though they are in a military environment and will have the experience of Iraq in their future (should it still be unfortunately available), I don't see how their writing can have the same sort of experience that a soldier in a death-threatening situation can have. I have a question about this:

At the institutions where I taught as a graduate student, I’d have found it easy to dismiss such rhetoric from students as something spoken rather than wholly inhabited; as an idly mouthed rhetorical commonplace rather than a deeply felt credo.

and your ability to dismiss. I would fall on the side of dismissing to an extent.

Although you go on to say that they have committed to this, they don’t have the history or the experience behind them yet, so even though they are in a military environment and will have the experience of Iraq in their future (should it still be unfortunately available), I don’t see how their writing can have the same sort of experience that a soldier in a death-threatening situation can have.

]]> By: Michelle http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2006/12/08/rhetorics-easy-and-hard/#comment-48642 Michelle Sun, 10 Dec 2006 02:40:34 +0000 http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2006/12/08/rhetorics-easy-and-hard/#comment-48642 You? Adament? Ye Gods, what were they thinking? OK, I'll go read the rest now. You? Adament? Ye Gods, what were they thinking? OK, I’ll go read the rest now.

]]> By: pi http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2006/12/08/rhetorics-easy-and-hard/#comment-48547 pi Sat, 09 Dec 2006 16:51:33 +0000 http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2006/12/08/rhetorics-easy-and-hard/#comment-48547 Great post, Mike. I experienced something similar when I left my PhD program to take a job at a community college. I'd been deeply schooled in the Barthomae/Petrosky Ways of Reading thang and the cultural studies thang, and suddenly I was confronted with largely working class, largely religious, largely right-leaning students. I, too, was ready to dismiss their views as the empty commonplaces I'd tried to move my university students beyond, but I came to find out that their beliefs about God and family and country were often pretty deeply held, especially amongst those students for whom the military, firefighting, and policing were in their futures. And I did start to think who am I to challenge the beliefs of students who are ready to put themselves in real danger for those things that my fellow grad students and I used to pooh pooh? I'm not saying I've moved any further to the right myself, or that I don't want to challenge all my students to look beyond the commonplace, but I'm not so fast to dismiss these things anymore. Great post, Mike. I experienced something similar when I left my PhD program to take a job at a community college. I’d been deeply schooled in the Barthomae/Petrosky Ways of Reading thang and the cultural studies thang, and suddenly I was confronted with largely working class, largely religious, largely right-leaning students. I, too, was ready to dismiss their views as the empty commonplaces I’d tried to move my university students beyond, but I came to find out that their beliefs about God and family and country were often pretty deeply held, especially amongst those students for whom the military, firefighting, and policing were in their futures. And I did start to think who am I to challenge the beliefs of students who are ready to put themselves in real danger for those things that my fellow grad students and I used to pooh pooh? I’m not saying I’ve moved any further to the right myself, or that I don’t want to challenge all my students to look beyond the commonplace, but I’m not so fast to dismiss these things anymore.

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