BOOK REVIEW: RHETORIC AND DEMOCRACY - Pedagogical and Political Practices

timely collection of essays on political rhetoric in democracy

RHETORIC AND DEMOCRACY - Pedagogical and Political Practices edited by Todd F. McDorman and David M. Timmerman. Michigan State U. Press, East Lansing, MI; www.msupress.msu.edu; reaumej@msu.edu. 2008. 289+xxx pages. $59.95 hardcover, ISBN 978-0-87013-835-5. chapter notes; index.

With the election of Obama, this book of 10 collected essays is timely. Obama's oratorical and rhetorical skills have been noted and commented on by many. His inauguration speech is now being scrutinized and analyzed for what it might reveal about his perspectives, values, orientations, and goals as president. The essays here not only deal with the role of rhetoric in democratic public life, but also give partly by example and partly directly guidance and techniques for analyzing such rhetoric and determining its effects.

The essays originated as working papers for a conference on rhetoric named the Brigance Colloquy held at Wabash College in honor of W. Norwood Brigance, recognized as "an early leader in the history of contemporary rhetorical studies in the United States, and a fierce proponent of the role of rhetoric in the formation and maintenance of democracies." Rhetoric of major, highly visible leaders is particularly important in the multicultural democratic society giving rise to Obama as its principle leader at a time of financial and international crises and with the weakening of social ties between groups and levels of society.

The title of the opening essay is "William Norwood Brigance and the Democracy of the Dead: Toward a Genealogy of the Rhetorical Renaissance." Obama's evocation of former generations of Americans in his inauguration speech was as unmistakable as it was intended. Obama's model and inspiration Abraham Lincoln similarly often evoked the dead in his presidency during the Civil War, mostly notably in the Gettysburg Address. Other essays deal with rhetoric in general and particular uses of rhetoric, including images and symbols. NASCAR dads, single working women, and naming deadly armaments and programs for dealing with them such as Defense Biometrics Program, Improvised Explosives Devices, and Critical Homeland Infrastructure Protection by the Defense Science Board (DSB), the "most powerful institution you have never heard of," are familiar topics recalled from recent presidential campaigns and elections and reactions to 9/11.

The regard of rhetoric in democracy throughout the essays coincides with considerations and issues attached to Obama's political values and goals expressed in or inferred from his public speaking regarded by many as one of his chief strengths as a leader. A professor Hauser from the U. of Colorado - Boulder, for instance, remarks that the "contemporary problems that thwart democratic practices and deliberative democracy's promise of returning democracy to its inclusive possibilities make the presence of baseness of a bottom-up performance of democracy a defining concern..."; which concern "requires stirring discourse that makes public moral arguments in the name of representative groups." The essays specify the principles and purposes and describe the style of rhetoric of political and civic leaders in a democracy that aims at continuing to be a democracy. With the election of Obama, they have a particular timeliness in that they serve as a kind of handbook for analyzing and evaluating his rhetoric.