Does American Rhetoric Use Undemocratic Vocabulary?

The boundaries of two of my classes this semester have collided in a rhetorical "mash up" of sorts. Through my writing class and my language class, it is becoming clear to me how more and more Americans have come to dismiss rhetorical arguments about American public policy-making as merely one-sided pieces of propaganda that have no merit.  Americans have either tuned out or are not included in legitmate debates about our Great Democracy that demand our critical consideration. There are many reasons that rhetoric has become the eqivalent of a four-letter word, but that is a topic for another post. However, let me go on record as saying that I believe the reasons for our' dismissive attitude toward rhetoric are valid.

Last week in my writing class, the conversation about rhetoric turned to the state of American education and the observation that young people are no longer "readers." The discussion included ideas about how to motivate young people to read more and the barriers that prohibit their reading proficiencies and critical understanding. It's a real concern because the future of our democratic society depends upon an educated American population. However, much of the "politi-rhet" about advancing the state of our educational institutions is pure rhetoric only—there is no "functional rhetoric." By that I mean that the purpose of rhetoric and the rhetorical argument is to spur the audience to some sort of tangible action to address the exigence of the situation. Yet American rhetoric has not been able motivate citizens to action over our failing educational system or even change the tunnel vision of those who have real power to affect significant change.

However, believe it or not, rhetoric molds our history, culture, and language and has a profound impact on "public discourse" within our grand democratic American Experiment, as de Toqueville called it, and  America is constantly evolving, which renders the "experiment" semper novum. Therefore, incorporating new "vocabularies" into our society becomes particularly important when there are certain voices in public rhetoric that are missing from the democratic process on which our country is built.

The crux of problem appears to be that an increasing number of groups in the American population deprived of the language and support through which they might engage in discourse about public policies.  Currently, our educational system fails to support new segments of the population, and consequently, these new groups become only invisible shadows in our society, but their presence still haunts the changing relationships and associations within America's pluralistic society. When there is no shared dialogue about civic participation and responsibility, the cohesive structure of a society begins to break down. Whole parts of the population are left in a netherworld or limboland, occupying neither a common space or place within the fabric of the country.

For example, more than a century ago when African-Americans were freed from slavery they did not have the knowledge or vocabulary that could give them in a voice in America, and it was purposefully withheld from them to keep them under the thumb of majority whites. Black people could not go back to Africa because the majority of former slaves were not even born in Africa, but they were not given a the tools to engage in the commonalities that bind a society together, and as a result, civil unrest and violence eventually ensured. Now, in the 21st Century, large contingents of Latinos, a majority of which are Mexicans, have lived in the U.S. for 20, 30, 40, or more years, but have never been citizens of this country. Although the South and Southwest U.S. were the indigenous geographic area from which their ancestors may have come, Mexicans are not welcome here anymore. Those that have been able to live here for generations as undocumented immigrants may feel American, but they are not considered American. When they are "sent back," although they may never have stepped foot south of the border, they are misfits in the Mexican culture to an even more dramatic degree than they were in the U.S. Their voices are not part of the "grand narrative," suggests Claudia Galindo, a professor of linguistics and culture at the University of Maryland, of the American history as a nation of democratic equals.

Until Americans reimagine a culture that embraces the rhetoric and vocabulary of what E.D. Hirsch calls "a Pluralistic Nation," until we reconsider the way we all relate to each other—remember e pluribus unum?— until our country revisits the way we view each other, treat each other, and conceive of our democratic responsibilities, our nation is made vulnerable to a potentially disastrous disunity, such as one Arthur Schlesinger warned against in the early 1990s (yes, even we liberals must also consider the voices of the conservatives like Schlesinger). The "rhetorical situation" must be broadened to include the stories, cultures, and vocabulary of all groups that have had an impact on the American Experiment and will continue to have in the future. It is in the historic chronicle of our nation to embrace and adapt to evolving philosophies of what it means to be an American and to listen to the variety of voices that make up the "remarkably diverse racial, religious, and ethnic origins" of America (de Toqueville). This can only be achieved by unconditionally allowing immigrants, whether of legal or illegal status, the access to respectable public and higher educations. Through tolerance, justice, and ethical action, a productive population that contributes to the on-going welfare of America can be truly articulated.

In order to facilitate the great strengths of our nation in the future, the educational system must prepare itself to act on the rhetoric that our country's leaders regurgitate. It means educators much actively expand the cultural vocabulary of rhetoric in our classrooms to foster a more critical and dimensional conversation. It does not mean to pay cursory, "politically correct" attention to various cultural groups, it mean to truly engage in issues that address cultural conflict, the principles of a democratic society—a society that respects the voices of all America's people, not just those that control the rhetoric. The loss of true democratic debates and the disregard for moral justice in our country should be what alarms us most and should be recognized as a frightening crisis facing our country today. We must support leaders who fearlessly use American rhetoric to produce not the rhetoric of "change," but to instigate palpable, substantive results that focus on the welfare of all, particularly when focused on local community involvement and improvements. Only by giving all segments of our society the tools to enter into the critical debates that will confront our next generation, can authentic conversations about the endurance of our "grand experiment" extend democracy for all American people, by including the people.