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Introduction: Rhetoric and the Environmental Dilemma
- Southern Illinois University Press
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Introduction Rhetoric and the Environmental Dilemma Ecospeak and Rhetorical Analysis Since the middle of the last century, human beings have become increasingly aware of the earth's vulnerability. Examining the results of humankind's technological power has opened a new vein of consciousness, the knowledge that large-scale human action may place the further existence of nature-including human activity itself-in jeopardy. With this new awareness have come calls for "extensive social readjustment" as well as the initial rumblings of "violent social upheaval"-the historical conditions that, according to Charles Morris and Edward Corbett, give rise to an invigorated practice and study of rhetoric. Classieally defined as the production and interpretation ofsigns and the use of logieal, ethical, and emotional appeals in deliberations about public action, rhetoric is both a theory and a practical art. On the one hand, it analyzes and models discourse practices; on the other hand, it seeks to improve these practices. Our purpose in this book is primarily analytical. We want to delineate the patterns of rhetoric typically used in written discourse on environmental politics. We have in mind two audienccs, one motivated by scholarly interests, the other guided by personal or political interests. The first audience is composed of students of public rhetoric, to whom we offer a work of rhetorica utens, a study of rhetoric in use. We agree with Charles Bazerman that histories of rhetoric have too exclusively focused on rhetorica docens, the theory and pedagogy of rhetoric, while ignoring "actual living practice" (Bazerman 15). One of our purposes, then, is 1 2 f) ECOSPEAK to restore the balance in the field by making a practical contribution to the art of rhetorical criticism. The consequences of this pragmatic art, however, may well reach beyond the classroom and the library. In addressing these consequences, we are brought into contact with our second audience-people engaged in the effort to adjust thought and action to the changing conditions of human life-scientists, government officials, investors, managers, workers, farmers, environmental activists, nature mystics, and anyone else who puts thoughts on paper with the intention of changing the way others think and act in the world. To this audience, we offer a provisional map of recent writers' attempts to reaeh new stages of consciousness and action through the medium of language. Our sketch of discourse patterns is necessarily rough, because the world and the rhetoric that shapes it are subject these days to strong and unpredictable currents of change. But we feel it is time to make a start. For the audience of activists, we hope our map is useful as aset of hints toward an improved language ofpublic discourse. For scholars in rhetoric, we offer little more than a point of departure for further research. In these suggestions, we do not mean to claim either that activism and scholarship can be simply and clearly divided or that we ourselves are merely neutral observers. As rhetorical analysts, we are no less users ofrhetoric ourselves, and our way ofunderstanding the medium in which we work suggests that, like those whose writings we analyze, we inevitably reveal certain biases in our analyses and evaluations, some of which, owing to the power of ideology, we will never realize ourselves until readers point them out to us. \Ve can say from the start, however, that our sympathies lie primarily with the perspective we will identity as eco-humanism or social ecology, a line of thought best represented in the writings of Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Barry Commoner, Herman Daly, John Cobb, and Lester Brown. The critiques and programs offered by these writers vary greatly, as we will show, but they hold in common the view that technological and bureaucratic solutions to environmental problems will be ineffective -or impossible-unless accompanied or preceded by free and broad access to speeial knowledges and relevant information as well as by deep psychological and social adjustments. For social ecology, the environmental dilemma is a problem generated by the way people [3.21.104.109] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 21:29 GMT) Introduction () 3 think and act in cultural units. Since human thought and conduct are rarely, ifever, unmediated by language and other kinds ofsigns, it is understandable-possibly inevitable-that rhetorical scholars enter the environmental discussion through the gate of humanism. Our hope is to remain critical ofthis perspective and despite our inclination toward it, to weigh it as fairly as possible in the balance with other perspectives. A Crisis ofWestern Liberalism: Ethics...