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  • The Rhetoric of RHETORIC: The Quest for Effective Communication
  • Jerry Blitefield
The Rhetoric of RHETORIC: The Quest for Effective Communication. By Wayne C. Booth. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004; pp xvi + 206. $54.95 cloth; $19.95 paper.

Wayne Booth, who passed away in October 2005, has long been rhetoric's most ardent ambassador, having pressed his claim for rhetoric's value in the halls of literature, science, and philosophy. With his last book and self-described "manifesto" The Rhetoric of RHETORIC, Booth takes his message beyond the intramural back-chatter of academe and straight to the public at large. His case: "that the quality of our lives, moment by moment, depends upon the quality of our rhetoric" (171), and that the discursive, ethical, and epistemic impoverishment of contemporary democratic politics and culture results from practicing bad rhetoric, what he calls rhetrickery—"dangerously, often deliberately, deceptive [rhetoric]: just plain cheating that deserves to be exposed . . . the art of producing misunderstanding" (x). As a mend, Booth posits that by reviving rhetorical education across the board, by attuning the general population upward toward heightened rhetorical awareness, rhetorical hucksters and cardsharps—from shady politicians and corporations to the shading press—would find no truck among the people. Or at least a lot less.

But awareness isn't sufficient: simultaneous with an ousting of the bad must come an ushering in of the good, systematically applying good rhetoric systemically. To this end, early on in the text, after a brief orientation toward [End Page 710] the "history" of rhetoric and some of its many definitions, Booth constructs a taxonomy of rhetoric types based upon a calculus of the rhetor's motives and ethics, ranging from "Win Rhetoric (WR-a through c)," a rhetoric in which "victory is essential" (43); to "Bargain Rhetoric (BR-a through c)," rhetoric that looks to "pursue diplomacy, mediate, find a truce" (45); arriving last at "Listening Rhetoric (LR-a through e)," rhetoric that seeks neither to win nor settle, but rather to "pursue the truth behind our differences" (46).

While Booth gives instances of both justifiable and unjustifiable WR, BR, and LR, ultimately he pins his brightest hopes for a healthy rhetorical and democratic future on "LR-a," mutually engaged "genuine listening" (46). Distinguishing LR-a from WR, BR, and the other types of LR is that in LR-a, rhetors don't just listen as a tactical gambit toward victory or settlement, for simply overcoming rhetorical obstacles, but rather as means for understanding and cooperation. Underlying LR-a is the belief that we share more in common than our current rhetorical practices allow us to discover, and that if we could only get to that common ground, our receding differences would clear the way for cooperative action. LR-a means icing one's own argument while trying to warm to another's, as in, not only listening to the opposing argument or tolerating the opposing position but actually seeking to make sense of it (with the expectation of reciprocation). Booth argues that only by going deep below our differences, situation by situation, to those truths that bind us, can we move ahead to a mutually consensual course for the future.

What Booth calls for, then, is a transparent rhetoric not based on production alone but also on reception: active, eager listening; that is, a rhetoric that begins with mutually assured respect for positions not one's own and an a priori commitment to deep listening. When followed, LR-a can lead communicants out of misperception, misunderstanding, and dialogic gridlock: stasis theory for the commonweal.

Obviously, Booth finds LR-a all too rare, otherwise he wouldn't have written his manifesto. As proof of its need, he offers ample examples where rhetrickery has prevailed and continues to prevail as the rhetoric of choice. He points to the demagogic talk show that promotes verbal pastings and humiliations over real dialogue, and the consequent hopelessness for enlightened discussion. He also laments the unscrupulous (and ultimately backfiring) ways both the Right and the Left demonize their opposites in acts of public demonstration. Most exemplary of rhetrickery, however, is the Bush administration and its handling of the war in Iraq—its...

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