The very last line of Roberts-Miller’s “Rhetoric ad Demogoguery” text sums up everything I felt after reading 100+ comments: “What most prevents demagoguery is a culture in which we believe that you should ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ And that’s what we should teach” (Roberts-Miller). In a marriage, politics, with family and friends, we could all take a cue from watching the hateful ways humans communicate with each other. It starts with us. The more aware we are, the less likely we are to support that kind of hate in others.

Each side claims to be the “in-group” and the other as the “out-group”, which ends up isolating them both from each other, effectively creating a dynamic similar to that seen in our current political discourse.

already see elements of demagoguery as defined by Roberts-Miller in “Characteristics of Demagoguery”. One of her key claims is that demagoguery takes on “god and devil terms.” Driscoll used these terms directly (“demons”), which “evoke strong emotions” (Roberts-Miller). It is clear to me, as someone who has fielded many questions about how I can teach yoga and believe in Jesus, that evangelicals are generally very scared of what they do not know. If it slightly wreaks of something “new age”, it is cast aside as bad. People engaged in yoga are flawed, misguided and need to be “saved.” Someone like Mr. Driscoll serves as a catalyst for more fear-mongering and anxiety. It gives folks in his congregation permission to call others evil without even considering that they may be quite normal and spiritual. He disapproves of any attempt at questions why, and lays down a blanket statement to refute any legitimacy that yoga may have. And people listen because somewhere inside of themselves, they are already harboring a judgment or fear that they may not have vocalized.

Rather than it be solely dependent on the evil of one person, it is subtly built off of preexisting beliefs that pervade a group of people that are not in power.

he McDonalds?” (31), to try and relate the personal freedom of smoking to the personal freedom of eating. If people can eat what they want and it hurts them, why can’t they smoke? But, this gets circular since his argument at the beginning essentially says that smoking isn’t so bad. If it’s not bad, perhaps he shouldn’t try to liken it to something else that’s bad. And, all people have to eat; not all people need to smoke to survive.

n fact, I am quite sure he didn’t read the entire study because the quote he pulls is from the very last line of the conclusion, which is at the beginning of the lengthy text. He is working under the assumption that many people will think of the BMJ as a credible source, thus he is credible, but leaves out huge bits of information that can shift the meaning entirely.

The symbol of a fascist regime

We were faced with a teaching moment we weren’t prepared for, but should’ve been, where we had to explain why that was inappropriate. While these conversations are uncomfortable, they are necessary. Technology can be a great thing, and a terrible thing. We need to teach kids, at a younger age, what to look out for.

teach youth how to navigate media and technology in the same way that we are learning about rhetoric and writing: through a more thoughtful, analytical lens. I see this as teaching youth to ask questions like:

mportant one, so, hopefully people will catch on, add to the rhetoric, and produce more knowledge to help bridge the digital divide.

She only mentions Wikipedia, and goes on for pages about its greatness.

I think Boyd’s ideas about giving more education opportunities for young people is great, but she doesn’t outline the specifics of what that looks like.

which we are unfamiliar with who wrote it, and also subject to whatever biases they bring into the writing of said book. We will never see or hear the process of how they chose to include, or exclude certain information.

that the basic foundation that children and teens have with technology gives them more confidence as they begin using it.

Vocalizing creates a new vulnerability that challenges all my premeditated comfort zones, and begs me to connect with people in the physical realm. It asks me to respond and be responded to, to give feedback and receive it, speak and be spoken to, and thus, engage in this arcane world of rhetoric in a whole new wa

When I consider these texts, and the exhaustive study that Ong has done on primary oral cultures, I cannot help but think of music. I consider my experience in Malawi, where music was at the core of nearly everything they did. Every person, from toddler to aging adult, male and female, communicated through song and dance. It wasn’t reserved for concert halls and clubs; it was a language in itself, a necessary practice in a world obsessed with 140 characters. For them, writing was an accessory to other communication. Education was scarce, an issue which necessitates an entirely different discussion, but in the absence of their formal education, they taught me something I didn’t even know that I needed to learn: how to communicate without a pen. They are not a primary oral culture, although they likely were at some point, but they were delightfully ignorant of the power we inject into our daily babbling. Power, for them, was found in moving, speaking, and singing, together.

Throughout Johnson’s text, one can see the use of repetition and epithets to invoke emotion, and facilitate memory. The “blacksmith patriarchs” could just be the “blacksmiths”, or the “patriarchs”, but they are repeated together throughout the story. Couscous becomes “sacrificial couscous”, and “Fata Magan” becomes “Fata Magan, the Handsome”.

Memory is driven by a thoughtful, exhaustive reading of the text, rather than by the sound of the text. This may serve a chirographic society, but read aloud to an audience, without any typographic reference point, this text would be nearly impossible to remember.

One can quickly read these short phrases and surmise that a story is beginning to be told, and it is probably about a woman, or women. The intentional use of a pause, followed by an exclamation (Indeed!), demands that the reader (and certainly the listener), be a part of the story, staying present to the shifts in tone and rhythm as to know when to respond, thus transcending the listener from bystander, to participant. It is in this process that power is created. One can feel the sounds leave their mouth, and can hear the boom of “Indeed!” reverberate through the crowd, understanding that there is something big and important being shared. Without a more dramatic use of audible language and variegated sounds, the story becomes dense with words that may or may not help the teller make their point clear.

Ong alludes to this very idea while citing Malinowski, “…that among ‘primitive’ (oral) peoples generally language is a mode of action and not simply a countersign of thought” (32), recognizing that words were entire “events”, rather than “out there on a flat surface” (32). “Sound,” Ong says, “cannot be sounding without the use of power” (32). Johnson’s Sundiata, reflects this notion that sound is indeed a driving force of the work, using a more dramatic call-and-response to hyperbolize the simple words he was saying:

I remember so vividly the earthy resonance of their feet pounding the red dirt: bum buhhhh, bu bum bu, buhhhh. Young Malawian girls circled around me, giggling and smiling as they showed me, an American woman, their native dancing. There was intermittent singing punctuated by claps, hip thrusts and an amazing aerobic display that left me with a euphoric feeling that is hard to capture in words. I felt like I had just tapped into some primitive sensation, or feeling, or emotion that I had never known before. It was, like Ong stated, “dynamic” (32). I could sit here all day and try to communicate the sensation in words, but it would never be fully understood because you cannot feel it

It is this very idea that I find interesting, that we can use an ancient art to help us sort out modern day issues.

The psychology behind the way people act on the internet versus in-person, is a topic that fascinates me. I would love to learn more about the way digital media, and the connections, made through it, have changed the way we interact with humans in general. Has it made us better communicators? Are we more distracted, and if so, how does that affect personal relationships? Have we really been able to solve more issues with the advent of digital communication, or just created more confusion?

. I don’t think this is a reason to take away online discussion, but I also feel that it’s an issue that needs to be better explored.

Today’s online writing meets Socrates halfway. It’s printish, but with a roiling culture of oral debate attached.”

Due to the public nature of blogs and social media, we are thrust into an environment which forces us to really consider what we write, how we write and who our audience is. We are, in effect, forced to distill our ideas, either by catering to our audience, or through the lively discussions that ensue from a particular post. This consistent writing has also served to create more thoughtful writers, even ones who have become more adept at the art of rhetorical discourse.

I keep a website. I like to write. That’s a good start if you want to know me during this journey through Fall 2017 semester. To read more, check out my site. This post is the first from that blog, and a more exhaustive, personal look into what makes me tick. I look forward to getting to know you all!