Contemporary Rhetorical Citizenship

Abstract

This figure illustrates how various rhetorical concerns are connected, but also how much recent thinking in other disciplines addresses rhetorical concerns; thus interdisciplinary contact becomes an obvious agenda.For example, the idea that citizenship involves not only citizens' rights but also what might be expected or demanded of them is stated clearly as an emerging insight in an overview on citizenship research by the philosophers Will Kymlicka and Wayne Norman: "most theorists now accept that the functioning of society depends not only on the justice of its institutions or constitutions, but also on the virtues, identities, and practices of its citizens, including their ability to co-operate, deliberate, and feel solidarity with those who belong to different ethnic and religious groups" (2000, p. 11).As for the distinction between the active and the receptive aspects of rhetorical citizenship, it parallels what political theorists Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson call the "principles of accommodation."These principles, they say, "make two kinds of general demands on citizens; one concerns how citizens present their own political positions, and the other how they regard the political positions of others" (1996, p. 80).As for citizens' rights or rightful expectations with regard to rhetoric in society, citizens not only have the right to speak, they also need the capacity and position to speak so that they may be heard.Studies of rhetorical agency and how it is achieved by some and denied to others belong here.How is rhetorical agency manifested or contested?What does it take to gain a hearing?What counts as participation in public debate?How do we determine what points of view are to be considered legitimate and appropriate forms of expression on issues of common concern?How can we account for changes in these categories?Are there certain responsibilities or duties incumbent on those who speak -such as standards of responsible discourse or even of deliberation?Many scholars in disciplines other than rhetoric have reflected on what those standards might be.Recently, political theorist John Dryzek has recognized rhetoric as a necessity in democracy, while not per se a constructive factor.He argues for a "systemic" criterion to distinguish between "desirable and undesirable uses of rhetoric," and after analyzing how rhetoric may be either "bridging" or "bonding," and how both kinds may play positive roles, he concludes that we should be "asking whether or not the rhetoric in question contributes to the construction of an effective deliberative system joining competent and reflective actors on the issue at hand" (2010, p. 335).

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