Summary of Richard Scott Lyons "Rhetorical Sovereignty"

In "Rhetorical Sovereignty," Richard Scott Lyons discusses how Indian populations have been reconstructed by the dominant power, controlling Indian identity and political power in public discourse. He calls for several reforms—ideological, political, educational, cultural—while focusing on American Indian rhetorical sovereignty, that is, the right of indigenous people to represent themselves how they want to be represented. Controlled by institutional powers intending to assimilate American Indians into White American culture, writing for and about American Indians is largely problematic, given its association with a long history of violence and colonization. However, combined with American Indian Rhetoric and the principle of Rhetorical Sovereignty, writing can be used to revise history and show an accurate depiction of American Indian culture as well as voice localized concerns related directly to the community.

Lyons traces the development of the term sovereignty throughout history to reveal how its meaning can change and be reappropriated. In medieval Europe, the sovereign was only answerable to himself and to God. Lyons indicates that sovereign power is locatable within peoples, an important concept that leads to his discussion of American Indian treaties with the Europeans and, after the Revolution, Americans. In short, Lyons describes how American Indian sovereignty is revised to fit the expansionist agenda of American government. He accuses Americans of committing rhetorical imperialism by controlling the terms of the debate that has left Indians out.

Next, Lyons reviews some contemporary work on American Indians. His main concern is that many of these scholars turn to the past rather than the present, focusing on what is lost or reinforcing the “Indian” way of thinking, mainly through oral communication. Lyons endeavors to relocate American Indian scholarship in the present cultivation of immediately locatable peoples and cultures. The “New Ghost Dance,” he describes, focuses on returning American Indian power to American Indians with the mutual support of non-Indians.

He ends by looking at institutions to begin teaching American Indian Rhetoric and a revised

history of minority struggles in which Native American are put with African Americans, Women, and others. He urges for higher education to take on American Indian Rhetoric and Indian Studies. He also briefly describes a Native American type of education that focuses on the values of the community.

Quick Post on Duffy

Recently, I read an article on CCN warning that extremists—racist or so-called “patriotic” groups—are on the rise in the United States. As the article points to violence against minority groups, in most cast foiled by the police, I immediately thought of the Duffy’s article and civic, sometimes civil, discourse. I was impressed with Duffy’s careful reading of how the Hmong took up the rhetoric of Wausau’s dissatisfied white population and crafted strong arguments. Plus, they affirmed their position without explosive language denigrating their target audience.

While the Hmong attacked ignorance in their readers, they also built up ethos based on reasoned arguments and, I would argue, politeness. President Obama the other day said something to the effect of our nation is polarized and in desperate need of civility in political discourse, and I think the Hmong present us with a good example of civility without compromising too much ground.

In Duffy's example, literacy here created a positive outcome. The Hmong showed collective poise through appropriating the discourse used against them, and discontents were shown their frustrations were mostly baseless, for better or for worse. Turning back to the CNN article about hate groups, I wonder what would happen if the hate groups were engaged in a civil discussion with the target of their ire. Would this help inspire tolerance?

Literacy and rhetoric can be dangerous as well. Right now, I’m taking a class on Southern literature, and this was the first time I read Thomas Dixon, Jr, an outspoken racist and apologist for the KKK who wrote around the turn of the 19^th century. Dixon’s had a wide audience, and D.W. Giffith’s Birth of Nation (1915) was based off of Dixon’s books. At the time, the racist rhetoric had a firm place in the cultural imaginary. Today, if you look up reviews on Amazon of Dixon's work, you'll find some startling words praising these racist documents.

While we often study things to appreciate them and praise them, I wonder what a study about racist discourse might look like? How do people make compelling arguments for alienating an entire people based on race or sexuality? I imagine that would be a dark place to go, and I would probably rather spend time in pleasant Wausau like Duffy, but I think it’s important to understand the opposition if we are going to get a full picture of the issue.

Reading Response 2

This week, our class read through the first half of James A. Berlin's Rhetoric and Reality, and Berlin tracks and contextualizes changes in English studies through the 20th century. What motivates past debates about education remains, in a manner of speaking, the same motivation for our debate on our legitimacy and pedagogy as a scholarly discipline today: an urgent sense of crisis. When students can't write, our culture--more likely our profession--is going to end and end catastrophically.

Fortunately, the English department has survived by responding to changes in our culture. Berlin, for instance, explains that rhetoric in English studies slowly diminished in value, taken over by literature. The crisis then was displacement of rhetoric, and students still couldn't write.

Today, I see an inversion to this past crisis. Composition and rhetoric studies are challenging the eminence of literary studies. If you don't believe me, I encourage you to ask a trusted advisor or friend in which field is it easier to find a job. Comp/rhet. and literary studies seem like rival siblings that, while coming from the same home, simply can't--or don't want to--get along.

In this moment, where jobs are scarce and schools are driven by consumers' wants, it seems that the study of composition and rhetoric appeals to a practical and positivistic mindset present in our culture. The general appeal of comp/rhet., while still deeply theoretical and complex, responds to a narrative in which practical skills are valuable and get results. The theories wars of the 1980s and 1990s, by extension, don't settle well when we're pinching pennies and looking for alternatives to the mess that is postmodernism.

However, we can't altogether discount postmodernist theory. Without it, would we insist on multiple literacies as opposed to just one definition of literacy? Would we be as sensitive to discursive power over knowledge as we are? Would we look so closely at subcultures and smal communities? So, to extend my silly analogy further, comp/rhet. and literary studies are more like rival siblings--they fight, but they can't get entirely away from each other.

With Berlin's historical account in mind, this struggle is good for our discipline. Without the competition, we would not have invention and integration that makes what we do useful and, yes, even fun. So, our current crisis for intellectual legitimacy isn't really a crisis at all--it wasn't really a crisis then--but rather a familiar, ongoing process for change.