You’ve all read both Booth and Lakoff. Make an argument, citing both texts to fit these two thinkers into the traditions we’ve encountered so far.

In chapter 4, Booth offers us a taxonomy of rhetorical performance that includes various types of win-rhetoric, bargaining rhetoric, and listening rhetoric. He advocates one variation of listening rhetoric, though he finds value in certain forms of bargaining- and win-rhetoric as well. In your post, try to think of one contemporary example in which listening-rhetoric-a was practiced, and contrast that with an example of another kind of rhetoric described by Booth. In these examples, do you find the beneficial results of listening-rhetoric-a becoming manifest? Do you find that the other mode of rhetorical engagement was less productive, ethical, etc.?

Booth confesses that he falls on the “Platonic” side of rhetorical study, saying that he holds some truths (empirical and moral) to be indisputable (p. 13). This may lead one to argue that Booth is a foundationalist, however skeptically or tentatively he may hold these truths. (Even Socrates, after all, held out the possibility that he might be wrong.) But then, Booth takes us through a number of “realities” that are less than certain and that are certainly rhetorical (pp. 13-15). So, judging by your reading of these pages, do you think that Booth is a foundationalist, an antifoundationalist, or something else, something new? Use specific citations to his book and specific references to other (anti)foundationalists whom we’ve read.

In many capacities, Lakoff seems to believe in his own progressive morality as a foundational and unquestionably good system. He seems unquestioningly to accept the vision of “community—of America as a caring and responsible family” (p. 90). He even paints language as a distorting mechanism in the hands of the political right. For instance, in chapter 2, he argues that the frames adopted by the news media distorted people’s understanding of all the nefarious things done by politicians on the political right to sabotage Grey Davis’s administration. He also advocates a crusader’s zeal in pursuing the progressive good. Rhetoric becomes a weapon in this battle. For instance, he sez, “[i]f the administration’s discourse offends us, we have a moral obligation to change that public discourse” (p.

Lakoff begins this book with the claim that there is no truth divorced from the influence of language—nothing without frames. In fact, he chastises progressives for their belief that “the truth will set you free” (p. 17). Based on his arguments in this first chapter, and his description of how to take control of debates in chapters 2-3, can we say that Lakoff is a modern-day antifoundationalist? Using references to the _Gorgias_ argue either that Lakoff is or is not an antifoundationalist in the classical mold.

Milton spends a great deal of this argument appealing to argumentative resources not heavily mined by Locke or by Mill: history, tradition, and Christian theology. The liberal writers whom we’ve read so far have tended to construct “rational” arguments that appealed to universal principles (like rights and the harm principle). The liberal authors that we’ve read have also often questioned tradition, saying, as Mill does, that tradition is a problematic ground for any public policy. Does Milton’s continual appeal to history, tradition, and theology make him more of a civic humanist than a liberal? If one builds an argument for liberal principles on appeals that civic humanists champion, is s/he ultimately hurting the liberal cause?

Locke begins his letter by separating the church from civil society, trying to set the “just bounds that lie between the one and the other” (p. 218). He decides that civil society and the realm of the civil magistrate should be concerned with “life, liberty, health, and indolence of the body; and the possession of outward things.” The civil magistrate must work to protect the individual’s right to enjoy the above (p. 218). Churches can exist and can make laws that affect members, but they cannot make laws to affect nonmembers (p. 220). Here, we have a classic liberal distinction between what matters in public policy and what matters in the private sphere. Presumably, the magistrate should only entertain appeals to the preservation of individual liberty over life, property, health, the body, etc.

When reading Isocrates and Cicero, we saw that the virtuous civic humanist rhetor was one who embodied the values of a society. S/he championed what everyone else would champion, the common and received wisdom of tradition. Mill, in this chapter, gives us a different vision of the virtuous rhetor, the genius. Using citations from the text, explain what the genius rhetor would look like, how s/he would act in public argument, and why Mill thinks that this kind of rhetorical performance would benefit the state. Contrast this with Cicero’s good man skilled in speaking? What’s gained? What’s lost?

Mill offers a variety of defenses of one (if not the only) liberal principle of public debate: free and open speech for all. One of his arguments is: When all opinions are given free voice in public debate, truth will eventually prevail for its natural superiority. He sez, “The real advantage which truth has consists in this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the course of the ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it, until some one of its reappearances falls on a time when from favorable circumstances it escapes persecution until it has made such a head as to withstand all subsequent attempts to suppress it” (p. 28). Mill argues that when groups are encouraged to hide their discussions in small, closed circles of like-minded believers, the entire society suffers because these ideas are never challenged. If they’re true ideas, they will prevail in public argument. If they’re bad ideas, they will wither in the harsh sun of public scrutiny. It would seem that the Church of the Creator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity_Movement) would certainly wither in the harsh light of public scrutiny, so we can see why Mill would disapprove of this coterie of like-minded believers discoursing only among themselves. But do we really want them pushing these ideas in a public setting? What if, instead of withering completely, they win a few converts and stay alive? After all, others taking similar ideas public did not wither and die. David Duke did serve in the U.S. congress, and he was nearly elected governor of Louisiana. Using Mill’s argument on pp. 28-33, look at the discourse among another closed online conversation of like-minded believers. Surely, the Internet allows us free discussion, but do you find that this discussion is open in the sense that Mill would advocate? And should it be? Do we really want NAMBLA making a genuinely public argument?

Mill argues in this opening chapter that ancient societies governed by civic humanist principles attempted “regulation of every part of private conduct by public authority, on the ground that the State had a deep interest in the whole bodily and mental discipline of every one of its citizens” (p. 12). He contrasts this with the modern predilection for liberty of conscience, combination, speech, and pursuits. If the liberal public sphere includes “free and equal discussion,” as Mill sez on p. 10, but liberalism cloisters citizen virtue and conduct in the private realm, what are liberal citizens free to argue about? If civic republicanism encourages public debate about virtue, tradition, citizen behavior, customs, tastes, mores, what, according to Mill, should liberalism encourage