When reading this week's chapters in Kennedy, I noticed that same old theme: the rise and fall and rise of the importance of rhetoric as a topic of study, and people worried that students can’t write. Rhetoric is one of the seven liberal arts, then it's reduced to a yoke between dialectic and grammar. Then since Charlemagne wanted his people to be more literate rhetoric gets more respect. Then it's back in the dumps until it makes a comeback in some of the Medieval universities in the 1300s. Then the humanists bring it back along with their love for the classics - only to be absorbed into literary criticism. That last bit sounds familiar...
What are the implications for our field? We know that rhetoric has been viewed with suspicion since Plato’s day. It certainly doesn't help to have one of the foremost philosophers against you. As rhetoricians, we need to understand that there tends to be an ebb and flow in our popularity. We need to take a proactive stance and be a lot more assertive about the benefits of our field.
Has there ever been a point in the past 1000 years or so when people were content with the literacy skills of the population? Of course, we have to take into account what people we’re talking about – women, farmers, townspeople, nobility? Have people complained about math literacy the way they complain that people these days can't write and don't read? Maybe it’s just human nature to think that people can write better than they are. And, finally – what does "literacy" mean? Typically we think of almost everyone in the Middle Ages as illiterate, but I sat in on a panel at CCCC last week that debunked that myth. Seems that there was a lot of paperwork for guild members, and master craftsmen promised to teach their apprentices to read. Compare that with students who may not be able to craft a perfect analysis of Romeo and Juliet, but who can make some pretty sophisticated rhetorical choices when working with multimedia.