Rescuing Rational Public Discourse Through the Renewal of Rhetoric

What follows is not meant to be a political rant or op-ed. It is an observation followed by the assertion of a simple solution to one of the most enormous and complex bugbears facing society today. The hobgoblin I have in mind is not one of your typical most-wanted public enemies that dominate conversations in the public square.

In one particular way, it is a serpent more dangerous than legalized abortion, more slimy than same-sex marriage, and more frightening than the socialist left-wing agenda, the nationalist right-wing agenda, the “swamp” in Washington D.C., infringement on second-amendment rights, crony capitalism, the communist (and fascist) agendas threatening academia, the corruption in corporate America, the feminist, transgender, and LGBTQ agendas, the demise of the American church, the atheists, the attorneys, or the anarchists—or any one of the plethora of agendas belonging to the myriad culture-warriors and ideologues gracing primetime television and your Facebook newsfeed.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not dismissing the fact that these Basilisks are all very deadly. They represent a number of the most villainous monsters pulling at opposite sides of the very place where the nation’s fabric is sewn together—and it appears all of the seams may tear at once—but the viper I have in view is actually much stealthier and much more dangerous because it prevents all of the issues previously mentioned from being addressed truthfully.

To change metaphors momentarily, like the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz, the most serious troublemaker, the real enemy to blame, is the nefarious censorship of rational and meaningful public discourse whose ominous shadow looms over the fabric of society while holding a seam ripper behind its back and pretending to be innocent. 

By censorship, I don’t necessarily mean legal censorship, per se—though that is not an issue to be ignored—that would be going after the wrong culprit at this moment. What is meant here is social censorship, both direct and intentional and indirect and unintentional—usually via social media sound bites, legal spin, public shaming, and outright cancellation. This is our real bad guy.

It may seem a fool’s errand to attempt to treat such an enormous problem in a short article, but one of the small pleasures of writing is attempting to say what needs to be said in as few words as are necessary. Note that I did not say as possible, as such a notion is an essential part of the problem. In any case, if there was ever one who thought it could be done, given the enormous success of social media platforms like Twitter, this is just the generation to raise up such a hero. “Ah, and there’s the rub,” as Hamlet quipped.

Should it be any wonder that a culture which reduces its normative manner of public discourse to sound bites, memes, and emojis would not also have its cultural cohesiveness threatened by myriad social and intellectual upheavals, none of which can be adequately addressed in a tweet? And what if that was true of a nation’s own president, first and foremost? That might be worth looking into. In essence, this generation is a lot like the animals of Orwell’s famous farm, “literate in some degree,” but “unable to learn the Commandments by heart.”

Because this generation has failed to acquire a level of rational and emotional intelligence adequate to properly understand and discuss competing truth claims, it is content to satisfy itself with mantras and maxims, believing clever pith to be a substitute for substance.

Anyone willing to look up from his iPhone long enough would see every platform that could be used for rational public discourse is awash with polemic memes and deconstructed sound bites, pages of social media filled with the wit and wisdom of a generation whose children eat Tide Pods for fun.

But let me not digress too far down that rabbit hole; Though I speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, I feel sure of better things—things that belong to cultural redemption.

The solution I propose is simple, and of course, simultaneously, extremely difficult. By simple, I mean it is not a complex one. A few simple steps could effect great change. In medieval speak, all the gold and treasure we need—and then some—is in the dragon’s lair at the top of the mountain. Climb the mountain, take the gold, and we solve the problem. Simple as that.

By extremely difficult, it is understood that there is a dragon that will have to be slain to acquire the gold. And as C.S. Lewis remarked of Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, those that have read the right books know things about dragons, namely that they guard their gold closely, breathe fire when threatened, and do all that other nasty stuff dragons do. Said another way, implementing such a simple solution will be extremely difficult because the nature of the human heart is to resist renewal any way possible and defend its loot to the death, ill-gotten or not. 

So, first things, first. The cure for the dragon heart is the active ingredient in the potion called the Classical Christian Education and although the Christian liberal arts tradition has been resurrected, it must continue to be propagated—even more than has been to date. Gregory Wolfe rightly notes, “It is necessary to sink deeper wells if we are to strive for authentic cultural renewal. Those wells can be found, I believe, in the tradition of religious humanism.”

Don’t be alarmed by the expression. He is referring to the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity, even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical (not secular) humanist principles. The Incarnation of Christ, being a complete union of his divine and human natures, informs the very essence of the vision of Christian humanism—divinity came down to humanity and united with it to the end that fallen humans could be redeemed to live out their best lives to the glory of God.

What is important for our context here are the distinctives of Christian humanism, namely that in the interest of deepening the wells of human culture, it focuses on “the primacy of rhetoric, a return to the sources (Ad Fontes), and the development of a historical sensibility.”

This means all the tools needed to cultivate in the next generation the rational and emotional intelligence adequate for profitable public discourse to the end they may solve many of the culture’s wrong-headed and dangerous problems, is safely tucked away in the cave of historical Christian humanism. But the extremely difficult problem of actually getting the dragon to ingest the potion requires more robust elucidation, which goes beyond the scope of this article. But here is a hint: its implementation does not begin with political rants on Facebook or Twitter; it begins—sooner than later—in the home, by reading the great books, and the greatest book, to your children. 

From there, it continues with a formal study of the art of rhetoric which is a primary element of a Classical Christian Education. Rhetoric is another one of those words not to be feared. Aristotle rightly explains that the difference between sophistry and rhetoric is the condition of the soul of the one employing the art. A person with a good soul will seek the truth. For rhetoric to get at the truth, for it to be good, it must be employed by a good person. One with a bad soul will use the art unjustly, to gain an advantage by being a more clever devil.

In closing, I will leave you with a quote from Scott Crider, professor of English at the University of Dallas, who captures the importance of rescuing rhetoric for cultural renewal in the following quote from his book, The Office of Assertion: 

The most important of its proofs is that rhetoric is a liberal art which liberates one both to defend oneself against untrue persuasions and to fashion true ones. Often, those untrue persuasions are one’s own; after all we are all familiar with the sophist within, that part of us who arises, especially in haste or anger, to utter sham arguments, arguments that–in calmer, more reflective moments–we know are mistaken. So rhetoric can free one even from one’s own ignorance, disclosing the weaknesses of one’s own idea; having done so, it can then free others. Indeed, in freeing others, one frees oneself.

Scott teaches a Rhetoric course called Fitting Words. Learn more about the course at Kepler Education.