Rhetorical Citizenship

A Journey To A Personal Definition

Whitany Lewis 11/19/2012

Lewis 1 Rhetorical citizenship is vastly defined and can take on infinite forms because of the various definitions. I have started to develop a personal definition of rhetorical citizenship by evaluating some of the definitions provided by Paula Mathieu, Amy Wan, and Sam Leith. Each of these rhetors provided a definition that was unique in some form. These definitions are all appropriate for the article that they are featured in, but in order to make rhetorical citizenship relative, the definitions need to be more static. The definition of rhetorical citizenship is always changing and we wont be able to properly be rhetorical citizens until we know exactly what rhetorical citizenship means. According to Mathieu rhetorical citizenship is anything that makes a change through public writing (Mathieu 28). In this article there was a group of at risk homeless people that created a bus tour. At risk here means that the person has the chance of becoming homeless. The bus tour was created to raise awareness in the city of the horrible conditions that homeless and at risk people face. For example the bus stopped at the dental office that treated the homeless and at risk people. The riders were then informed that this office only performed extractions. There was no preventative care provided, if you went there you were leaving with one less tooth (Mathieu 43). The bus tour was designed to parody the efforts of Chicago to boost their tourist industry (Mathieu 40). Is this type of work representative of rhetorical citizenship? According to Mathieu, it is. These people saw a problem and are trying to bring awareness to the problem and eventually change the way that things are done. Mathieus definition of rhetorical citizenship was closely related to public writing. The bus tour was a form of public writing in Mathieus opinion. Every form of rhetorical citizenship is not related to public writing. For instance feeding the homeless is rhetorical citizenship, but there is no public writing involved. So I agree with

Lewis 2 Mathieu that rhetorical citizenship makes a change, but it does not have to be through public writing. During the election I registered voters. I educated Americans about their right to vote. I went out to different buildings on the University of Central Florida campus and talked to the people that passed by about whether or not they were registered voters. This particular action did cause change within the state. There were plenty of young voters that came out and asserted their right to vote. This action fell under Wans definition of citizenship because she says that citizenship is associated with positive aspects such as voting (Wan, 30). Wan directly relates rhetorical citizenship to politics. I personally feel that rhetorical citizenship is something that makes a difference including politics. Politics is not the only hands on civic engagement out there. Although political awareness provides people with the important knowledge of the voice that they possess, it does not directly solve the problem at hand. For example, I registered voters during the presidential campaign; however the fate of the election was in the hands of each person that I spoke with. Alone, I was only talking to random people. It was up to the people that I spoke with to actually get out and vote on Election Day. Without the rhetorical citizenship of those people, my work would have been pointless. This leads me to think that a portion of rhetorical citizenship is having faith that the people you inform will actually get involved and help make a difference. For example, when you pay your electric bill, you have faith in the electric company that they will process your payment. If the payment is not going to be processed by the electric company then there is no reason for you to pay your bill. This same concept applies to rhetorical citizenship. If the person chose not to vote on Election Day then I could have not informed them of their right to vote. That is where having faith comes

Lewis 3 in. This particular aspect of rhetorical citizenship can be difficult for some people to accept, because there is always the fear that the audience will respond with apathy. Wan also makes a point that the good of the people or state are more important than the good of the individual (Wan, 34).So basically according to Wan apathy is something that should never occur after being informed about a particular subject. Apathy is not always intentional. Sometimes the audience is overwhelmed by the complexity of the problem. For example, groups that try to end human trafficking have to deal with the apathy of people because they dont see how anything that they can do will make a change. I have personally gone to meetings about the ending of human trafficking and I have a hard time seeing the big picture. I dont see how I can make a difference by putting posters up around campus. This is the same feeling that many of my friends have also expressed. A couple of my friends are volunteers for Habitat for Humanity because they can see the change that they have made. When tackling something like human trafficking the volunteer has to have a little bit of faith that their work is making a difference. For example my roommate asked our friend why he is civically engaged with the Invisible Children efforts. She said that by putting up posters around campus he was not making a difference, he was only giving the illusion that he was helping to solve the problem. Our friend reacted by second guessing his work as a rhetorical citizen. The point of her comment was to say that small change is more tangible for the people involved. We can donate money to a charity that aims to end child hunger, and walk down the street of our own neighborhoods and see children starving. I think that my roommate was on to something. Civic engagement should start small, because helping the people of your community is practice for helping the world. Being able to see change that you made in your own community makes it easier to have faith that your work is helping to solve a complex problem.

Lewis 4 Leith focuses on the rhetoric of rhetorical citizenship. He describes rhetoric as hustling (Leith, 2). Here Leith uses hustle to mean persuasion. Basically he is saying that rhetoric is persuasive. He goes into great detail about the past of rhetoric. He starts with Aristotle and ends with Obama. According to Leith, rhetoric was the main part of education in ancient societies (2). From that time to now, rhetoric has received a bad reputation. People today view rhetoric as a way to hustle one another. Hustle here means to swindle. This idea is refuted by Leith who feels that rhetoric gives words power (Leith, 2). Rhetoric is only bad when people use it incorrectly. For example, President Obama has been criticized about his rhetorical ability (Leith, 13). Opponents view Obamas use of rhetoric as him swindling the voters. He is able to give speeches that captivate the audience, but because of the negative connotation around rhetoric, he is criticized. This type of persuasive speech giving would have been praised by Aristotle. We honor Aristotle as one of the greatest philosophers of all time, yet we criticize the work that he devoted his life to. Rhetoric has a direct relationship to rhetorical citizenship. Rhetorical citizenship uses rhetoric whether people realize it or not. Rhetoric is in everything that we do. For example when our class created a map of transportation problems in our area, we were using rhetorical strategies and devices to get the point across. Although we created a map the descriptions of the areas were an example of rhetoric. Rhetoric was also present when I registered voters, because I had to have a conversation with the people. For a generation that criticizes the use of rhetoric, we sure use it a great deal. To conclude, I have developed my personal definition of rhetorical citizenship from the academic writings of Mathieu, Wan, and Leith. These three rhetors developed very different definitions of rhetorical citizenship. The definition that I have developed is that rhetorical citizenship is any action that incites change by using rhetoric to create a better situation for the

Lewis 5 people. This definition encompasses the major points of each articles definition. I personally liked all three definitions for the article, but in order to relate rhetorical citizenship to the entire world, then the definitions needed to be intertwined. Now that the definitions are mare static than before, we are able to be better rhetorical citizens because we know a little bit more than we did before about the definition of rhetorical citizenship.

Works Cited Rhetoric Then and Now." Leith, Sam. Words Like Loaded Pistols. Basic Books, 2012. 17-43. Writing In The Streets. Mathieu, Paula. Tactics Of Hope. 25-111. In The Name Of Citizenship: The Writing Classroom and the Promise Of Citizenship. Wan, Amy. 28-49.