Thursday, August 30, 2012

Mama Bean lurves her rhetoric metre

rhetoric noun: 1. the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing. 2. language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect on its audience. [more in-depth at the wiki]
How sensitive is your rhetoric meter?

Rhetoric isn't quite the word I'm looking for, but propaganda seems excessive. (Almost) None of the information we 'download' these days is pure fact, free of opinion, or some underlying agenda. Well, that seems harsh, too. It all has a message, anyway, it seems. I feel. There, this is all just my rhetoric, too.

This is the problem with calling this the information age. It's not really just information. And as a parent, I'm faced with how to teach my children to navigate an informational playing field vastly larger than the one I learned on, which was already larger than that of my parents. I suppose I could rely on the old chestnut 'don't believe everything you read' but it's harder than ever to control what enters our family environment to be read. I think I lean towards less enforcement/freer access, but this will mean more discussion, more tough questions with no answers, and more time. And I must keep in mind the time-line - that the skills of literacy, comprehension, critical analysis, they build on each other, much more slowly than I liked (going through it) or will like (trying to help my children through it.) And then too also, it's even more critical for kids to understand this, to be actively critically analyzing their environment, at a younger age than me or you, because the consequences (seem to) get more dire with each generation (is that in my imagination?) 

I'm not sure I can accurately remember my own trajectory in Rhetoric Management. I suppose I built those literacy and comprehension skills through my undergrad, and started a foundation of critical thinking skills, but I didn't gain any proficiency then. I have thought of four major areas where I find it most important, and I can roughly put them in order. [ETA: I started this post when Bean was a baby, it originally referred to teaching "my child" and I'm only getting around to finishing it now. For pete's sake, none of the personal pronouns are even capitalized! /sigh]

Area the first: Religion/Christianity. Boy, was this a trial by fire, when I moved to the US midwest (during the run-up to the 2004 election no less, but we'll get to that later.) I had often felt buffeted by conflicting positions and rhetoric during my angsty teenaged faith, and had trouble reconciling what I felt was right with the oh-so-persuasive arguments of more extreme opinions. I had to learn to trust myself, and my interpretation. I had to know it was okay to read a persuasive argument for something I disagreed with, and just politely acknowledge it was well argued without feeling the core of my beliefs had been shaken. I had to stop taking things personally. People have opinions, people like to share them, people now have the internet to do so freely and loudly and without restraint - but I don't have to listen, and even when I do, I don't have to feel like my beliefs are being attacked or destroyed or even challenged. Because it's just their opinion. We can all be grown-ups and exist in this world together with different opinions just fine.

[Here I'll add: since 2004, the internet itself has matured in many ways, I find particularly when it comes to religious discourse. I think in large part because we've all conglomerated into our meta-tribes, and there's so. much. room. for as many small niches of religious thought, it's really fantastic. So not only is it easy to ignore rhetoric you disagree with (and I mean truly ignore, without trolling) but it's also really easy to find those you do agree with, and just (virtually) pet and rub each other all over with mutual love-festing.]

It's a good thing I got a handle on that, because I was about to get a crash course in American partisan politics - area the second. I truly didn't have a clue. I thought Canadian and US politics were pretty similar, 'cause we're pretty similar in general. Not so at election time. It was (toooooooo) easy to get caught up, to get emotionally invested. It was easy to be (utterly, distractedly) engaged by so. much. rhetoric. But after a few exhausting, commercial-filled months, man oh man did I have to turn that shit off. I had to handle the rhetoric, and remember that opinion is just opinion, even in these matters of Great National Importance (and not for my nation, mind you lol.) I had to remember that politics don't need to be personal, and I was still friends with my same friends I was friends with before I found out if my friends were Republican or Democrat. We are all grown-ups.

[It helps that I moved away lol. If I thought the 2004 election was bad, I cannot even imagine living through the 2008 or 2012 ones. To my American readers, I salute your perseverance! As much as the internet has matured for religious discourse, it has devolved when it comes to politics. My facebook feed is evidence enough of this. As a way of contrast, the development of my Rhetoric Management toward religion was to broaden my horizon; for politics it has been to narrow my focus/position. And I think it's interesting that these two areas required such opposite solutions.]

Area the third: Scientific Literacy. Given my BSc. I suppose my critical thinking skills developed earliest here, but didn't really... settle, until I was learning to navigate the morass of medical science and effective vs. ineffective healthcare. And I did this while entering a young, controversial, not-yet-completely-scientifically supported profession (don't kill me, Chiropractor friends, for that edgily wishy washy description.) Because I have the background for this, it maybe wasn't so thorny as the religious and political arenas. But it is life and death stuff being discussed at times, and certainly the ethics of healthcare in our (so privileged, so first world) society gets increasingly muddy. In general, I am saddened by the general public's scientific illiteracy. Research is presented so journalistically as to be virtually useless, especially on the internet. And I'm not sure any amount of interwebz maturation is going to compensate for the lack of quality science education being provided our children. If I'm going to be a Tiger Mom in any fashion, it will be drilling the scientific method into my poor children's heads and hearts until they weep for the sheer joy of deductive reasoning (lol... kind of.)

Ah yes, won't someone think about the children? Well, parenting is the most recent and, frankly, batshit crazy arena of rhetoric and flat out propaganda I've been thrown into navigating. Just when I think I'm getting a handle on it, I'm thrown into a fit of self-recrimination or sputtering indignation once again (from "I'm a horrible mother!" to "JFC shut your judgmental pie-hole!" and back again. Repeat.) If I hadn't honed my chops or whatever leading up to this, I would go crazy. Because when it comes to our children, everyone's opinion is the only way and everyone else is ruining their children's lives and there is just. no. end. If a mother isn't willing to just turn it off, walk away, and trust in her heart that she is doing the loving, most bestest job she can with the resources she has, she will be destroyed. I like to dabble and read and engage with both sides of any debate, and I find it all pretty entertaining. I'm not always the best at articulating why I make the choices I make (homebirth, for e.g.) and my lack of articulation can feel pretty weak in the face of so much interneticulation (can I make up that word? I think I just did. But do you know what I mean? The voice of the articulate internet - anybody can sound totally reasonable or totally unreasonable to anybody else on the internet.) But every day is an exercise in filtering parenting rhetoric, and I wouldn't say that exercise is best performed by the sleep-deprived haha.

[Speaking of internet maturation, I think since Bean was born (when I started writing this) the way parenting is treated on facebook and twitter, and even blogging to an extent, has really changed - I think people are starting to get the message that kindness matters. The trolls have been ignored out of existence, maybe a little? At least, I get the sense parents are less willing to rise to the Polarizing Bait - there's more focus on being supportive? Maybe this is also in my imagination...]

[I'm sorry this ended up so disjointed. I just know that my emotional health depends on my rhetoric metre - I sense the rhetoric, I sense how it could elate or enrage me, I evaluate if I feel like or have the resources for elation/enragement, I proceed accordingly. This is just my story of traveling the steps of Rhetoric Management. Critical thinking keeps me sane, in a crazy world. I hope it does the same for you.]

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