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The Rhetoric of RHETORIC: The Quest for Effective Communication. By Wayne C. Booth. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004; pp xvi + 206. $54.95 cloth; $19.95 paper.
Wayne Booth, who passed away in October 2005, has long been rhetoric's most ardent ambassador, having pressed his claim for rhetoric's value in the halls of literature, science, and philosophy. With his last book and self-described "manifesto" The Rhetoric of RHETORIC, Booth takes his message beyond the intramural back-chatter of academe and straight to the public at large. His case: "that the quality of our lives, moment by moment, depends upon the quality of our rhetoric" (171), and that the discursive, ethical, and epistemic impoverishment of contemporary democratic politics and culture results from practicing bad rhetoric, what he calls rhetrickery-"dangerously, often deliberately, deceptive [rhetoric]: just plain cheating that deserves to be exposed . . . the art of producing misunderstanding" (x). As a mend, Booth posits that by reviving rhetorical education across the board, by attuning the general population upward toward heightened rhetorical awareness, rhetorical hucksters and cardsharps-from shady politicians and corporations to the shading press-would find no truck among the people. Or at least a lot less.
But awareness isn't sufficient: simultaneous with an ousting of the bad must come an ushering in of the good, systematically applying good rhetoric systemically. To this end, early on in the text, after a brief orientation toward the "history" of rhetoric and some of its many definitions, Booth constructs a taxonomy of rhetoric types based upon a calculus of the rhetor's motives and ethics, ranging from "Win Rhetoric (WR-a through c)," a rhetoric in which "victory is essential" (43); to "Bargain Rhetoric (BR-a through c)," rhetoric that looks to "pursue diplomacy, mediate, find a truce" (45); arriving last at "Listening Rhetoric (LR-a through e)," rhetoric that seeks neither to win nor settle, but rather to "pursue the truth behind our differences" (46).
While Booth gives instances of both justifiable and unjustifiable WR, BR, and LR, ultimately he pins his brightest hopes for a healthy rhetorical and democratic future on "LR-a," mutually engaged "genuine listening" (46). Distinguishing LR-a from WR, BR, and...