Intersubjectivity: An ethics for critical rhetoric and writing

This research proposes an ethics of intersubjectivity for critical rhetoric and writing. Scholars debate whether rhetorical resistance can counter pervasive discourses of power, but in the field of composition, resistance becomes a problem when students react fearfully to new ideas and encounters with others. In his analysis of parrhesia (fearless speech), Michel Foucault tackles issues of rhetorical resistance and agency, posing and problematizing an oppositional rhetoric of truth-telling. Fearless speech challenges regimes of power/truth; spiritual narratives of Early Modern women challenge cultural norms to justify their right to speak. In public discourse today, Downwinders practice parrhesia, drawing on local and bodily experience to protest nuclear testing. Critical rhetors tell experiential truth to confront injustice, thus intervening in what Jurgen Habermas calls an intersubjective realm of rational consensus. Ideally, other interlocutors respond to negotiate consensus and social change, but conflict often results from cultural/emotional identifications and forms of life.;In academic argument, writers generally avoid (fearless/experiential) polemics and instead employ complex rhetorical strategies such as thinking critically, engaging research, and posing alternative viewpoints. Academic argument thus aims toward internal rational intersubjectivity. Still, problems occur when students fearfully resist rational arguments or critical work because of prior identifications. Critical teaching, moreover, comes under fire as coercive or as foregrounding ideology over writing.;To address issues of student resistance and ethical teaching, criticism may be resituated within poststructuralist theory; a resultant post-critical writing and rhetorical pedagogy foregrounds realizations of contingency. Further, a notion of intersubjectivity proposed by Jessica Benjamin informs an ethics of mutual recognition, cultivating productive textual and classroom encounters among students and various others: authors, students, and teachers. In addition, critical writing is fostered by a pedagogy of inquiry based on a skeptical or wondering rhetorical tradition; Socratic parrhesia models a wondering/questioning process that requires continuing reexamination. Luce Irigaray's reading of Descartes defines wonder as the "first passion," an alternative to fear and resistance. Wondering as a practice of inquiry allows students to suspend judgment, explore alternatives, and fearlessly engage in the writing process.