You start out by innocently musing with a fellow alum about your alma mater's ethical future. Next, you write a politically prophetic blog with a touch of dark humor, and forget about it. Nine months later the blog is re-born on a national Web site, and suddenly you are a leader in the conservative Catholic movement that for a couple of months (an eternity in the era of cyberspace) captures the imagination of the nation. Welcome to the brave new world of blogging, where your rhetoric can make you famous for a time-- and you still don't make a dime!
The event I eluded to, of course, is President Barack Obama's commencement speech at Notre Dame. The national online paper is Renew America, which as you can probably guess just from their header picture, is a leading right wing, conservative Christian site. Thus, writing for RA is a cross (pun intended!) between writing for Culture Wars and the Elmhurst Press: you needn't make your points subtlely, but you do have to make them relatively brief. So long drawn out historical examples are out, but quick, modern proofs and fables are in.
After briefly explaining the origin of "Barack at Notre Dame?..." and the reason for its reprinting, I open with two quotes that hopefully set the tone for my prophetic call to arms. As you may have noted reading the intro, names like "Barack the Butcher" (which for the most part refers to the president's unwavering support of abortion) while highly offensive to liberal Democrats, are accepted (if not applauded) by the site's supporters. Similarly, the regulars also pick up on the puns and interplay (the "comes to pass-Gipper-Reagan" references refer to not only the fact the Republicans' most popular recent president once played Notre Dame's most beloved football player in a movie, but that Reagan frequently refereed to Gipp during his 1981 commencement speech at Notre Dame) that the outsiders do not. On the other hand, while the majority of RA's readers probably haven't read my book (which is mentioned in my bio-blurb on the site, sort of the Web way of giving the author "instant ethos") my prophetic comment (which I originally wrote in 1996) about how Notre Dame would eventually face the secularization battle that once Christian schools like Harvard and Yale succumbed to should give me credibility in their eyes, and thus my cry for Woodstock-like numbers something to be heeded.
After again expressing my hope that the whole thing won't happen, I give my rather incredible prediction (sort of a mix of both the fable and analogy Crowley talks about in Ancient Rhetoric pgs. 162-3) about what should happen if it does. While on the one hand this vision is meant to be extremely fantastic, at the same time it is intended to fire up the imagination as to what is possible. For example, while few really expect nuns to smuggle aborted fetuses into the event, using not just nuns but Mother Teresa's sisters actually gives the piece extra ethos, for when she was alive the former Nobel Prize winner and future saint was known by friend and foe as the person who, by word and deed, best articulated the pro-life vision. And while the images of "General Huckabee" and "pro-life paratroopers" were deliberately (and humorously) far-fetched, the idea that a massive, creative protest (which in some real way would have to be led by Bishop D'Arcy) in response to Obama's appearance was not. Finally, although most readers realize that for this "man of speeches" to actually "leave the campus speechless" would require a major miracle, my rhyming ending ("neglected, expected; Son, one") is meant to be memorable enough to convince them that their participation is both needed and necessary.
"These stones will shout (and march?)" the original title of my commentary (The P.O.P.E. Project was actually a Web site my wife and I started detailing the various protest events in response to Obama's ND appearance that Renew America mistook to be the headline) was my opening assault on the Notre Dame administration and their disastrously dishonest president, Father John Jenkins. After letting Father know what one of the ancient Catholic community authorities, the immortal poet Dante, thought about Jenkins' moral neutrality, I contrast the decidedly different moral vision the Notre Dame landscape and monuments present (especially the new "In Memory of the Innocent Victims of Abortion" statue that is pictured) compared to that of the guest president. My brief quote from the Bishops 2004 "Catholics in Political Life" statement is also paramount to my argument (not to mention to the denigration of Jenkins') because this recent teaching was written precisely to clear up any confusion as to who a Catholic institution should or should not invite.
While Jenkins' disregard for this document is crucial to point out to the pro-lifers, it is even more critical that I dissect it for the dissenters. For as Ms. Crowley aptly notes, "From this point of view, ethics is more important to rhetoric than the search for the truth," (AR pg. 10) and since the Obama/Jenkins supporters, unlike the pro-lifers, have not accepted "abortion is murder" as truth, the only way my opponents would accept my argument is if they, by sensing the dishonesty in Father's words, begin to doubt his character. They may not accept Church teaching, but if they can accept the enthymeme, "The Catholic bishops issued a ruling on guest speakers/ Fr. Jenkins knowingly disregarded this decision and deliberately broke Church law/Jenkins must retract his invitation or resign his position as president of a Catholic university," they at least may understand why his choice of Obama was a big deal after all.
After calling Jenkins out on his ridiculous "dialogue/engagement" statement (obviously, no one dialogues with a commencement speaker during the speech, so for him to do so beforehand would be the only real possibility) I return to the image of the statue, as well as to the kind of allegorical/fictional example Aristotle and Aesop so favored. Again, it is important to note that while the statues "march on the stadium" is both somewhat symbolic and utterly apocalyptic, the loyal Catholic doesn't totally dismiss the possibility of marching monuments either, if for no other reason than the fact Jesus Himself predicted "shouting stones" (Luke 19:40) on a similar occasion. Also, although renegade reverends are far more likely to reject the possibility of miracles than the simple, humble believer, they are also unlikely to openly dismiss scripture either, for that is a sure way to invoke the masses wrath.
Lastly, in "Looking back at Jenkins, Barack..." (the last in what became known as my "Saving Notre Dame" series) I open with a hopeful note for those many followers who felt anything short of President Obama not speaking, or being booed out of the stadium, was a failure. There was not the "Nun-sense" protest I predicted in my first article, nor the "monumental" march I predicted in "My letter to Jenkins, but pro-life alliteration still wins out when "their lies were subtly undercut by the most poetically appropriate protester possible--the cries of a baby."
Next, I examine how many seemingly mainline publications (such as our own Chicago Tribune) continue to be fooled by the rhetoric of "the priest and the president," for they fail to examine the reasoning behind the words. For whether it is Obama smilingly proclaiming his desire to lessen abortions (when all his actions as senator and president have thus far only increased them) or Jenkins pretending his invitation to Barack is in line with Church teaching by quoting John Paul II out of context (after he openly defied both his local bishop and the USCCB letter) a real inspection of their "dialogue" reveals them worthy not of "respect" but rejection, as all their "fruit" proves rotten.
Although I don't often delve into the same document twice in the short blog format, I once again return to the USCCB's "Catholics in Political Life" not only because of its crucialness to the case ( and in case some readers missed my first commentary) but to analyze Father's laughable use of "CIPL" in an attempt to justify himself. At this juncture, it is important to point out (or at least remind) readers that a huge advantage online publications have over traditional newspapers is not only the quickness with which its rhetoric can be spread, but the instantaneous way its sources can be accessed by way of the "link." While I didn't use this feature in the "Saving Notre Dame" series as much as I sometimes do (although you may have noticed the "Suffering Irish" link in my first article was a shameless plug for a Notre Dame t-shirt I designed and sell) I did feel it necessary here to include the link to the complete text of "Catholics in Political Life." For though I would like to think my explanation of Jenkins' ridiculous rationalization (which I depict as intellectually and morally inferior to that of a fifth grader) is damaging enough, linking to the document gives the really into-it onliners an easy opportunity to judge for themselves.
As is often my pattern, I conclude with an appeal to pathos, and a return to the image of the baby. True, it was not the hit-you-over-the-head image of a pile of aborted babies my prophecy foretold, but as "even the most impressive pro-choice speech doesn't sound quite right over the strains of a peacefully moaning infant," I argue that it may have been at least as effective. Mother Teresa's nuns didn't show, but many powerfully pro-life leaders, including Norma McCorvey (a recent Catholic convert who is now an outspoken opponent of abortion) did, and while police estimate the number of protesters closer to 50,000 than 500,000, if you include the four hundred and fifty thousand online signatures protesting Obama's ND appearance (which were printed out and personally delivered to Jenkins) we reached Woodstock-like numbers as well. And, no, the statues didn't speak and the monuments didn't march--but when you consider that, not only were they not covered up (as at Georgetown, where Obama had the crucifixes and statues covered before he spoke) but Obama himself was draped in robes that proclaimed Mary, the patroness of the pro-life movement, "Our Life, Our Sweetness, and Our Hope," my conclusion, "though the war may be far from over...on this day...it was Notre Dame, not Obama or Jenkins, who won over all," no longer seems so far-fetched either.
While I don't doubt that Aristotle and the ancients would have praised the many benefits of writing ethical rhetoric for popular on-line publications, in their wisdom they probably would have warned about the dramatic downsides as well. Certainly, the many positive e-mails and interesting invitations I received (including a guest commentator appearance on CNN.com) from these articles were all very gratifying, but the fact that even major Internet sites do not pay freelancers (and have put many of the medium-sized magazines who did pay out of business) has put the writer who tries to support himself with his rhetoric in an even more precarious position than before. My attempt to obtain an education certification shows that I believe maybe the best place for the modern rhetorician is the teaching profession, for you are not only paid for nine months to profess positive ethics to students, but have summers off to write them down too. These three papers may not have converted you to what I consider as "truths," but I hope they've convinced you that my "character" is right for the duel pursuits of teaching and writing...and that my appeals are pathetic in the ancient sense rather than the modern!
No comments:
Post a Comment