Depressing capitalistic view on mimicry in education

Last Spring I took Sean Duncan’s Games and Literacy IMS seminar. In addition to discussing video games, we began to critique the current models of education and the workforce. The argument made was that these models were born out of the rise of industry and haven’t changed much since. We’ve been doing the same things in schools for a hundred years for Christ sakes! Then I read Murphy’s History of Writing Instruction. The line at the beginning of the selection this week stuck out because of Sean’s class: “They (the Romans) constructed chariots of identical parts that could be stored and re-assembled easily” (37). It’s as if the Romans are pulling a Henry Ford nearly two millennia before Ford. What’s more is that in Sean’s class we looked specifically at the rise of industry as being influential on education. Societies, it seems, have tendency to gear education toward the model of economy that has been working—not necessarily the one that will be working. Now I’m extending my complaint that schools are outdated into schools are really outdated.

            I’m sure that the point of the readings this week is not so much that we learn, memorize, and have the ability to provide an example of each rhetorical element as outlined by Cicero, Quintilian, the anonymous rule-maker of Ad Herennium. Rather, I think it’s important to see how the rules developed, what cultural standards we’re enforcing/disadvantaging when we use them. Ad Herrenium makes a big deal out of examples. As I read it, the debate sounds a bit trite. But put it into academic context and we realize we haven’t come that far. Who do I quote? Can I use my life experience? Won’t I sound smarter if I quote X?

            We can follow the rules. The author of Ad Herrenium pretty much guarantees great rhetorical results by following his method. And Western society has. The imitatio and progymnasmata Murhpy outlines is still very much the practice of classrooms in America (mine included). I would like to believe it’s working well. Sean would have us question if this system is what is best for tomorrow’s economy though—and I highly doubt it. The Roman rules of language account mostly for oratory performance—an idea that is transferred into text with subsets of rules like those for letter-writing. We’ve entered the digital age. Granted, a digital age that still has one foot in the industrial age, but the hypersystematization of language doesn’t work—can’t work—in postmodern contexts. The rules become too tedious; they become contradictory. We communicate in too many directions to too many audiences through too many interfaces for the Roman rules of oratory to work effectively all the time.

            I have to pause here and wonder how we got to the point where we refuse to examine the fundamentals of our model of education for such a long period of time. Like I said, the idea of writing became secondary to that of speaking. And speaking is equated with morality. Augustine, another great rule-maker, had a penchant for pairing eloquence with wisdom.  But an interesting thing happens as Augustine provides examples(!) of eloquence from the apostle Paul; eloquence becomes a virtue, a thing that can almost miraculously move an audience into action (RT 466). It’s Patrick’s spoken eloquence that makes him a saint after all—and his written eloquence (or lack thereof) that had his capacity of bishop called into question.

            Dare we subvert a sacred tradition? No. And why would we?

            The model of education is one that plays well to our capitalist and imperial tendencies. Like the Romans we’ve centralized the power of the academy. Only now we really don’t call facility with language a virtue; we call it necessary to get along in the business world. Here is how you persuade. This is how to build rhetorical velocity. Here is a how-to guide on doing a proposal. The academy looks at the Druid writings of post-industry writing like Twitter and Pinterest, Facebook statuses and fanfic and decides whether they are virtuous or whether they are worth converting. [Note: In the last year I have either read scholarly articles or attended conferences where each of these was discussed in terms of traditional Greco-Roman rhetoric.]

            If it seems like I’m being hard on the education system, I am. We fool ourselves into thinking we are cutting edge by converting postmodern texts that subvert the rules-based language structures of Western rhetoric into our classroom missions. (Just look at my Kickstarter activity from 607 last year.) Truth is, our delusion is a product of mimicry. We look at what is successful, what is working and we do that. This is the advice of the Romans; it’s an essential skill (Murphy, 54-60). Let me try to tie my entire thought process together now:

            Mimicry is good for those currently in power because it recreates the power structures that endowed them with their authority. To help ensure that the power structures did not change, rhetoric became tied to religion and virtue. As we encounter new Other discourses we do not accept them on their terms. Instead we impose our way of thinking on them (a type of behavioral mimicry), which is ultimately hierarchical.

Wish I could end on a happy note, but it seems we haven’t reached a point where I can.