Principles of rhetorical democracy

Abstract

This essay challenges the approach to deliberative democracy that is taken by several political scientists. When “rhetoric” is invoked as a key term, its province is restricted for the most part to “style” —how something is languaged in manufacturing consensus in a manner not given to manipulation. Rationality is, in most formulations, opposed to persuasive discourse, as the latter is not to be trusted as a means of ensuring agreement among equals. My goal is to provide a somewhat clearer blueprint for the role rhetoric plays in the deliberative process. I begin by arguing that the “starting point” for deliberative democracy —its commitment to seeking consensus among equals— is precisely the wrong move for the preservation of deliberative inquiry. I will advance this as the first of four fundamental principles underlying the instantiation of what I am calling a “rhetorical democracy” —in part to distinguish this project from those that reject rhetoric’s inherent role in enhancing an environment in which democracy might flourish. The remaining principles focus attention on the acceptance of cultural difference, as well as the potential role incivility may play, the positive sense in which emotionally tinged discourse advances social action, and the more precise role of constructing and expressing arguments in enhancing rhetorical democracy.