One politic response

The Elbow/Bartholomae debate—why did it become so publicized? I think it became such a hot topic because it so neatly invoked the words of the large political debate—that between conservatives and liberals.

The argument between conservatives and anticonservatives has been going on a long time. It can easily be read into the right/left movement of recent elections, the platforms of presidents from Bush to Clinton to Reagan/Bush to Carter. The dichotomy goes well beyond recent campaign rhetoric—back to the days when the constitution was debated into words as not so much a balance as a tug of war between state and federal governments.

The Elbow/Bartholomae conversation got caught up in this debate almost by accident it seems. Well, maybe it wasn’t quite by accident--Bartholomae did frame part of his argument against Elbow’s views of writing in a political context: it was conservative and promoted the status quo, an ideology of sentimental realism. But the neat fit of their pedagogy into the conservative/liberal debate depended on limited view both their platforms. I think they were both complicit letting certain aspects of their theories be emphasized by others and the rode the wave of public acclaim for awhile. But they weren’t the surfers that politicians are—they got too high on it and crested. Although teaching has political implications, neither of the two men was a politician. The same way, although writing has political implications, at some point, it is an individual shaping thoughts in words. I think the public pressure so many eyes critiquing their words made both men try to reclaim their status as teachers rather than political celebrities.

Elbow’s view of the self as a sort of Jeffersonian carapace filled an essence of fundamental, inalienable rights seemed to alter. He still used a singular article before the noun, but he acknowledged that the self was neither “unitary” nor “unchanging.” Bartholomae also modifies his stance. He acknowledged the “empowerment” that comes to a student who recognizes the validity of his own experience, that he is the “Author” of his life—even though he does turn his and mutter in writing that “authorship in that sense is a lie.”

I’m uncertain exactly what I should make of all this. In one sense, I think their fall from the spotlight proved Elbow’s point of view: a self is not synonymous with the political forces that shape them. Man does have some agency even if it’s only stepping out of the spotlight. But in another way, maybe the fact that both have been used and discarded by political forces proves Bartholomae’s position. Or maybe it just proves the two were men.

I think it interesting that women seem to be the ones pointing to the academic (in all senses) nature of the debate. Nancy quoted Lunsford as saying that the two aren’t that far apart in their views. Shaynee’s presentation of Bizzell’s argument that inner directed and outer directed approaches need to be combined in a holistic manner seems very much directed towards the Elbow/Bartholomae deabate--a sort of Hegelian application of history as a dialectical assumption of thesis by antithesis into synthesis. Emily, too, pointed out that the debate had run its course and was now a submerged part of any composition theory.

Still, looking back on the debate, it is interesting to wonder what it was truly about. I never did see Elbow as a “frontier guidesman.” He was always more a hippy guru to me and hardly an archetypal conservative. And I never saw Bartholomae as a radical so much as I saw him as a stern Puritan father chastising his children about the evil ways of the world.

Obama’s campaign focused on the ideological divide between parties, the divisiveness that has has paralyzed our government. He said that the legislators were so concentrated on reacting to whatever happened on the other side of the aisle that they weren’t seeing the problems that actually faced us. Like Graff “teaching the conflict,” Obama wanted to school the populace into a different perspective on approaching government. His argument that we could transcend dualities to become unified as Americans sounded good to enough people that he won election. I hope that his both/and approach is effective even while I know that either/or is as old as ying and yang and will always be a fundamental part of the decision making process. And writing, as well.