Dearest, Wisest, Kennedy,
What happened? Why would you compare “Eskimos” courtship to red deer stags? Why don’t you understand that “Eskimo quarrels over women: insults, threatening gestures, and fights in the form of butting or wrestling contests” (460) are not different from ivory tower intellectual man quarrels over women. And if there is a difference I would say it is in medium—maybe that’s the message you are trying to make here. In your wisdom you assumed we would understand you mean that certain mediums of communication have taken on meanings as communication has changed. Some have come to mean prestige and others primitive.
Apologies—I just needed to re-interpret. If I don’t my world will be destroyed.
Truly,
Paul Muhlhauser
Dear Mr. Lyons,
After reading and agreeing with the information you presented about how Kennedy’s generalization that locates Indians in a subordinate position in the Great Chain of Speaking, I must know how your use of Indian rhetoric, Indian sovereignty, and an Indian “we” does not commit a similar categorical error. I think I am confused because of how you agree with the idea that Indians think of sovereignty in terms of peoples, and how when you speak of Indians it is always Indians and not Indian peoples. Am I being ridiculous? Maybe there is no other way to write about this.
Another item that troubles me is your assumption about Indian voice and that it “Ideally, that voice would often employ Native language” (462) because “ ‘Language in particular helps to decolonize the mind…Thinking in one’s own cultural referents leads to conceptualizing in one’s own world view which in turn leads to disagreement with and eventual opposition to dominant ideology” (462). I read Sapir-Whorf’s ideas about language here and it frightens me because it reads as if you assume languages mean there are different kinds of thinking. Also, couldn’t it just as easily be typed, “language in particular helps to re-colonize the mind”?
Lastly, I am curious about locations in your conception of rhetoric that are sovereign. Your examples are legal examples of Indian—not federal—law. I am curious to know if your conceptions of rhetorical sovereignty include style sovereignty and genre sovereignty. I wonder about this because your examples use legalese. I read that though they are promoting and generating new ideas, they just seem to be doing the same things the same way as any other legal writing. At any rate, I want to know if in the generation of rhetorical sovereignty for schools, the medium of rhetorical sovereignty is not rhetorically sovereign. You define rhetorical sovereignty as “the inherent right and ability of peoples to determine their own communicative needs and desires in this pursuit, to decide for themselves the goals, modes, and languages of public discourse” (194).
Sincerely,
Paul Muhlhauser
Dear Jim Haendiggity,
I appreciate that Lyons includes in his definition of rhetorical sovereignty “modes.” I appreciate this because I am beginning to think all types of communication can be considered material. What I mean is—and here is the tough one to buy—there is no discursive. All text is non-discursive or bodily. Even writing when read produces feelings—affects the corporeal. Haendiggity, help me out here. Is this worth anything? I am trying to go dissertation here.
Love,
Paul
