Required reading for any thinking person.
A scholar of rhetoric makes the case that reviving the teaching of rhetoric and language can help bridge our destructive political and social divide.
Reames, a professor of English at the University of Illinois–Chicago, breathes life into the study and technique of rhetoric, specifically why words are selected and how they can be used to change one’s thinking about delving below the surface of ideology in order to yield more civil and productive interaction. The author aptly demonstrates her expertise about the development of rhetoric in Athenian democracy, especially how the Sophists cleverly exploited language to manipulate public opinion, and she compares and contrasts the rhetorical strategies of Greek demagogues such as Gorgias and Alcibiades to modern-day use and abuse of language by politicians and public figures. Reames also poignantly leans on her own difficult and frustrating rhetorical relationship with her late father to illustrate how ideological assumptions and an unwillingness or inability to break free from our own “hermeneutic circles” can establish and deepen division and misunderstanding, a story that’s painfully relatable. The history of rhetoric that the author presents is fascinating, and the parallels she draws to the modern world are sharp and sprinkled with both bluntness and wit. Reames concludes the book with several practical and useful tips for thinking rhetorically in such a contentious era. Unfortunately, the people who most need to read this book—political and media demagogues, fearmongers, and keyboard warriors who amplify our polarized society—probably won’t. Even if they did, it’s difficult to say if they would heed the author’s advice or double down on their sophistry. Nonetheless, the rest of us should seriously consider the wisdom Reames offers, eschew the comfort of ideological reinforcement that she outlines, and, most importantly, think for ourselves by holding our beliefs to rigorous questioning.
Required reading for any thinking person.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9781541603974
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
An important dialogue at a fraught time, emphasizing mutual candor, curiosity, and respect.
Two bestselling authors engage in an enlightening back-and-forth about Jewishness and antisemitism.
Acho, author of Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, and Tishby, author of Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth, discuss many of the searing issues for Jews today, delving into whether Jewishness is a religion, culture, ethnicity, or community—or all of the above. As Tishby points out, unlike in Christianity, one can be comfortably atheist and still be considered a Jew. She defines Judaism as a “big tent” religion with four main elements: religion, peoplehood, nationhood, and the idea of tikkun olam (“repairing the world through our actions”). She addresses candidly the hurtful stereotypes about Jews (that they are rich and powerful) that Acho grew up with in Dallas and how Jews internalize these antisemitic judgments. Moreover, Tishby notes, “it is literally impossible to be Jewish and not have any connection with Israel, and I’m not talking about borders or a dot on the map. Judaism…is an indigenous religion.” Acho wonders if one can legitimately criticize “Jewish people and their ideologies” without being antisemitic, and Tishby offers ways to check whether one’s criticism of Jews or Zionism is antisemitic or factually straightforward. The authors also touch on the deteriorating relationship between Black and Jewish Americans, despite their historically close alliance during the civil rights era. “As long as Jewish people get to benefit from appearing white while Black people have to suffer for being Black, there will always be resentment,” notes Acho. “Because the same thing that grants you all access—your skin color—is what grants us pain and punishment in perpetuity.” Finally, the authors underscore the importance of being mutual allies, and they conclude with helpful indexes on vernacular terms and customs.
An important dialogue at a fraught time, emphasizing mutual candor, curiosity, and respect.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781668057858
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon Element
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A welcome call to grow up and cut out the whining.
The New York Times columnist serves up a cogent argument for shelving the grudge and sucking it up.
In 1976, Tom Wolfe described the “me decade” as a pit of mindless narcissism. A half century later, Bruni, author of Born Round and other bestselling books, calls for a renaming: “‘Me Turning Point’ would have been more accurate, because the period of time since has been a nonstop me jamboree.” Our present cultural situation, he notes, is marked by constant grievance and endless grasping. The ensuing blame game has its pros. Donald Trump, he notes, “became a victor by playing the victim, and his most impassioned oratory, such as it was, focused not on the good that he could do for others but on the bad supposedly done to him.” Bruni is an unabashed liberal, and while he places most of the worst behavior on the right—he opens with Sean Hannity’s bleating lie that the Biden administration was diverting scarce baby formula from needy Americans to illegal immigrants—he also allows that the left side of the aisle has committed its share of whining. A case in point: the silencing of a professor for showing an image of Mohammed to art students, neither religiously proscribed nor done without ample warning, but complained about by self-appointed student censors. Still, “not all grievances are created equal,” he writes. “There is January 6, 2021, and there is everything else. Attempts by leaders on the right to minimize what happened that day and lump it together with protests on the left are as ludicrous as they are dangerous.” Whether from left or right, Bruni calls for a dose of humility on the part of all: “an amalgam of kindness, openness, and silliness might be an effective solvent for grievance.”
A welcome call to grow up and cut out the whining.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781668016435
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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