Berlin Again

In his 1982 article “Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical Theories”   James A. Berlin urges writing teachers to guide their students to the “truth”.  In his 1988 “Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Classroom” he defines the “truth” that our students need to see.  He sees writing teachers’ responsibility as guiding our charges to a Marxist way of thinking where their major compositional task is to acknowledge and fight against the capitalistic dominated society that is structured to enrich some at the cost of many.

 He rejects the cognitive rhetoric and the expressionistic rhetoric schools of pedagogy because they do not have this Marxist ideology as their basis.  He writes that the cognitive school of writing is based on a problem solving structure that is modeled on the capitalistic notion that through structured heuristic exploration most obstacles to success in business and writing can be solved.  He also rejects the expressionistic rhetoric idea as politically feeble because one of its major tenants is that political, economic and social change can be effected by individuals working alone.

Berlin writes that by adopting a social-epistemic ideology in the classroom the teacher will be able to guide his students away from pre-scientific thought that undermines the political power of people by deluding them into deterministic attitudes where they think they are powerless to make changes because the existing structure of society is immutable.  He curiously avoids calling organized religion a pre-scientific institution.  But he hints at it by writing that mystifications “obscure [problems] and their real sources and solutions”.  He sees hero worship of actors and sports heroes as more pre-scientific thought that lessens citizens’ focus on the real problems in society.

Berlin’s theory is that all writing should be based on the political ideology that change and reform is necessary in economics and society and that if it isn’t based on this ideology it’s part of the capitalistic status quo that keeps the proletariat from gaining full access to the world’s resources.  He assigns the writing teacher an important place in society with the responsibility to guide our students to clear thinking about the social, political and economic issues.