Democratic Stretches

I have to admit that Joel Haefner's article, "Democracy, Pedagogy, and the Personal Essay," stretches my prior definitions of the term "democratic." In this instance, a dictionary actually helps me a little in applying the term to my previous schema: democracy, n. 2. That class of the people which has no hereditary or special rank or privilege (OED). A little odd to apply to an object, but I'll go with it. I essentially take it to mean that Chris Anderson (as quoted by Haefner) feels that the essay is not something restricted to one class of people, that it is open for everyone to use.

To be perfectly frank, I think Anderson's premise is fairly asinine, and Haefner goes into detail explaining why that is the case. Honestly, Haefner could have proven that Anderson is wrong simply by asking students in freshman writing whether the form is open or exclusive--if it were open, I doubt we would have half the issues we do in teaching it. No, the essay is very exclusive, requiring elevated language from everyone, native speaker or not. To some degree, that's why I tend to have some issues with that part of the multicultural movement that vies for inclusion of other language vernaculars in writing. If I'm not allowed to use my own vernacular in essays, I don't see why someone else should be able to just because they learned a different language first. But that can be another rant.

Though I don't see why there should have been a need for Haefner's article, I appreciate his refutation of the essay as democratic. And for those of you who want a more democratic medium of writing, join twitter or facebook, or post on youtube. Or, to borrow from Conan O'Brien, join all three, YouTwitFace!