Method Monkey Pt. 1: On “Back in the Day”

Early in my career, I have been fortunate to have regular opportunities to teach courses in Rhetoric & Popular Culture and Rhetorical Criticism for undergraduate and student graduate audiences.  Although the seminars are quite different in terms of content, both require some focus on teaching rhetorical/critical methods.  In this series, I’ll be reflecting on the struggles I’ve encountered teaching (and doing) critical methods and the lessons I’ve learned from my students as they follow the critical path.

In this regard, I’m embracing my inner “method monkey”—that part of me always consumed by the “how” question and processes around me more than the “what” or, even, the “why.”  When I was in grad school, I made a habit of being the annoying student who would constantly ask, “How did you do that?” or “What did you do to figure that out?”  The first answer to the question is usually some super smart sounding combination of big words and jargon intended to obscure, usually unconsciously, the scholar’s actual method behind theory that they don’t expect me or anyone else to understand.  That answer sucks.  It hides the process, and I want/ed to know about the process.  It was also not enough to get me to stop asking questions like an annoying, over-educated toddler (which I’ve been called by my students).  Along the way, I’ve learned from my mentors, colleagues, and students quite a bit about how critical research gets done and the various obstacles and difficulties that critics run into.  Like most things, I am, admittedly, still trying to figure it out—hence this blog.

At the end of my Rhetoric and Popular Culture seminar, I get to watch my students present their semester long criticisms to their peers and then struggle to pose and answer questions about the arguments that they’ve come to.  Mostly, these presentations are quick summaries of obvious theses (e.g., “As it turns out, almost all of the Disney princess films are sexist” or, “Apparently, Childish Gambino’s song ‘This is America’ is about racism”) followed by a couple of superficial questions and a lot of awkward eye-contact avoidance.  There are a few gems, but mostly the results are predictable after seeing the proposals in the third week of the semester.  Regardless of their quality, though, they tend to be useful as poi
nts of reflection about how I’ve taught the research methods and theoretical foundations that are supposedly on display.  

A few semesters ago, I noticed a recurring argument that students used to contextualize the findings of their research.  It goes like this:

“Obviously, back in the day this text wouldn’t have been possible because culture is so much more open to LGBTQIA+ identities, women, folx of color, etc.”

Here, “back in the day” represents a lazy, slap-dash way of describing the historical context of the text or artifact under consideration.  It attempts to gesture at without committing to the ever-so-necessary context that renders critical scholarship meaningful and productive.  And it’s totally meaningless because “the day” represents no clear point in time.  There are, of course, any number of choices a critic can make in referring to the past—most commonly the past is characterized around historical events, especially wars, easily observable periods such presidential administrations, or other, more nebulous, markers of cultural epochs like generations or eras.  Of course, there are problems with any signifiers associated with the past, but marking the past clearly for the reader is always necessary to situate the critical argument in such a way as to make its implications apparent.

The logic if “back in the day” is troubling because it takes the progressiveness of contemporary culture for granted.  It rests on some assumed universality of the moment that cannot be possible.  It also takes the “wins” of critical/cultural scholarship for granted by assuming that the struggles against racism, sexism, and homophobia—struggles against power—are somehow not ongoing struggles with histories that affect the here and now.

Simply, the “back in the day” argument gets too much wrong.  Things aren’t all that much better than they were back in the day and, in those cases where they are, that’s a weak standard for social progress—and one that undermines the whole critical project.  Better isn’t enough and it never will be.  More troublingly, just because today is better than yesterday doesn’t mean that today is good, or that today is right, or that today is just.  The critical project matters because it remains unfinished.  There is no ultimate win, only the slow drive of progress toward a tomorrow that is more equitable than today.

In some distant future, say at the end of a career, a productive critic should reflect on the progress made by the critical project.  Upon reflection, a critic should be able to say that she has made the world better.  Better is a worthy goal for such reflection.  But reflection is not criticism.  For criticism of the here and now, better is bullshit.  Criticism rests on the brokenness of today, not the idea that we’re better than “back in the day.”

Returning to critical methods, it’s worth remembering that all criticism is written “back in the day” for the its reader.  The best criticism takes that responsibility seriously.  Our methods, as critics, rhetorical or otherwise, require embracing the complexity, nuance, and brokenness of our culture.  Our methods require us to see culture for what it is.

Criticism, in this way, is prophecy. It’s commentary on today for a reader tomorrow. Even in the short term, an essay written in March will be presented in November, an article submitted for publication will likely only be published after replacing the calendar at least once—never mind a more substantive criticism like a book or dissertation (my current book project has seen more calendars than I’m proud to admit). Long form criticism, as it turns out, takes a long time to produce—usually measured in years or decades—and can take even longer to publish.  If by the time my writing gets published, I’m already working on something else that’s not stuck “back in the day” then it follows that my reader is too.

From a practical standpoint, the “back in the day” argument lets contemporary culture off the hook and, at the same time, reveals the scholar’s laziness (intentional or not).  The critic’s task, from a rhetorical standpoint, is an epideictic one—a task connected to its moment in time.  Criticism is about praise and blame.  It’s about judgement.  We write about the here and now.  That means that we must spend time understanding the here and now for our reader, and we must do so unflinchingly.  Reflecting on how things were “back in the day” reduces all of that important contextual work that makes criticism meaningful and productive in its moment to a wink and a nod.

Clearly articulating the contemporary moment reminds the reader that the imperfection, struggles, and contradictions of culture are not discrete or isolated, but instead fluid, diffuse, and malleable.  The cultural struggles written into rhetorical texts are often different expressions of the same struggle in different forms.  The task of the critic is to see those forms in his moment so that the reader to see them in her own. 

Arguments about a text’s context that hang on vague comparisons to our past sins ignore the present and, thus, obscure the power of the critic’s judgement.  As if to say, “I’ve done all of this research but, but you, dear reader, probably already know and agree with the conclusion that it lead me to because you live in less-racist/sexist/homophobic times than I did when the project began.” 

On the one hand, I hope, sincerely, that this is true for my readers. I hope that my writing finds culture in a moment that is more just than the one in which I write. And I recognize that my cultural moment is, in some ways, more just than those even of my recent past. 

On the other hand, I also hope that my criticism of my moment (whether my text is of recent or distant historical) will be productive, that it will be useful, for my reader in her moment—and her moment will necessarily be in the future.  The only way that’s possible is to present my moment in sober clarity for my reader so that she can make connections with her own. The imperfections in my moment are waypoints that help to chart the progress of social change, they can help my reader both see more clearly the imperfections of their own moment and to track those imperfections across time to their time.

Make no excuses, justifications, or explanations for the imperfections of your moment.  See them.  Call them what they are so that your reader can see them, too, even though they may have changed by the time your reader encounters your writing.  It’s not (just) that context matters.  It’s that context that helps the reader see why criticism mattered “back in your day” and why it still matters in their day, too.