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The Dao of Rhetoric
Steven C. Combs is Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Loyola Marymount University.
178 pages, Paperback
First published March 17, 2005
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May 10, 2015
Since I wrote a review of this book for a grad class, I figure I may as well share it with everyone here. Hope this is useful (and not just long)!
In November of 2010, the New York Times ran an article titled “The Rise of Tao” concerning the resurgence of one of China’s most ancient belief systems, Taoism (also spelled Daoism). An NPR feature and online companion piece titled “Tea, Tao and Tourists” called Taoism “China's indigenous spirituality.” Though arguably less well-known than its counterpart, Confucianism, and considerably less popular as a proscriptive religion than imported Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity, Taoism is nevertheless an essential component of Chinese culture, and though they are few in number, it has found adherents and enthusiasts in the West. One such enthusiast is Dr. Steven C. Combs, who wrote “The Dao of Rhetoric” in 2005.
Ten years after its release, little supplemental material can be found on “The Dao of Rhetoric.” It has been cited and mentioned in footnotes in a few scholarly texts, but otherwise what reviews exist are for the most part lost to the last decade. It may be that this monograph, describing the Taoist religion and its intersection with rhetoric, specifically Burkean rhetoric and post-modern theory, was simply overlooked.
In all fairness, the text is slightly uneven. Some sections of the book, notably chapter 6, The Tao of Steve, are reprinted essays, and they are not entirely well integrated into the book. This is true of all three textual analysese which, though adequate examples of Taoist literary criticism, are somewhat over-wrought with synopsis. The examples concerning the movies The Tao of Steve, Antz, A Bug’s Life, and Shreck manage to demonstrate Taoist principles and concepts, but are rather sparse as rhetorical analysis.
Insofar as rhetorical analysis is concerned, Combs devotes the first four chapters to describing a Taoist critical methodology and explaining concepts of Tao through Taoism's three eseential authors: Lao Tzi, the possibly apocryphal writer of The Tao Te Ching, Zuangzhi, who shares his name with his Taoist manuscript, and Sun Tzu, whose Art of War is perhaps the most appropriated text in the Eastern literary canon.
Combs posits that Taoist rhetoric is, using Kennedy’s categorization of rhetorical modes, a philosophical rhetoric. While technical rhetoric is content agnostic (techniques used for persuasiveness regardless of position), and sophistic rhetoric is amoral (persuasion applied regardless of rightness or wrongness), philosophical rhetoric is inextricably bound to its philosophical content, and works in service of that philosophy. So it is, per Combs, that Taoist rhetoric aims to perpetuate Taoism through Taoist methods.
Combs identifies, through the writing of the three great sages of Taoism, three rhetorical moves inherent to the Taoist method: a veneration of nature, evocation, and parsimony. A Taoist is expected to have a veneration for nature as man is itself a part of nature, and is inseparable from the living world of birds, rivers, rocks, and trees. Additionally, people must respect their own natures, a Taoistic principle called wu-wei – following the path of least resistance. Taoists also understand that words cannot fully convey reality, and so any sort of argument grounded in specifics and details will eventually degenerate into nonsense, thus the Taoist follows Zuangzhi’s example and constructs metaphors and similes to help the listener / reader to draw conclusions from what is present rather than asserting that any point is or is not valid or true. Finally, the Taoist enacts an austere sense of economy and does not over-commit to any one position or idea. Sun Tzu explains parsimony as a virtue for generals and army commanders, and this language of opposition makes for an easy translation to dialectical exercise.
Excluding chapters 6-8, which are the textual analysis chapters, Combs discusses what a Tao of rhetoric, or a rhetoric of Tao, would entail. This is a complicated task for a number of reasons – first, Combs generally resists making one-to-one comparisons. It would be easy enough to compare a sense of kairos, or timeliness, to the Taoist principle of wu-wei, or doing what comes naturally, but as even this cursory definition of both terms suggests, this would be a fruitless over-simplification.
And yet, where there is one, there is the other. To understand the rhetoric of Tao / the Tao of rhetoric is to understand that the two are not separable owing to the omniversal nature of the Tao. Rhetoric cannot meaningfully be separated from the Tao because all things are within the Tao and the Tao is within all things. Thus to understand how Rhetoric and Tao intersect, one must first understand something of the Tao which, as the first line of the foundational text of Taoism, the Tao Te Ching suggests, cannot be done because the Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao.
This paradoxicality is at the heart of Taoism, and is one of Combs essential conceits throughout the text: Taoism, we might say, was postmodern before postmodern was postmodern. Taoism rejects essentializing binaries. Taoism is grounded on interconnectedness. Taoism disrupts imposed hierarchies. Even certain passages from the Tao Te Ching echo key continental philosophers. Consider Martin Heidegger’s The Thing which, in determining what makes a thing a thing, determines that it is the thing’s capacity for use , specifically, what makes a jug a jug is not clay or shape, but the emptiness of it which allows it to hold and pour out its contents (the Tao Te Ching’s 11th verse, which begins:
Thirty spokes
Share one hub
Adapt the nothing therein to the purpose at hand, and you will have use of the cart. Knead clay in order to make a vessel. Adapt the nothing therein to the purpose at hand… (15)
Or contrast the Tao Te Ching’s 26th verse, beginning “The heavy is the root of the light, the still is the lord of the restless,” in consideration of Derrida’s theory of difference, or Lacan’s mirror psychology by which the person starts to understand the self by means of what it is not.
Taoism, Combs suggests in the ultimate chapter of The Dao of Rhetoric, provides an alternative to Western scholarly sources in two ways: first, if we consider Taoism as a coherent philosophy the way we might for continental philosophy or Christian criticism, we can see that it advantageously shortcuts through many of the linguistic and epistemological hurdles that Western thought has only in the last 100 years begun to deconstruct: logocentrism, false binary, and grand narrative are simply not dominant concepts in holistic Taoist philosophy. Second, it is important to note that for all its similarity to postmodern Western thought, it is nevertheless distinct. Most notably, Combs compares Taoism’s reluctance to trust in signs and reason to Derrida’s theory of free play as regards signifiers and signified: for Derrida, meaning essentially ends at what is present – for the Taoist, what is present is always only that part which is apparent of an interconnected and infinite whole (146).
Doubtless, to many Western scholars used to long concatenations of philosophers, theorists, and critics linked through demonstrable chains of influence and acknowledgement, Taoism must feel like cheating – and yet Chinese scholars were demonstrating over 2000 years ago an awareness of epistemological and rhetorical concepts that Western scholarship is only putting into practice within the last few generations. Combs explains that this is so because Chinese thought simply didn’t go through a stage of logocentrism the way scholars in the west did after Plato.
For rhetoricians, Combs understanding of Tao and rhetoric is at least partially in-line with Janet Atwill’s description of the reconciliation of rhetoric and philosophy in Rhetoric Reclaimed. Taoist rhetoric also shares sensibilities with Thomas Rickert’s Heidegger-inspired Ambient Rhetoric, which privileges a sense of receptivity and harmony as tools of persuasion.
Beyond rhetoric as a discipline, The Dao of Rhetoric demonstrates a Chinese interpretation of a broader current of world thought, one that is “intuitive and empathic,” as Combs describes it – one which rejects the absolutism of logic and reason as verbal constructs which, though true things in themselves, nevertheless are not truth. Such thought resonates in Native American philosophy as explored by Malea Powell, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Thomas King; African Ubuntu via Desmond Tutu, Devi Mucina, and Christian Gade; and as discussed, with the postmodern and deconstructive: Heidegger, Arendt, Derrida, and Foucault.
Between the philosophical and the rhetorical, Comb’s Dao of Rhetoric becomes doubly useful for creating a broader understanding of each, and for providing an introduction to an alternative vector of exploration for those wishing to eschew the Western tradition. Though occasionally disjointed in its organization, and apparently overlooked upon its release, Dao of Rhetoric belongs in the collection of rhetoricians and Taoists alike.
In November of 2010, the New York Times ran an article titled “The Rise of Tao” concerning the resurgence of one of China’s most ancient belief systems, Taoism (also spelled Daoism). An NPR feature and online companion piece titled “Tea, Tao and Tourists” called Taoism “China's indigenous spirituality.” Though arguably less well-known than its counterpart, Confucianism, and considerably less popular as a proscriptive religion than imported Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity, Taoism is nevertheless an essential component of Chinese culture, and though they are few in number, it has found adherents and enthusiasts in the West. One such enthusiast is Dr. Steven C. Combs, who wrote “The Dao of Rhetoric” in 2005.
Ten years after its release, little supplemental material can be found on “The Dao of Rhetoric.” It has been cited and mentioned in footnotes in a few scholarly texts, but otherwise what reviews exist are for the most part lost to the last decade. It may be that this monograph, describing the Taoist religion and its intersection with rhetoric, specifically Burkean rhetoric and post-modern theory, was simply overlooked.
In all fairness, the text is slightly uneven. Some sections of the book, notably chapter 6, The Tao of Steve, are reprinted essays, and they are not entirely well integrated into the book. This is true of all three textual analysese which, though adequate examples of Taoist literary criticism, are somewhat over-wrought with synopsis. The examples concerning the movies The Tao of Steve, Antz, A Bug’s Life, and Shreck manage to demonstrate Taoist principles and concepts, but are rather sparse as rhetorical analysis.
Insofar as rhetorical analysis is concerned, Combs devotes the first four chapters to describing a Taoist critical methodology and explaining concepts of Tao through Taoism's three eseential authors: Lao Tzi, the possibly apocryphal writer of The Tao Te Ching, Zuangzhi, who shares his name with his Taoist manuscript, and Sun Tzu, whose Art of War is perhaps the most appropriated text in the Eastern literary canon.
Combs posits that Taoist rhetoric is, using Kennedy’s categorization of rhetorical modes, a philosophical rhetoric. While technical rhetoric is content agnostic (techniques used for persuasiveness regardless of position), and sophistic rhetoric is amoral (persuasion applied regardless of rightness or wrongness), philosophical rhetoric is inextricably bound to its philosophical content, and works in service of that philosophy. So it is, per Combs, that Taoist rhetoric aims to perpetuate Taoism through Taoist methods.
Combs identifies, through the writing of the three great sages of Taoism, three rhetorical moves inherent to the Taoist method: a veneration of nature, evocation, and parsimony. A Taoist is expected to have a veneration for nature as man is itself a part of nature, and is inseparable from the living world of birds, rivers, rocks, and trees. Additionally, people must respect their own natures, a Taoistic principle called wu-wei – following the path of least resistance. Taoists also understand that words cannot fully convey reality, and so any sort of argument grounded in specifics and details will eventually degenerate into nonsense, thus the Taoist follows Zuangzhi’s example and constructs metaphors and similes to help the listener / reader to draw conclusions from what is present rather than asserting that any point is or is not valid or true. Finally, the Taoist enacts an austere sense of economy and does not over-commit to any one position or idea. Sun Tzu explains parsimony as a virtue for generals and army commanders, and this language of opposition makes for an easy translation to dialectical exercise.
Excluding chapters 6-8, which are the textual analysis chapters, Combs discusses what a Tao of rhetoric, or a rhetoric of Tao, would entail. This is a complicated task for a number of reasons – first, Combs generally resists making one-to-one comparisons. It would be easy enough to compare a sense of kairos, or timeliness, to the Taoist principle of wu-wei, or doing what comes naturally, but as even this cursory definition of both terms suggests, this would be a fruitless over-simplification.
And yet, where there is one, there is the other. To understand the rhetoric of Tao / the Tao of rhetoric is to understand that the two are not separable owing to the omniversal nature of the Tao. Rhetoric cannot meaningfully be separated from the Tao because all things are within the Tao and the Tao is within all things. Thus to understand how Rhetoric and Tao intersect, one must first understand something of the Tao which, as the first line of the foundational text of Taoism, the Tao Te Ching suggests, cannot be done because the Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao.
This paradoxicality is at the heart of Taoism, and is one of Combs essential conceits throughout the text: Taoism, we might say, was postmodern before postmodern was postmodern. Taoism rejects essentializing binaries. Taoism is grounded on interconnectedness. Taoism disrupts imposed hierarchies. Even certain passages from the Tao Te Ching echo key continental philosophers. Consider Martin Heidegger’s The Thing which, in determining what makes a thing a thing, determines that it is the thing’s capacity for use , specifically, what makes a jug a jug is not clay or shape, but the emptiness of it which allows it to hold and pour out its contents (the Tao Te Ching’s 11th verse, which begins:
Thirty spokes
Share one hub
Adapt the nothing therein to the purpose at hand, and you will have use of the cart. Knead clay in order to make a vessel. Adapt the nothing therein to the purpose at hand… (15)
Or contrast the Tao Te Ching’s 26th verse, beginning “The heavy is the root of the light, the still is the lord of the restless,” in consideration of Derrida’s theory of difference, or Lacan’s mirror psychology by which the person starts to understand the self by means of what it is not.
Taoism, Combs suggests in the ultimate chapter of The Dao of Rhetoric, provides an alternative to Western scholarly sources in two ways: first, if we consider Taoism as a coherent philosophy the way we might for continental philosophy or Christian criticism, we can see that it advantageously shortcuts through many of the linguistic and epistemological hurdles that Western thought has only in the last 100 years begun to deconstruct: logocentrism, false binary, and grand narrative are simply not dominant concepts in holistic Taoist philosophy. Second, it is important to note that for all its similarity to postmodern Western thought, it is nevertheless distinct. Most notably, Combs compares Taoism’s reluctance to trust in signs and reason to Derrida’s theory of free play as regards signifiers and signified: for Derrida, meaning essentially ends at what is present – for the Taoist, what is present is always only that part which is apparent of an interconnected and infinite whole (146).
Doubtless, to many Western scholars used to long concatenations of philosophers, theorists, and critics linked through demonstrable chains of influence and acknowledgement, Taoism must feel like cheating – and yet Chinese scholars were demonstrating over 2000 years ago an awareness of epistemological and rhetorical concepts that Western scholarship is only putting into practice within the last few generations. Combs explains that this is so because Chinese thought simply didn’t go through a stage of logocentrism the way scholars in the west did after Plato.
For rhetoricians, Combs understanding of Tao and rhetoric is at least partially in-line with Janet Atwill’s description of the reconciliation of rhetoric and philosophy in Rhetoric Reclaimed. Taoist rhetoric also shares sensibilities with Thomas Rickert’s Heidegger-inspired Ambient Rhetoric, which privileges a sense of receptivity and harmony as tools of persuasion.
Beyond rhetoric as a discipline, The Dao of Rhetoric demonstrates a Chinese interpretation of a broader current of world thought, one that is “intuitive and empathic,” as Combs describes it – one which rejects the absolutism of logic and reason as verbal constructs which, though true things in themselves, nevertheless are not truth. Such thought resonates in Native American philosophy as explored by Malea Powell, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Thomas King; African Ubuntu via Desmond Tutu, Devi Mucina, and Christian Gade; and as discussed, with the postmodern and deconstructive: Heidegger, Arendt, Derrida, and Foucault.
Between the philosophical and the rhetorical, Comb’s Dao of Rhetoric becomes doubly useful for creating a broader understanding of each, and for providing an introduction to an alternative vector of exploration for those wishing to eschew the Western tradition. Though occasionally disjointed in its organization, and apparently overlooked upon its release, Dao of Rhetoric belongs in the collection of rhetoricians and Taoists alike.
November 2, 2010
It's a good read if you want to familiarize yourself with how taoist concepts are applied in todays age, easy enough to read for even those who are new to the subject
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews