The Prophetic Tradition and Radical Rhetoric in America.

• Author: Beasley, Vanessa B.

By James Darsey. New York: New York University Press, 1997; pp. xii + 279. $35.00.

James Darsey is a contrarian. At a time when many observers from both sides of the political spectrum are bemoaning a loss of civility in the United States, he sees too much of it-or at least too little incivility. In The Prophetic Tradition and Radical Rhetoric in America, he argues that "meaningful incivility" is necessary and even beneficial in a democratic society. Without it, Darsey warns, the American people risk losing their sense of community as well as an important connection to their rhetorical roots.

In this well-written book Darsey simultaneously advances two arguments, one historical and the other political, and both of them help the reader understand more about the type of conviction the author sees as missing in contemporary American discourse as well as why this absence is significant. To make the historical case Darsey begins by contrasting the two ancient rhetorical traditions of Hellenism and Hebraism. By juxtaposing the rhetorical assumptions and practices of the Old Testament prophets with those of the ancient Greeks, Darsey presents an often-ignored alternative to the audience-oriented, consensus-based model of public speaking espoused in Athens. The Hebraic prophets preferred dogma to doxa; their message came from a higher source and was therefore not negotiable. The argumentative appeals to human experience and reason that would so fascinate Aristotle and his successors had no place within this tradition. Hebraic prophecy was "sacred truth," writes Darsey, with unavoidably revolutionary implications for individuals and society alike.

The confidence of such rhetoric led Matthew Arnold to distinguish its "fire and strength" from Hellenism's "sweetness and light," Darsey recalls. Noting the centrality of the latter model to most contemporary Western rhetorical theory, the author rightly argues that the Hebraic tradition has also had a profound influence on American culture. Such an inheritance is important because there is more at stake here than mere aesthetic sensibility: Hellenism's rational goal of "seeing things as they really are" (again citing Arnold) can be fundamentally at odds with the Hebraic virtues of "conduct and obedience" to a higher power. This, of course, is where Darsey's project takes a turn into the politically normative realm. Do rhetors, their listeners, and their societies benefit more from appeals to what is (or...