The new managerial rhetoric and the old criticism

Abstract

Rhetorical criticism developed as the consummation of the revival of the old paradigm of rhetoric, a renaissance begun during the late 1800s. Sharing the assumptions of the old rhetoric that individual speakers are the engine of social influence, that ideas and reasons are the staples of persuasion, and that society is moved through a diffusion of political ideas from elites to the general public, criticism has approached the new persuasions and propagandas of twentieth century America only with great difficulty. Greater understanding of the relationships between the new managerial rhetoric and the old criticism will facilitate a rapprochement that has been underway since the 1940s, and will both ease a persistent source of critical ferment and help resolve discrepant critical perspectives on modern social influence.