West argues that anger needs to be considered when discussing confict, especially in regards to an agonistic critical pedagogy: “What is gained once we begin to pay close mind to the workings of anger and strong emotion is a more affectively and rhetorically nuanced understanding of the politics of ideological conflict both in general and in the classroom, an understanding that might help us to revise critical pedagogies accordingly” (43).
He proposes that Pratt’s term “safe houses” is inadequate because it is removed from systems of oppression and does not critique them, therefore it is “safe to systems of oppression and violence” (emphasis original); it can also “reinforces traditional notions of healing and nurturance” that focus on the individual and the use of the term “house” connotes a gendered system where women must do the work (53). West proposes instead “a praxis of shelter, an admittedly difficult place that (1) seeks to foster social and political change from within a community of suffering and (2) attempts to rethink anger as a necessary component of such change” (43). It is important that anger and problems be politicized instead of just understood in individual terms because indvidual therapy tends to be restorative and focuses on maintaining the status quo.
On anger in the “safe house”: “As Pratt sees it, the safe house is place where the friction caused by zones of contact is supsended by mutual consent for the sake of respite. As I see it, however, because of deep affective charges, that kind of friction cannot be easily temporarily put on hold, so to speak, but is more productively interrogated and examined within the safe house” (45). It is important to actually confront and deal with friction and anger rather than avoid it or dispell it.
West’s “idea of a praxis of shelter rests on two primary premises: (1) that people are motivated to act socially and politically because of their affective conditions and investments and (2) that suffering is one of the fundamental motivations for human community and action” (54).
I want to do some journaling on this, but I have a meeting to run off to. I liked this focus on anger, though, and I like the concept of the praxis of shelter, though West doesn’t really go into any detail on how to implement it.
West, Thomas. “The Rhetoric of Therapy and the Politics of Anger: From the Safe House to a Praxis of Shelter.” Rhetoric Review 19.1/2 (Fall 2000): 42-58.
