Aristotle defined man as a political animal. By that, he ment that the human being is a social animal who uses his communicative and rhetorical skills when negotiating with his fellow humans over issues they share and have in common. Politics, in Athens, was to take common issues seriously. Humans – at least those who could call themselves citizens – were political, and therefore also rhetorical animals. Today, in our western societies, Aristotle’s statement appears almost absurd; politics, in modern western societies, is generally something politicians do while ordinary people are merely observing. Rhetoricians of today – i.e. ”experts on rhetoric” – comment on how politicians speak, how they move, and how they dress. Both politics and rhetoric of today is therefore different from politics and rhetoric of the time when Aristotle lived. In this essay I claim that we, in order to avoid an undeserved reduction of the art of rhetoric and to gain important knowledge about ourselves as humans in our time, have to seriously reconsider the political potential of the art. Such a reconsideration demands a revaluation of both rhetoric and politics. Rhetoric on the one hand, must be understood in a broader sense (than in the general and public notion of the term) which includes language, behaviour, buildings, institutions etcetera in the sense making processes. For this revaluation I turn mainly to Mats Rosengren whose works are at the front edge within this research field. Politics on the other hand, must be understood as an activity through which we construct ourselves as humans as well as our shared world. For this analysis I turn mainly to Hannah Arendt and Cornelius Castoriadis whose works are critiques of our modern societies. My aim is, by investigating these matters, to propose an understanding of civic competence to act politically that is consistent with the reconsideration mentioned above. One of my presumptions is that the political activity of the citizen can be understood as negotiations within, with and of doxa. Therefore, I investigate doxa and doxa negotiation using Ruth Amossy’s, Mats Rosengren’s and Maria Wolrath Söderberg’s theoretical perspectives. My conclusion is that political action is possible in the area where rhetoric and politics meet and that the ability to act as a citizen in a true democratic society involves a number of qualities among which an ethical quality, namely frónēsis, may be the most important, but also the most problematic.

Having been introduced in Sweden in the 1980’s, one would perhaps have thought postmodern philosophy to be a thing of the past. As it turns out, the debate on postmodernism is still very much alive. But the term ‘postmodernism’ in 2021 is complex and sometimes misunderstood. In public discourse, the term has moved beyond its status as a continental philosophy or as a denomination for certain historical conditions of the late twentieth century. Today, it appears, people use ‘postmodernism’ as an invective for relativism, post-truth and ‘empty words’. Two books, published in 2020, even warn the Swedish people for a postmodern invasion of both the academics and Swedish government. The humanities, apparently, are especially corrupted by postmodern thinking. Is this true? As a rhetorician, I ask myself to what extent postmodern theory has had an influence on Swedish rhetoric in the 40 years since the discipline was re-established within higher education.  This essay examines course syllabuses, teaching material, Swedish articles in the periodical Rhetorica Scandinavica, doctoral theses, and the complete works published by Sweden’s eight professors of rhetoric. Early on, I found that there was very little information available about the development of  Swedish rhetoric –even less about a postmodern rhetoric in a Swedish context. Thus, this essay is to be looked at as both a history of Swedish postmodern rhetoric – the first of its kind – and as an examination of the occurrence of postmodern theory within Swedish rhetoric. I find that postmodernism has not, as opposed to the critics’ claims, played a key role in the development of Swedish rhetoric. Its presence has, however, significantly increased within the field of rhetoric since 2010, and I discuss why that might be. Further, I discuss what can be said to define the Swedish postmodern rhetoric, and what the future might hold for this specific branch of rhetorical studies and research.