ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes online communications in two rhetorical events on https://reddit.com">reddit.com and proposes a pedagogical approach that balances impulses toward hasty, rash communications, and compositions with prudent judgment and practical wisdom. I consider what instructors of digital rhetorics and writing, and related fields, might do to intervene in commonplace rhetorical behaviors and communicative practices to foster a rhetorical–ethical approach toward online communications that builds upon the ideas of scholars who have examined the circulation of digital texts (Bradshaw, 2018; Edwards, 2018; Gries, 2013; Ridolfo & DeVoss, 2009; Sheridan, Ridolfo, & Michel, 2012). To situate this rhetorical–ethical perspective as an active engagement and orientation by individuals toward others and the world around them, I compare two ways of knowing and rhetorically responding: mêtis, or cunning intelligence (see Dolmage, 2009; Edwards, 2018; Hawhee, 2004; Knudsen, 2005; Yergeau, 2017), and phronesis, or practical wisdom and prudent judgment derived from social practice and experience (see Aristotle, 2002; Knudsen, 2005; Moss, 2011; Sachs, 2002). I begin with mêtis as a way of exploring and characterizing how I see many digital citizens engage rhetorically in online spaces before turning to phronesis as an alternative mode of active engagement and ethical habit to foster through education.
