In my “Communication in Professional Cultures” course, I tell my students that adaptation, the ability to readjust one’s disposition based on unforeseen situational changes, is one of—if not the—most important skills one could have in a pluralistic, civil democracy. This country’s diversity of standpoints, values, interests, and conditions will, naturally, create a diversity of situations. Though these situations can overlap in a variety of ways, they offer enough distinction to warrant the efficacy of adaptation. The ability to roll with the punches, as it were, seems to be an obvious necessity in the United States.

Yet, this implicit and necessary skill is under attack, either tacitly or explicitly, in social justice circles. As activists grow more and more dissatisfied with contemporary American society, they grow less and less tolerant of the status quo. Many, as a matter of fact, see no other choice but to tear down the current system—values, mores, epistemologies, and all—to build up something they perceive to be better. Naturally, these people may see adaptation as a negative; if enough people can adapt to the various situations that emerge in the current system, that status quo will be maintained

In this essay, I want to provide a brief exploration of adaptation to discern its efficacy. Then, I want to show the ways this concept is detrimental to the prevalent ideologies of social justice activism and how the deemphasis, if not the demonization, of adaptation purposefully stifles the societal mobility of the very people these activists claim to help. Throughout the essay, I will show why the discipline of rhetorical studies, a field responsible for teaching a skill necessarily bound to adaptivity, is one of the main battle grounds for what many call a culture war.

Adaptation

Adaptation is an interesting term because it is a primary competency in both rhetoric and emotional intelligence.

Adaptation’s primacy in rhetoric is understandable enough. William M. Keith and Christian O. Lundberg explain it quite simply in The Essential Guide to Rhetoric. “The principle that guides the use of rhetorical techniques to deal with audiences has many names: appropriateness, decorum, and adaptation. Generally speaking, this means that speakers try to connect their audiences or public to what they are saying by choosing arguments whose premises, reasons, examples, and figures of speech relate to audience members’ knowledge and experience.”[1] As rhetorical situations change, one would do well to have his or her rhetoric change. However, one should not confuse this for pandering. Keith and Lundberg clarify that such pandering would be counterproductive; arguing for something with which one does not agree will be detrimental in the long run when, perhaps, a person’s true interests collide with his given interests in the past. What’s more, if a person truly believes they has something important to say, pandering would defeat their purpose.[2] Think about it this way: adaptation isn’t meant to avoid disagreement; it is meant to disagree based on the factors of a given situation. One does not relinquish disagreement; one adapts that disagreement to the audience.

Regarding emotional intelligence, adaptation—or “adaptability,” as it is rendered by experts in emotional intelligence—is considered a key competency. Daniel Goleman, the psychologist most associated with emotional intelligence, writes that adaptability “means flexibility in handling change, being able to juggle multiple demands, and adapting to new situations with fresh ideas or innovative approaches. It means you can stay focused on your goals, but easily adjust how you can achieve them.”[3] Leaders who hone this skill “can meet new challenges as they arise and not be halted by sudden change, remaining comfortable with the uncertainty that leadership can bring.” Adaptability is considered a subcategory of “self‐​management,” one of the four main components of emotional intelligence. Adaptability, self‐​awareness, and self‐​management go hand‐​in‐​hand.

What does this mean? Does one have to be rhetorically skilled to be emotionally intelligent? Perhaps so; rhetorical skill can be beneficial to emotional intelligence. However, the more salient antecedent/​consequence construction is that one needs to be emotionally intelligent to be rhetorically skilled. Is this why social justice scholars within rhetoric‐​oriented fields like composition studies forego—if not demonize—rhetorical theory and practice by deemphasizing audience and emphasizing the “authentic” self‐​expression of a speaker or writer? (This keynote address and manifesto, which are driven by a desire for social justice in education, argue that students should use their “authentic” voices at all times, but seem to neglect the importance of audience consideration and context, which are imperative to rhetoric.) Do scholars lack the requisite emotional intelligence to become truly rhetorically savvy? Or does emotional intelligence deem pedagogies of social justice relatively obsolete? Too antithetical to “transformative” or critical pedagogy to be accepted? Activists like Tony Weaver, Dena Simmons, and Guilaine Kinouani go as far as to say that promoting competencies of emotional intelligence, including adaptability, is a projection of white ways of knowing onto already oppressed minorities. Thus, concepts like emotional intelligence are deemed inherently racist and only amounts to “epistemic violence” “white supremacy with a hug.”

Adaptation and the Status Quo

I think the aversion to adaptation is brought on by the desire to eradicate the status quo; adequate adaptation is more conducive to reform and relinquishes the need for revolution; happy and successful people don’t revolt. To illustrate, I will extend a metaphor given by the late Walter Williams, who embraced a can‐​do attitude that was also a tacit endorsement of adaptation. As a youth, he embraced the advice of his stepfather, who said “you never know when the opportunity train is going to come along. He said that if and when it comes, don’t be in the position of saying, ‘Wait! Let me go and pack my bag.’ Be packed and ready to hop on board.”[4] Of course, being packed and ready means having acquired the ability to improvise, to adapt to an unforeseen and opportunistic situation. As a poor child in the 50s, Williams went to the library and museum after school to acquire knowledge and never gave up hope. He knew the opportunity train was coming, and he knew education and the right disposition could help him be ready when it arrived.

Basically, the more tools one has, the more a person can potentially wield the appropriate tool for a given situation, which is to say, the more effectively adaptable that person is. One could say a liberal arts education is the acquisition of tools for as many different situations as possible. This is what the novelist Henry James meant when he advised young novelists to “Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost!” Regarding rhetoric specifically, this is what Aristotle meant when he defined rhetoric as the ability, in any given situation, to discern the available means of persuasion. Regarding the efficacy of adaptation, I’d like to extend another metaphor: all the world is a stage, but when it comes to adaptation, that stage is full of random props and unforeseen prompts; we, as it were, are individual improv comics.

Unfortunately, a multicultural group of educators would persuade the students to not board Williams’ metaphorical train, for those educators do not like its destination: happiness and success within the status quo. But why would such educators have a problem with such a destination? Because this destination is exactly what they are driven to weaken, and what kind of destination is worth being called one if everyone stops showing up. For if people show up in droves and enjoy themselves, the status quo is maintained, but if those educators can keep those students from being “packed and ready to go,” the status quo is in danger.

Ironically, adaptation may be the very tool we need to make the world a better place, an idea familiar to activists steeped in classical liberal values. As obstacles to societal improvement present themselves, the adaptable, classically liberal activist will not abandon a cause, but will adjust to the situation in ways most beneficial to the cause. When one door to social justice closes, one must readjust and walk through one that opens. When no doors open, one must adapt to using a window. You get the picture. Adaptation is not only good for molding a fulfilling life; it is also beneficial when aspects of life need to be reformed to better ensure that fulfillment.

However, the very same skill needed for reform is a detriment to revolution. The biggest impetus for revolution is the inability or impossibility to adapt to circumstances. However, if people can adapt while staying true to themselves, i.e., by not being compelled to take on unwanted values and beliefs, what need do they have to revolt?

Let me be clear: for too many teachers and professors, education is a Trojan Horse full of warriors ready and eager to sac the status quo. For a subset of educators, teaching and preparing students for success in this world is a red herring. Many social justice scholars and pedagogues do, indeed, want to shape minds, but they want to shape those minds into revolutionaries. These students have to know that the world their educators want to make is better than the current world, and that revolution, not reform, is the only way. Thus, to better sell this efficacy of all‐​out revolution, their students must see themselves as miserable objects of pity, as victims of a ubiquitous race‐​based cruelty. Dispositions like Williams’ can better ensure happiness and success in this world, and this is precisely why it has to be sabotaged. Happy and successful people don’t revolt, and one’s ability to adapt correlates to one’s ability to be happy and successful.