523 70. Isocratic Citizenship: Toward a Pedagogy of Citizen Orators Scott J. Varda, Baylor University In October of 2002, Senator Robert Byrd stood before a largely empty Senate chamber and lonely CSPAN cameras to denounce the sudden rush to war authorized by the U.S. Congress. He invited American citizens to contact their legislators to demand an actual debate on the subject of the Iraqi invasion (see Byrd, 2003, p. 1). His hail was largely ignored. More than seventy percent of Americans supported President Bush’s invasion of Iraq (O’Brien, 2007), though actual public debate on the subject was woefully brief and largely ignored by both Congress and citizens alike. The failure of citizen involvement, and actual public debate on perhaps the most difficult decision a nation faces—to engage in war—helped produce the horrors the Iraqi war has wrought. How could this war have happened without debate or substantial public dissent? And, how do the horrors of this war, as well as others such as Afghanistan, continue to be disregarded by U.S. citizens? I understand this as a failure of citizenship and consequently, as a failure of our educational system to instruct its future citizens as to the appropriate role of citizens. As Rooney (2004) observed, “There has long been an acceptance within the United States that responsibility for preparing students to be effective democratic citizens rests with the education system” (p. 97). This means, ultimately, that we, scholars and intellectuals, in coordination with our students, are responsible for righting the course of our American democracy. And it is for this reason that I turn to “the father of liberal education,” Isocrates (Bazerman & Russell, 1994, p. xix). I draw Isocratean thought to elucidate our responsibilities, as educators and intellectuals, to articulate ideals of citizenship and instruct citizens in the ability to argue within the political sphere. I develop the view that we are at least partially responsible for the education of the youth and that our duties could be most profitably effectuated by adopting an Isocratic notion of citizenship. Further, I seek to answer the question, “What does an Isocratic notion of citizenship look like?” In the pages that follow, I first provide a brief justification for this inquiry, followed by a review of the secondary literature discussing Isocrates the educator. I then flesh out what an Isocratic vision of citizenship might look like before finally discussing how this conception might both extend some of the previous work on Isocrates, as well as most profitably alter our political landscape. To begin, we must connect Isocrates to our own contemporary crisis in citizenship. Takis Poulakos (1996) has argued persuasively that a “relevance to our own democratic politics lies in the space opened up by Isocrates’ rhetorical instruction in how to speak for the collective interests and common concerns of the polis” (p. 237). Besides