🚀 go-pugleaf

As a despicable liberal, I think I can see both sides of this.
I am sympathetic to the "revolutionary critique" of grammar as dismissable
artifact of the ruling class, but I wonder how far true revolutionaries
would go in their critique.  Presumably it is not simply "purism" to which
one objects, but rather any "pointing" at form over expression.
Is there any moment at which grammar has a function for a speaker?
Is that skill always learned outside any classroom and within one's own
local "discourse community"?  Is there any overlap between rhetoric and
grammar?  Is not rhetoric itself a kind of grammar?  Ultimately,
in the hands of an exploiter, what knowledge cannot be exploited?

I am not optimistic enough to believe we will ever reach, as a whole
society, any satisfactory resolution to the fear that when we teach,
we cripple.  It is a sad thing to see such highly rational creatures
so afraid of their own reason, yet so eager to dissect themselves with it.
Still, it becomes obvious that we are at that point -- our just dessert.

Less pessimistically, I can ask another question, this one honestly
"rhetorical":  If all languages (or dialects?) are of the same
"value," why should we adopt any other version(s) as normative or "better"?
The "current traditional" grammar has at least the advantage of
being some kind of "lingua franca," however stodgy it is in the face
of live innovations.

Finally, turning away from the precipice for a moment, I will say that
I don't believe in teaching grammar in place of writing -- but do hope
that grammarians will find a place for themselves in the academy,
nice and safe from flying bullets.  Maybe they will even find
a way to make learning grammar fun, easy, innocent, and useful.
Then we will know that the perfect food processor is right around
the corner.