At the basis of Yameng Liu’s argument in “To Capture the Essence of Chinese Rhetoric: An Anatomy of a Paradigm in Comparative Rhetoric” is the admonition to not allow preconceived or untested notions, ideas, or philosophies to taint your own understanding of Chinese rhetoric. He argues that because previous researchers had used and accepted unfounded or ill-founded arguments regarding Chinese rhetoric all of their postulations were invalid because they were based on faulty premises. At the heart of these premises is an ethnocentric viewpoint that taints the researcher’s opinions because they are looking through culturally distorted lenses. To gain a clear understanding of the Chinese culture and their rhetorical theory you must set aside your assumptions of their culture and your value systems based upon your own culture. Only then, he argues, can you gain a better understanding of the depth and complexity of their rhetorical theories.

This lesson of cultural bias is important and applicable because it applies not only to looking at other cultures basis for learning, teaching, and using rhetoric but our own as well. In teaching rhetoric to our students we must be careful to remember that they may come from a diverse background with many different beliefs and values’ regarding what rhetoric is and how it should be employed. Understanding that our students may have been raised with different expectations of what good writing is essential to being able to provide them with a deeper understanding of rhetoric and language composition. However, at the same time the issue arises of how to embrace their cultural viewpoints while striving to maintain a level of competence in English rhetoric. Do we just teach toward their beliefs and strengths? Do we disregard or set aside those notions and teach only what is prescribed as proper English rhetoric? Or do we try to blend the two, embracing the diversity of language and ideas, to promote a wider and more holistic view of what rhetoric is? I’m sure the debate will rage on, however, I truly feel that we cannot begin to educate others until we are able to view the ones we are teaching without ethnocentric bias.