Hello all!  Here's a second project I am working on, a section of the introduction to an edited collection of the Washington eulogies, selections from the 230 plus sermons, eulogies, discourses, and speeches delivered between December and February 1799-1800. 

2.  Religion, Virtue and the American Enlightenments:  Converging Anxieties after Independence.

(i). Crisis and virtue.  There was a growing concern about virtue among the newly independent American confederation of states.  In July, 1776, Jefferson had asked his friend John Page, anxiously, “We know the Race is not to the swift nor the Battle to the Strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the Whirlwind and directs the Storm?”  (Bobrick)  While in Paris 1784-89 he seemed to forgive the looming violence of the French Revolution. In a letter to a friend, he wrote,  “A healthy nation needs to shed a little blood every now and then.” (find this quote). But in the former colonies, anxiety prevailed about everything from government form to public virtue, religion and education. Who would be responsible for sustaining virtue, and restraining the new freedoms that had been won so hard and at so great a cost?  Ratifying conventions for the individual state constitutions reflected much concern about preserving the virtue of the American people that had been demonstrated in its finest hour during the war for Independence and that now must be sustained in a new era  whose government, moral fabric, and religion, had yet to be defined.[1]  Inheritors of both Biblical and Classical traditions concerning virtue and morality, many of the founders spliced together sources, as they had before independence, to define their identity and their unique virtues. 

            Patrick Henry was most exercised about the decline in public virtue as Virginia composed its first Constitution.  His defense of public morality and virtue is among the most actively religious and specifically Christian, while Jefferson and Madison continued to hammer away at some form of civic virtue that could be instilled without the trappings of any denominational or established religion.  Jefferson most feared the clergy’s role in manipulating the vulnerable; like his mentor John Witherspoon, Madison feared a theocracy of any kind, even if it was elective and multidenominational as in Henry’s model.    At the center of the debates were the full spectrum of senses that “virtue” and “morality” had acquired across the colonies during their long struggle for their freedoms, enshrined in the maxim that only a virtuous people can be free.  The last decades of Washington’s life and his death were surrounded by anxieties concerning the new nation, the virtue of the people, and the disputes concerning republicanism that threatened to bring the new nation to dissolution and chaos.

Washington’s Farewell Address, widely circulated and reprinted in the decade after its publication, articulated the virtues of the new nation in specifically moral and religious terms, and explained  urgently why they must be sustained.  Regionalism, factionalism, and a decline in religion had all begun to erode the virtuous patriotism which had bought America its independence.  “I shall carry with me to my grave the constancy of your support as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing.”  Adopting the role of presiding minister at a wedding ceremony, Washington enjoins and blesses the union, a union already threatened by regional and political factionalism.  “Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to to fortify or confirm the attachment.”  But encourage and exhort he does, proclaiming the civic virtues necessary to “sacredly maintain” the Constitution and the union which it defines and protects.  “It is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness.”   Never underestimate the dangers of a love of power, he warns.  Protecting the checks and balances defined in the Constitution is like the security religion provides, and only religion can provide, in checking the excesses of our baser instincts.  “Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice.  Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.  Virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.”  In these and other formulations Washington sets out the terms in which he will be defined and remembered, but even more, he provides a canon of virtues that are explicitly tied to religion. 

---

[1] Francois Furstenberg, In the Name of the Father. Washington’s Legacy, Slavery, and the Making of a Nation. New York: Penguin, 2006. Furstenburg examines two moments of crisis, just after Independence, and during and after the Constitution ratifying conventions, through a detailed analysis of the popular press and pamphlet culture which disseminated the debates and the new “nationalism that promoted consent to the constituted political authorities and a sense of mutual political obligation” (21).  His chapter on the Washington eulogies, “The Apotheosis of George Washington,” is a valuable study of the mass media and readerships for “civic texts” that disseminated a “civic religion” centered in linking nationalism with religion, and, in response to Washington’s death, encouragement of the attitudes of resignation, gratitude, and consent (also see Pauline Maier, American Scripture).   The chapter does not provide any detailed analysis of individual sermons or eulogies.

...Regarding 18th C women rhetorical figures, public speakers, in Britain and America, recent collections on Quaker women (Rebecca Larson, Daughters of Light) and Baptist women (Curtis Freeman,Prophetesses and Preachers: Baptists and Prophetesses in 18th C England (2011);  are fascinating studies of the over 300 women in each group who circulated in Britain in America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were well regarded and respected.  One, Rachel Wilson, a Quaker, was invited to speak at the College of New Jersey (Princeton) by the student body in 1768!

Research Reading Reflections

In my last year as a camper at my old summer camp, I decided to take guitar lessons from an older friend who happens to be a fantastic musician. He had been playing guitar for a very long time, and he started off our lesson by describing his relationship (I do not use that metaphor lightly) with his guitar. “There are some days when everything will make sense and you won’t want to do anything except play guitar,” he said, “and then there are other days when you will be so frustrated and confused that you will want to take your guitar and throw it at the wall.” About ten years have passed since I first heard these words, and while I have let that dream slip away, this friend’s passion for music has inspired and haunted me to this day.

I know that in my life, the closest parallel to my friend and his guitar is my relationship with my research. I imagine this is true for many of you as well. My Master’s thesis has expanded upon a paper I wrote on the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, and it has been the toughest and most rewarding project I have ever encountered. I had my first “throw it at the wall” moment about a year ago while I worked on the original paper; unfortunately, it was not a figurative “throw it at the wall” moment. I naively decided that it would be “inspirational” to watch Hotel Rwanda and American History X while working on my papers on the Rwandan Genocide and Holocaust denial (warning: side effects may include literally throwing your belongings at your bedroom wall). Fortunately, I have since learned how to handle the doom and gloom of my research. For that matter, I have even seen it as a coping mechanism for personal struggles (no matter how bad things in my life may get, it is still, thankfully, machete-free).

A few weeks ago, I had a tough but very enjoyable assignment. I was asked to present my research along with a reading that inspired it. Presenting my research was the easy part; exposing others to some of the texts I read made me slightly uncomfortable. Given the nature of what I study, I wanted to be very careful about the readings I selected; not everyone has the stomach for everything I read (I even came close to vomiting--again literally--from a paragraph I read over Winter Break). Ultimately, I chose two book chapters that put human faces on the work that I do, which is often caught up in discussions of the number of people killed or the circumstances that shaped the conflict. The books--Paul Rusesabagina’s An Ordinary Man and Philip Gourevitch’s We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families--are both fantastic reads that remind me why I study what I do. First, as I have already noted, they put a human face to something larger than what most of us can fully comprehend. Second, they remind us that genocide is more than an event; it is a lasting process with very serious and complex long-term consequences. Third, they demonstrate that rhetoric plays a significant role in nearly every aspect of genocide. What I have noticed about my own scholarship is that it would not be nearly as stimulating, rewarding, or effective without the nonfiction personal stories that, more often than not, get left out of the final scholarly product.

This quasi-paradoxical realization made me wonder about the inspiration that others might draw from nonfiction works that border on mainstream sources. I recognize that I have probably set up a false dichotomy between “academic” and “mainstream” here, but I see a clear difference in my own reading, and I see both types as necessary, enjoyable, and invaluable, even though one type often upstages the other. I am curious about what role (inspirational, contextual, sense-making, etc.), if any, more “mainstream” nonfiction plays in other people’s research. This was the conversation that I had hoped for when I presented my research, but, given the organic nature of conversation, it took a different (yet no less satisfying or useful) path, so I thought I would open my questions to this forum:

What kinds of “mainstream” texts (loosely defined for both “mainstream” and “text”), if any, do you read in relation to your scholarly research? If you do not read “mainstream” sources, do you see any potential value in doing so? If you do, what role does such reading serve for you? How does such reading shape your research identity? Does the relationship between “academic” and “mainstream” sources mirror the relationship between “text” and “context”? Does it transcend it? 

Two things. 

First, come one come all to the website of the Princeton Seminary Center for the Study of Scottish Philosophy.  September 6-7-8 bicentennial conference on Scottish Common Sense and Natural Law Philosophy in America.  Rhetorical traditions and teaching, Witherspoon, legal language and doctrines, James Wilson, constitution ratification debates, philosophical and popular sources of the language of the Declaration, self-presentations of Patrick Henry, Washington, Richard Henry Lee, Jefferson, the concept of the natural genius and natural orator.  These are but a few of the delights that you might consider working up as an abstract for this opportunity for a funded conference.

Second.  My recent work in progress, a history of American Baptists contributions to enlightenment thought.....

Dictionary of the American Enlightenment

Mark Spencer, ed.

“Baptists”

Contributions of Baptists to American Enlightenment thought include an insistence on liberty of conscience, or “soul freedom”, a rejection of any control of the state over religious belief and practice, and a related objection even to the church’s authority to dictate, coerce, or enforce religious behavior.  Seventeenth-century American Baptists refuted colonists’ claims to Native American lands, and thereby to the legality of colonial charters based on such claims.  Many eighteenth-century American Baptists included slaves in all aspects of their religious communities, including baptism, worship, and domestic devotions (Isaac 1974). Viewed retrospectively through the lens of nineteenth and twentieth-century Baptist evangelicalism, often with a lack of emphasis upon its philosophical and political roots, the history of American Baptists has obscured attention to their first two centuries, when they contributed significantly to the formation of moral and political philosophies that were central to the founding era.

            The role of Baptists during the American evangelical enlightenment (Landsman 1991; Noll 2002) can be viewed in three overlapping historical segments: seventeenth century immigration to the Great Awakening (1610-1740); struggles for religious toleration (1680-1791); and denominational disputes before and after independence (1760-1800).  A second useful perspective has been provided by the model of multiple enlightenments during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (May 1976, Noll 2002, Pocock 1993).  Eighteenth-century Americans responded to several different enlightenments.  The moderate or rationalist enlightenment ideas of the seventeenth century were initially well received: Newton’s physics, Locke’s social contract, republican political theories of self government and reciprocal rights and duties. By the eighteenth century, however, amplifications of enlightenment ideas emphasizing human reason and empirical science, as defined by Continental and British philosophers such as Voltaire, and Hume, came to be held in disgust as skeptical, “deist” and even atheist. A third group of thinkers, including Rousseau, and Thomas Paine advanced revolutionary political theories that explicitly rejected religion. A fourth group of enlightenment thinkers, including the Scottish philosophers Frances Hutcheson, Thomas Reid, Adam Smith, and Dugald Stewart, created a synthesis of religious with moral and enlightenment rationalist thought, and advanced the ideas of common sense, social cohesion, and moral improvement that could be promoted through the pursuit of excellence in all areas of human culture: literature, philosophy, rhetoric, sermons, history.  The Scottish Enlightenment or “didactic” enlightenment program comprised a new moral philosophy, a theistic mental science, and an evangelical accommodation of enlightenment thinking (Noll 2002, 94). In America the synthesis was widely disseminated, and provided a receptiveness to the first “great awakening” beginning in the 1730s, as well as to the ideas that promoted independence from the British church and then state.

It is a great irony that New England America’s first identity as a harbor open to those escaping religious persecution became so quickly an autocratic orthodoxy. At the same time, the doctrinal sophistication that all parties brought to their debates, honed by earlier struggles with the established Church of England, attested to the conceptualization of doctrines and beliefs concerning government, political and spiritual freedom, individual conscience, and the control of scriptural interpretation. These questions would persist as subjects of spiritual as well as intellectual deliberation throughout the long eighteenth century in America. The Separatist and Baptist insistence upon “soul freedom”, liberty of individual conscience understood as a political right, free will in choosing Christ, and discernment in scriptural interpretation rested upon larger enlightenment ideas of free will, moral choice, and rejections of interpretive orthodoxies and doctrines.  Understood not just as rights but also as duties, freedom of conscience and of speech, and the practice of deliberative debate about matters of scriptural interpretation as well as constitutional law, became enshrined in founding era religious and political thinking.  In his “Liberty or Death” speech, Patrick Henry reflected the synthesis of religious beliefs and political thought that by then permeated the collective American mind. “. . .in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty towards the majesty of heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings” (1774).

Ahlstrom, Sydney F., A Religious History of the American People. (New Haven, 1972).

Forbes, Robert Pierce, “Slavery and the Evangelical Enlightenment”, in Religion and the-Debate Over Slavery, eds.  John C. McKivigan and Mitchell Snay (Atlanta, 1998), pp. 2-48.

Isaac, Rhys, “Evangelical Revolt: The Nature of the Baptists' Challenge to the Traditional Order in Virginia,1765 to 1775”,  The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Jul., 1974), pp. 345-368.

Landsman, Ned C., From Colonials to Provincials: American Thought and Culture 1680-1760 (Boston 1997).

---. “Presbyterians and Provincial Society: the Evangelical Enlightenment in the West of Scotland 1740-1775”, in Sociability and Society: the Social World of the Scottish Enlightenment, Eighteenth Century Life 15 (1991), pp. 194-201.

Leonard, Bill J.,  Baptists in America, Ch 1, Beginnings.  (New York,  2005).

May, Henry L. The Enlightenment in America (New York, 1976).

Murrin, John M “Religion and Politics in America from the First Settlement to the Civil War,” in Religion and American Politics from the Colonial Period to the Present, eds. Mark A. Noll and Luke E. Harlow (New York, 2007), pp. 23-46.

Noll, Mark A. America’s God, from Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (New York, 2002).

---. A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Grand Rapids, MI, 2001).

Pocock, J. G. A., “Political Thought in the English-Speaking Atlantic, 1760-1790, Part I: The Imperial Crisis”, in The Varieties of British Political Thought, 1500-1800, ed. Pocock (New York 1993).

Symbolic Violence Conference

The Rhetoric of Identity in the Age of Social Media

The following post is relevant to my dissertation research on digital rhetoric, authorship, and identity, but I hope that readers will find it interesting since it is applicable to their online interactions as well. I'm eager for any feedback that you have. -CCM

In Rhetoric: A User’s Guide, John D. Ramage claims that “the most important function served by rhetoric is the work it does in service of identity formation” (33). He claims that “Who were are, who we wish to be, and the amount of control we have over either of those two matters depends significantly on our rhetorical skill” (33). Managing our identity rhetorically requires even more skill in the digital age and more recently involves the sacrifice of a personal degree of control over identity which we thought we had gained in the early days of the Internet. Although freedom and flexibility were often associated with online identity in the early years of chat rooms and MUDs, in recent years it appears that a new fixity regarding identity has emerged with the advent of social media.

Early online models of communication such as multiuser dungeons (MUDs), chat rooms, and discussion boards permitted ample flexibility with identity since they permitted users to adopt a different screen name and a different persona in each venue. One of the first studies to address the implications of identity in the digital age was Sherry Turkle's (1995) Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. In her examination of MUDs, Turkle examines various attributes associated with this newfound flexibility. While some participants chose an avatar or user persona who was very similar to their offline personalities, others chose one that was dramatically different (183). It was not uncommon for participants to choose the opposite gender or to adopt a race or ethnicity that was different from their own. Of course, there were disadvantages associated with anonymity and flexibility of identity online, including flaming, trolling, and outright deception. Many cases of deception such as the Kaycee Nicole cancer hoax were well publicized and created an attitude of suspicion concerning online identities.  

Over the past 10 years, there has been a shift toward more fixed forms of rhetorical identity online, and this shift appears to coincide with the popularization of social media. In social media, facets of a user’s online and offline identity are often closely linked with one’s offline identity – even acting as an extension of it. For example, an average user may have a Facebook account, contribute to several blogs, and be affiliated with various websites. Each of these venues encourages users to “link” their identity on that particular site with various other dimensions of online identity, thus creating a sense of cohesion regarding identity online. The “real name” policies enforced on some websites only further contribute to this phenomenon by enforcing an association between dimensions of one's offline and online identity. (For some insight on Facebook’s real name policy, see danah boyd.) The result is that one’s rhetorical identity is no longer shaped only by the direct online context in which one is participating, but it is also shaped by various other tidbits of information which exist out there in cyberspace and by an affiliation with one’s offline life. These aspects merge to create a more fixed rhetorical identity online.

If more fixed/cohesive forms of rhetorical identity are being shaped online, is this shift toward fixity a response to hoaxes and deceptions – a desire to establish some sort of authorial accountability in a previously “authorless” context, or is it merely a trend that is strongly influenced by social media platforms (perhaps even for commercial gain - the more companies know about you, the more they benefit)? 

Also, how might we use rhetorical theory to characterize this new method of “shaping” identity online? Does it mark a shift from a medium where the Aristotelian concept of ethos as identity constructed in the text was acceptable to one where the Ciceronian understanding of ethos (which also considers one’s character and actions outside of the message) is more appropriate? 

All of these questions are worth considering as we move into an age where social media increasingly play a role not only in our personal lives, but in our professional lives as well.

References

boyd, danah."'Real Names' Policies Are an Abuse of Power." apophenia. 4 Aug. 2011. 22 Feb. 2012.

Johnson, Bobbie. "The Short Life of Kaycee Nicole." The Guardian. 27 May 2001. 22 Feb. 2012.

Lynch, Diane. "Wired Women: Beautiful Cancer Victim a Hoax." ABC News. 30 May. 22 Feb. 2012.

Ramage, John D. Rhetoric: A User's Guide. New York: Pearson-Longman, 2006.

Turkle, Sherry. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet.New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.

We should post the schedule for the Symbolic Violence Conference ASAP!  Inquiring minds want to know.  Can do?  Jim? David?   

Returning from the West(ern States Communication Conference)

I flew back this morning from Albuquerque, NM where the 83rd annual convention of the Western States Communication Association (WSCA) is being held. It is a smaller, regional conference, but it takes place in my home: the West. And though the West is a very general area in this regard, I take it to be any place including and between the West Coast and the Mountain States (Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico). But the part of the West I like best is high altitude desert, or in Forest Service-speak: Pinyon-Juniper woodland (PJ, for short). I spent the weekend in the heart of it.

While there I delivered a short paper on the rhetoric of early labor activist Sarah G. Bagley to probably the fullest room I have ever seen at a conference (also a rather small room, so to say standing-room-only might be a little misleading). I can report that Rhetoric and Public Address is alive and well in the West. In fact, it is the largest interest group at WSCA. I attended the conference with a close friend who studies organizational communication. He reported that Org. Comm (as it is known by its adepts) is a significantly smaller interest group at WSCA. Being concerned about its prospects, he and I spent some time wondering why: Why is Org. Comm smaller than Rhetoric, especially as there appears to be so many more jobs available in Org. Comm? While discussing various reasons I came up with the rather bold, if unsubstantiated (but totally testable) claim:

There is an inverse relationship between the number of panels submitted to an interest group and that interest group's prospects on the job market.

My armchair data is this: By most accounts, there are a lot of job openings in organizational communication, whereas there are fewer job openings in rhetoric (even fewer in public address). I don't think I quite convinced my friend, but what do you think?

"What counts as a life worth mourning?": A Comment on the Rhetorics and Ethics of Mourning

In her article "Spontaneous Memorials and Contemporary Modes of Mourning in America,” Erika Doss identifies situations in which communal expressions of mourning determine who does—and does not—count as a person whose death is worth grieving, and, by implication, whose life was valuable. For example, in the aftermath of the shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, students, families, church groups, and other members of the community mourned publicly for the lost lives by creating memorials, like the makeshift memorial of flowers, footballs, and school jerseys that erupted just hours after the shooting at a nearby park (Doss 296). In addition, carpenter Greg Zanis constructed crosses on a hill by the high school for each of the thirteen people killed—and the shooters, who committed suicide—crosses that served as public sites of mourning for both victims and perpetrators (Doss 311).

While some mourners left tokens and cards asking forgiveness at the crosses of the shooters, public dispute broke out about whether the shooters deserved to be mourned. The father of one of the student victims, Brian Rohrbough, removed the killers’ crosses only two days after their construction, complaining that “’it was an outrage to use a Christian symbol to honor the murderers at a victims’ site’” (Lowe and Guy qtd. in Doss 311). Rohrbough also helped relatives of another student victim chop down two of the fifteen trees planted by a local church to memorialize everyone who died in the tragic event (Doss 312).

While Zanis viewed the killers as “’victims of society,’” sharing the church’s recognition of them as worthy of commemoration like the people they killed, Rohrbough and other mourners recognized the killers as “undeserving of any form of commemoration or consideration”—as if through their brutal actions they had divested themselves of personhood worthy of mourning (Gray qtd. in Doss 311; Doss 311-312). Doss shows that what counts as lost personhood or subjectivity deserving of grief is constructed and in part projected onto individuals by their companions and communities.

Memorials of the Columbine shooting seem to have served rhetorical functions within the Colorado community. The fifteen crosses and trees appealed to audiences that valued all human life in a broad sense. Zanis conveyed his view of the shooters as "'victims'" themselves by memorializing them alongside the people they killed, affirming that their lives were, at least in a fundamental sense, as valuable as the lives of their victims (Gray qtd. in Doss 311). Zanis's crosses and the church's tree memorial apparently aimed to unite a grief-stricken community around the common value of human life. In response to a tragedy that ruptured the community through violent loss of life, these memorials seem to have emphasized communal connections; these memorials suggested that mourners could refuse to perpetuate such ruptures by focusing on the unity of a community that values all human life and mourns all loss of human life.

These appeals to unity and shared experiences of mourning, however, obviously excluded audiences like Rohrbough, who felt that people could divest themselves of any inherent or fundamental value by killing others. Rohrbough seems to represent the position that an ethical community refuses to affirm the value of any person who inflicts substantial harm on others. What Zanis and the church view as a unifying value of all humanity, Rohrbough and his ilk view as a divisive, dangerous inclusion of harmful individuals. Somewhat ironically, however, Rohrbough's opposition to the memorials' unifying appeals led to more destructive actions through his violation of the two crosses and trees.

What counts as a life worth mourning is rhetorically constructed, as the memorials of the Columbine shooting and Rohrbough's responses to them indicate. The Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas seems to affirm that a person's ethical value is determined through her rhetorical situations. Levinas argues that one's humanity is determined by the justice—or injustice—of her response to death. For Levinas, the human subject responds to the injustice that “inheres, at least potentially, in every death” by aiming to protect the other from an unjust death, even to the point of self-sacrifice (Spargo, Vigilant Memory 64). Such sacrificial responsibility to and for the other gives rise to one’s subjectivity, according to Levinas, even in the moment of death. Self-sacrifice therefore paradoxically may be both the end of one’s life and the beginning or epitome of one’s humanity—a way of sustaining connection with the other through death.

When viewed through the lens of Levinasian responsibility, death and loss seem to serve as exigences in rhetorical situations that determine one’s humanity, based on her just or unjust response to the other’s death. Because a just response to the other’s death aims to preserve both the other’s life and one’s connection with the other, this response seems to involve transforming the separation that death invokes into a kind of connection with the other. Rhetoric shares a similar aim, as Kenneth Burke explains in his definition of identification as a way of overcoming separation from others by creating connections. When death and loss rupture community, as with the Columbine shooting, bereaved survivors seem to desire affirmations of their values and of ethical communities—whatever their definitions of those may be.

Part of emotional experiences of grief may, therefore, entail a desire for the kinds of connections and communal unity for which rhetoric aims, as if mourning expresses a rhetorical motive. For Levinas, such a rhetorical motive is part of our ethical nature, since we arise as human subjects in response to the other, to whom we address ourselves ("Ethics"). In "Substitution," Levinas characterizes the human subject as one who is ethical, responsible to and for the other prior to any "intentionality," consciousness, or emotion; (101). Responsibility shapes our very capacity for emotion, as Levinas suggests in "Dying For . . ." when he claims that the responsibility conveyed through sacrifice for the other "would be . . . the primordial inflection of the affective as such" (216). All emotion, including mourning, therefore seems to emerge in the context of one's capacity for ethical responsibility. This responsibility, in turn, seems essentially rhetorical insofar as it emphasizes responses to the other, to an audience, whose very presence confers personhood to the self.

A Levinasian re-phrasing of the question "What counts as a life worth mourning?" might be something like "Why is my life worth mourning? What justifies my presence?" For Levinas, what justifies a life and makes it worth mourning is a person's rhetorical, responsible relationship to the other and her death. In these respects, ethical and rhetorical perspectives both seem essential in exploring the questions like "What counts as a life worth mourning?"

-Sarah Hart, Graduate Student, English Department 

Works Cited

Burke, Kenneth. A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkeley: U of California P, 1950. Print.

Doss, Erika. "Spontaneous Memorials and Contemporary Modes of Mourning in America." Material Religion 2.3 (2006): 294-319. PDF file.

Levinas, Emmanuel. “Dying For . . . .” Entre Nous: On Thinking-of-the-Other. New York: Columbia UP, 1998. 207-217. PDF file.

---. “Ethics as First Philosophy.” The Levinas Reader. Ed. by Sean Hand. Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1989. 75-87. Print.

---. “Substitution.” The Levinas Reader. Ed. by Sean Hand. Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1989. 88-125. Print.

Spargo, R. Clifton. Vigilant Memory: Emmanuel Levinas, the Holocaust, and the Unjust Death. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, UP. 2006. Print.

A future for Foucault scholarship in rhetoric; or, tales of a disillusioned poststructuralist

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow." ~ Kay, Men in Black (1997)

The day I realized I wanted to get a PhD in rhetoric was the day that my wonderful rhetorical theory instructor at Ripon College, Professor Jody Roy, lectured about Foucault. It certainly wasn't a comprehensive overview of Michel Foucault's theories; she talked about his theory of the episteme, the cultural system of knowledge production which comes to tyrannize our systems of determining truth. There was something about this concept that rang true to me, as someone who grew up in a town where cultural assumptions about normal and abnormal, right and wrong, were very narrow and seen as objective, and who often felt people jumped to conclusions about what they "knew" far too rapidly. Quite frankly, my mind was blown.

The Intersection of Visual Culture and Law

Susan Sontag claims, “Photographs cannot create a moral position, but they can reinforce one-and can help build a nascent one.”[1] 

Perhaps the most recent challenge to this assumption are the photographs released in the Supreme Court case of Brown v. Plata, in which Justice Kennedy released three black and white images that depict the over crowding population problem facing California prisons.  The first two photographs show the barrack like conditions for inmates who now live in the prison’s gymnasium.  The third image is rather disturbing as it displays the holding cells for inmates who await treatment for mental illness problems.  The holding cells do not seem to be much larger than a high school locker. 

Briefly, here are the facts of the case.  In 1990, Coleman v. Brown challenged the ability of California prisons to offer adequate healthcare for inmates with serious mental health issues.  The California prison system was initially designed to hold a capacity of 80,000 prisoners.  In 2005, authorities estimated the California prison population to be over 142,000.  At that time, the Federal Court of California argued that one prisoner dies every 6-7 days due to problem of insufficient health conditions.  In 2011, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that California prisons needed to release approximately 33,000 inmates. 

In his opinion, Justice Kennedy highlighted the serious constitutional issue of “cruel and unusual punishment” and to support his argument, he included three black and white photos that depict the serious and potentially deadly prison conditions.

The inclusion of images within legal discourse is not a groundbreaking practice, however, it does raise an ethical question concerning the relationship and intersection of visual culture and American law.  One viewpoint on the subject is that photographs do not belong in legal decisions.  Hampton Dillinger highlights several potential dangers from the use of photographs in legal decisions.  According to Dellinger, “Visual attachments are much more likely to obscure the best available legal answer rather than reveal it.”[2]  Dellinger has three main arguments on why images should not be included in legal decisions.  First, visual attachments appear to possess neutral and objective qualities.  Second, visual attachments might appear to audiences as “accurate” and “credible” representations of reality.  Third, visual attachments operate as “communicative vehicles of economy,” which contains an impact more powerful than words.  Moreover, Dellinger argues the use of imagery in judicial decisions can help Justices “resolve a difficult legal point too easily by distracting the reader with an eye-catching attachment.”

Is this the case with Brown v. Plata? 

Did Justice Kennedy distract readers from the important constitutional violation of the 8^th Amendment for inmates in California prisons?  I think so.   

Justice Kennedy has done more justice with three photographs than in 91 pages of written judicial opinion.  These images are not a substitution for moral action rather they are the production of morality.  The photographs are eye-catching images that may overlook the best possible legal decisions concerning the problem of overpopulation in California prisons.  Moreover, the photographs attempt to resolve a complex legal problem concerning the power of the Supreme Court to regulate State prisons. 

More importantly, the photographs ask audiences to create a moral position through a visual form of emotional legal reasoning. Photographs can be thought of as an avenue that defines the relationship between citizens and the state.  It is not uncommon to think of these images to challenge society on a variety of social, political, and economic issues.  The Brown v. Plata photographs encourage the audience to feel a sense of compassion and empathy for the prisoners.  In this sense, the photographs do not create a moral position, but help reinforce the belief that American justice does not tolerate “cruel and unusual punishment.” 

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[2] For more information, see Hampton Dellinger, “Words Are Enough: The Troublesome Use of Photographs, Maps, and Other Images in Supreme Court Opinions” Harvard Law Review 110, no. 8 (1997): 1704-1753.

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[1] See Susan Sontag, On Photography (New York: Anchor Books, [1977] 1990).  

What is Symbolic Violence?

How do we define and explain the term “symbolic violence?”  When members of the Westboro Baptist Church and Fred Phelps decide to protest the funeral of Matthew Snyder with signs reading, “God Hates Fags,” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” do we consider their actions to be a form of symbolic violence?  To answer the question, I suggest we consider the term symbolic violence more closely. 

The meaning and definition of the term symbolic violence is highly debatable in the social sciences.  One viewpoint on the term comes from the work of Randall Collins who argues that, “symbolic violence is mere theoretical word play and to take it literally would grossly misunderstand the nature of real violence.”[1]  For Collins, “symbolic violence” is a “rhetorical complaint” and has no real value in explaining what really happens in life.  Collins takes a perspective on violence that argues people are not inherently violent, rather, situations produce moments of violence.

 

In contrast, the work of Slavoj Zizek and Pierre Bourdieu point out the potential danger of symbolic violence.  Zizek warns against accepting violence without critical thought and considers the objective and subjective forms of violence.  For Zizek, objective violence is “invisible” and is found in the “normal” state of things.[2]  Subjective violence is visible, and performed by an identifiable agent, and includes “symbolic” and “systemic” forms of violence.  According to Zizek, symbolic and systemic violence is embedded in language, which is evident in cases of incitement and free speech.[3]  Moreover, Bourdieu considers the symbolic power of language to construct reality and power relations.  The term “symbolic violence” is defined by the power relations that form between individuals (and/or institutions), which are situated in systems/structures of power that become instruments to help insure that one class dominates another.[4]  Thus, one possible viewpoint on symbolic violence is that it involves a visible form of systemic/power relations.  In other words, symbolic violence is not necessarily the power of language to injure, but rather, a hidden form of power relations that exist in society through language. 

From this viewpoint, we need to revisit the question of whether Fred Phelps actions demonstrate a form of symbolic violence.  My answer is NO. 

Although, many Americans may find the viewpoint and messages of the Westboro to be “distasteful,” I argue that we need to critically examine the power of Supreme Court to decide what speech the First Amendment protects.  In determining what speech is protected or unprotected by First Amendment liberties, the Supreme Court is participating in the power construction of symbolic violence.  In this case, the Supreme Court is an identifiable agent that uses a “visible” and systemic form of power to determine the relations between individuals in American society.  These power relations are defined by the institutional and structural power invested in the Supreme Court to create law.  Simply put, when the Supreme Court in an 8-1 decision upholds the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church to be constitutional, they have demonstrated the power of symbolic violence. 

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[1] Randall Collins, Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008).

[2] Slavoj Zizek, Violence (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008).

[3] Zizek, Violence, 2.

[4] Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991).    

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