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- HIERARCHY, PERFECTION, AND THE NEGATIVE
- CRITICISMS OF BURKE
BURKEAN COMMUNICATIONBurke’s earlier works begin to get at the notion of a rhetor’s motive by looking first at the idea of auditor’s form. Burke writes in Counter-Statement that “form is the creation of an appetite in the mind of the auditor, and the adequate satisfying of that appetite.” (31) As an audience member watching or looking on an action, I am forever attempting to identify with the symbols within that scene that will appeal to my form. As a rhetor, I appeal to the piety of particular symbols as a means of courting members of my audience. Burkean persuasion occurs when identification meets courtship. I will demonstrate this first by examining the output of the rhetor and second by examining the input of the audience. The output of the rhetor is designed to court the audience by appealing to piety. We should begin first with the concept of courtship. “By the ‘principle of courtship’ in rhetoric we mean the use of suasive devices for the transcending of social estrangement” (A Rhetoric of Motives 208). This does not necessarily mean that the ideas involved would estrange the audience without the use of persuasion. It is entirely possible that the audience has never considered the idea and is estranged in this way, although the other still applies. The key thing to pull from our definition of courtship is the idea of transcendence, which means that we will suppress one idea by referring instead to another that we may value more highly. For example, a world leader might try to raise support for his or her government by appealing to the public’s sense of nationalism. Nationalistic pride might spur citizens to forget about the current government’s record. That is courtship via transcendence. In order to enact this, we must have some other principle to which we can appeal. Piety is this principle to which we may appeal to transcend another value. “Piety is the sense of what properly goes with what… a sense of the appropriate…” (Permanence and Change 74-75). When we transcend something, we are saying ‘There is an appropriate order to things that suggests we should value this one principle over this other.” Piety suggests a hierarchy of principles. The transcendence of courtship is the laying out of those principles. The input of the audience is designed to identify with those ideas that satisfy the form of the individual audience members. As an audience member, I am looking for ideas that satisfy aspects of my form. It is this desire that spurs on my attempt to identify with symbols. Burke writes in Attitudes Toward History that “’identification’ is hardly other than a name for the function of sociality.” (267) Identification is a consubstantiality between me and a symbol. It is when I define myself as the symbol (although not that symbol alone). Audience members do this to satisfy their forms. Persuasion is the meeting of identification and courtship. The rhetor courts, or appeals to piety, which the audience member transcends towards in an attempt to fulfill his or her form by identifying with it. It is action on two levels. The rhetor acts in courting the audience member toward piety, while the audience member identifies with the piety to fulfill his or her form. HIERARCHY, PERFECTION, AND THE NEGATIVEBurke claims, at one point, that man is the symbol using animal that is goaded by perfection and a sense of hierarchy. This comes from the construction of the negative that is required by symbol using such as language. Burke tells us that the negative is found nowhere in nature, i.e. there is no such thing as nature as a non-existent something, a zero. The idea of a non-thing is a concept constructed within the mind. The zero or the nothing is a creation used for the purpose of symbol usage. With the invention of the zero comes the need for hierarchy. Once human beings have begun to distinguish between the something and the nothing, they began to distinguish between those things that came closer to being called one thing versus those things that were not so close. Human beings are now constructing scales or values for things that are arranged in hierarchies. Next comes the desire for perfection. Once a hierarchy is established, it is only natural for human beings to desire to climb it or claim those values or things that are towards the top of the hierarchy. This is found inherently within the use of language or symbol use. Recall that Burke’s project focuses on the rhetor’s use of symbols and an attempt to get at the motives of the rhetor. The very fact that rhetors have motives, that they have purpose in action, implies an end. The idea of an end or a goal implies with it that there is an attempt to attain some value within the hierarchy (a goal suggests a shift within the hierarchy). CRITICISMS OF BURKECompared with Burke, who examines the rhetor, Foucault examines the broader societal use of rhetoric and Derrida examines the narrower rhetoric itself. Foucault looks more broadly while Derrida looks more narrowly. Burke’s project focuses on the rhetor. When Burke attempts to define man as the ‘symbol using animal’ he is attempting to discover the origin of the symbol. He focuses on the rhetor as an origin. It is for this reason that so much of his work is concerned with motives. In seeing the rhetor as an origin of symbols, the most obvious question for Burke to ask is why symbols originated from the source that they did. Interpretation is itself a story (with motives behind it) that is about the possible motives behind some other act. Foucault’s view of rhetoric is broader. Foucault’s structuralism makes him see people as only parts of a greater whole. The rhetoric of an individual is really only a piece of a larger discursive sphere in which communication takes place. Individuals are just parts of the society and cultural structure that is constructed within them (they are constructed as parts of the structural whole). This really doesn’t conflict that much with Burke. It still leaves a lot of room to deal with motives even though it explains them as not originating from the individual rhetor. Instead, the origin comes from what has been constructed within the rhetor by the larger social and cultural structure. Thus, the only real difference between the two is that Foucault does not see the individual as the origin of rhetorical motive. Derrida’s focus is narrower than Burke’s. Derrida focuses on the printed word alone. Once the author has written a word on a page and another has read it, that word is no longer the author’s. When the reader proceeds to read the printed word, the reader is bringing his or her own experiences and interpretations to the word. The author does not exist within the mind of the reader to guide the interpretation. The reader is alone with the written word and nothing else. This is significant to our reading of Burke in that Derrida’s deconstruction argues that the motive of the rhetor means nothing at all. The reader may interpret the written word in any way the reader wishes, even if it is the direct opposite of the intent of the rhetor. Derrida and Foucault reveal Burke’s project to be tense. Burke insists upon an individual rhetor with motives is the key to analyzing rhetoric. In dissent to this, Foucault says no to the individual and Derrida says no to motive. 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