CCR 631/CCR 690

A Rhetoric of Motives (continued)
Kenneth Burke

Click here to go to the first set of notes.
Imagination
In this subtopic Burke seems to be emphasizing the importance of imagination as the key element to move an audience to identify with a speaker. Burke quotes William Hazlitt who explains the imagination serves as the “primary motive…which determines the mind to the volition of anything” (83). Burke continues to use Hazlitt, and quotes Hazlitt as saying “my real substantial interest in anything must be derived from the impression of the object itself, as if that could have any sort of communication with my present feelings, or excite any interest in my mind, but by means of the imagination, which is naturally affected in a certain manner by the prospect of future good or evil” (86). It seems Burke is trying to foreground the importance of imagination and at the same time connect it with identification with this quote, since Hazlitt, according to Burke, is explaining how Imagination can override Identification with other people, and yet Burke also points out how Identification even figures into this moment where the individual convinces herself that her self-interest is more important than the happiness of those around her. Hazlitt asserts:

It is this greater liveliness and force with which I can enter into my future feelings, that in a manner of identifies them with my present being: and this motion of identitybeing once formed, the mind makes use of it to strengthen its habitual propensity, by giving to personal motives a reality and absolute truth which they can never have. (84 , emphasis mine)

This, I assume, is somehow connected to the section Rhetoric of Address (to the Individual Soul). In following the implications of the New Rhetoric postulated by Perleman, Toulmin, and Richards this makes sense–how else could a person convince herself of anything except using the tools she uses on others, and since Burke is extending the definition of rhetoric to include identification, the individual must identify with concepts to make them her own and to make them persuasive.

Image and Idea
In this section it seems Burke is arguing there is a connection between Image and Idea, and that one represents the other; especially when a speaker (writer) is using images to represent ideas (see his example of “mother” on page 87). This section seems unduly convoluted. Burke seems to be arguing that the tie are connected, and he seems to spend a lot of time discussing how this works in matters of art–in particular in poetry. On page 88 Burke sets the binaries of poetry/imagination and ideology and rhetoric, not that he seems to feel these binaries are true, but more that he’s demonstrating how theses qualities and disciplines are associated and fenced off from one another. Burke continues on to chide common practice by saying:

Even as extremely imagistic poem is organized only insofar as it abides by integrating principles; and because they are principles, if criticism were discerning enough it could detect their counterparts in the realm of ideas; thus the sensory images could be said to embody ideas that transcend the sensory…Where are we now?…We have been saying that…considering how images are so related to ideas that an idea can be treated as the principle behind the systematic development of an image. (88, emphasis original)

I don’t understand the need for this long section, unless he’s arguing against the critical and theoretical milieu of his time. This is, I assume, the zenith of formalism/New Criticism within English Studies, and if he’s producing abnormal discourse, then I can understand the time he takes in trying to tie Image and Idea together, and placing this topic immediately after Imagination.

Rhetorical Analysis in Bentham
Burke uses Bentham “linguistic analysis” (which asks for a plain style where all manipulative suasive aspects of language are dropped) in this topic area as a “rhetoric-in-spite-of-itself” (99). While Burke seems amused and critical of Bentham and his “triplicate language” (dyslogistic term, neutral, “real” and preferred term, eugolistic term–see 92-93 for clarification); extends the idea of identification and autonomy by demonstrating how Bentham’s utilitarianism has been appropriated for use and justification within a monetary utilitarian system (96); Burke also puts Bentham’s methodology to good use by discussing the ways in which newspapers assume authority over the mediatory ground, using Bentham’s methods and terms as the way to make the implicit journalistic design practices explicit for what they are: manipulation by begging the question and suggesting that the right minded agree with the claim stated in a headline (98). Burke also uses the triplicate concept of language to explain euphenisms, ie, the “eugolisitc covering” of motives considered base or socially inappropriate. In this way “love of power can be eulogized as love of country; fear of punishment or bad reputation can be called love or sense of duty…and antipathy or ill will can be eulogisticially covered in the name of public spirit or love of justice” (100, emphasis original).

Marx on Mystification and Terinistic Reservations (in View of Cromwell’s Motives)

Burke appropriates Marx’s ideas about the dialectical materialism and shows how Hegelian ideology thoroughly saturates the worldview of most people living in W. Europe/N. America, however, he also points out that most would not carry the ideology out to its fullest extent. If they did, they would see “all the material relations in history…interpreted as the products of [the] Universal Spirit as manifesting itself in the empirical world” (106). That most people do not see the world this way, but use this ideology in fragmented ways, all relationships within a specific milieu are connected through mystical means. The rhetorical critique supplied by Marx allows for the rhetor to demystify a modern, industrial state.

Interestingly enough, in the next section, Terministic Reservations…, Burke then goes against the explanation of he creates in Marx on Mystification. Here, Burke explains that in a specific milieu a person, or people, could use terms an outsider would see as a mystification (the river people example on page 111) knowing full well that they do not mean some type of transcendental signified, (see page 111 about animism and dialectic advantage for clarification).

Using the example of Cromwell’s speech to Parliment, Burke explains how the terms Cromwell uses are not terms unknowingly used to obscure the relations between the machinations of the state and the people of England, but an erudite use of terms to cause identification and therefore persuade Parliament to pass the act he (Cromwell) is presenting. Burke explains:

You need but think ‘God’ or ‘Providence’ in a ‘neutral’ or ‘technical’ sense, merely as a term for the universal sense, for the sum total of conditions (scholastic theology itself having provided the bridge , in defining God as ‘the ground of all possibility’)…neither statement may be as ‘mystifying’ or ‘general’ as it seems, since it is used by people in specific social contexts, and in various unspecified ways derives meaning from such material conditions (112-113, 114).

To go back to the Bethamite terms, this is a “eulogisitc covering” that also serves not as “self-deception” but as a “roundabout evidence of self-criticism” (114). The speaker is aware of the possible flaws within her focusing claim and the subsequent evolving, connected claims, and therefore, uses the terms which will allow for the greatest amount of identification possible between her and her audience.

Carlyle on “Mystery”
Building on the idea of Marx’s mystification (and Burke sees Marxism as a rhetoric “grounded in a dialectic” which analyses the flaws of capitalism while claiming to have no rhetoric of its own–see pages 101-102 for further explanation), Burke proposes using The German Ideology and Sartor Resartus together. Through this Burke proposes “we [since we, the readers, should identify with him?] might begin with the proposition that mystery arises at that point where different kinds of beings are in communication. In mystery there must be strangeness; but the estranged must also be though of as some in some way capable of communication” (115). Here, Burke makes the stand such a moment of mystery occurs with the contact of different social classes; the example of a clerk and a manager does not just display “merely two different people, but representing two different classes (or “kinds”) of people. The clerk and the manager are identified with and by different social principles” (115, emphasis original).

Burke then makes the claim this interaction of social classes is a moment of mystery, and this mystery has its own rhetoric on the same level as the of “sexual expression: for the relations between classes are like the ways of courtship, rape, seduction, jilting, prostitution, promiscuity, with variants of sadistic torture or masochistic invitation to mistreatment” (115). Burke also asserts that in the ideas of Marx and Carlyle “Mystery is equated with class distinctions” (122, emphasis original).

After some interesting verbal gymnastics allowing himself to align himself with neither, or at least, not overtly articulate a position tied to either philosopher (probably quite smart for a rhetorician), Burke closes the section with why all of this is important to scholars studying rhetoric.

As regards rhetoric, our point is: Marx and Carlyle, taken together, indicate the presence os a “mystifying condition” in social inequality; and this condition can elicit “God-fearing” attitudes towards agents and agencies that are not “divine.” The two doctrines, taken together, can put us on the lookout for expressions that both reveal and conceal such an aspect of “consciousness,” as is the way with symbols…But we believe that, if you read Sartor Resartus with The German Ideology in mind, and without a blinding prejudice for or against either, Carlyle’s enigmatic symbol may contribute as much as Marx towards indicating a relation between mystification and class relationships. This is a very important consideration for rhetoric, since it puts rhetorical analysis on track of much courtship that might otherwise remain undetected. And courtship, however roundabout, is a form of persuasion. (123, emphasis mine)

Here, in my humble opinion, Burke is promoting a view of class relations as the impetus for rhetoric, and most importantly in this election year (2008), explaining why such trite and simplistic attempts are made by the canidates to create a sense of identification between themselves and the voters. Mystery and mystification may be the an effective way to articulate the relationship between the candidates, who are from the ruling class, and their attempts to play up their military service records, or their life as a small town soccer mom, or their ability to understand the plight of the middle/working class because their families started out in that social class, and ergo, they harbor an all consuming drive to give those in said class a sizable tax break. Essentially, rhetoric is the way to manipulate symbols to manipulate the masses, and yet mystery and mystification become the mediatory ground–not the stumbling block–where all parties involved try to make meaning of the reality they both inhabit using symbols and phrases they both share.

Questions: Is this use of shared symbols the reason for such concern with standardization? Are those in power so concerned with this concept not only because of the under-girding racist notions of superiority, but also because without some sense of shared language, there’s no way to use rhetoric to coerce continued acquiescence? Are renegades made when their is no “touchstone talk” to manipulate and placate the multitudes with?

In the final parts of section two Burke is connects the philosophies of Marx, Betham, and Empson to create the terministic screen he uses when deciphering reality to discern the impetus for use of particular persuasive/identification strategies. The pattern for the rest of section two is the taking of a philosopher, examining her work, and then taking what works best for Burke to justify his taxonomy of motives which will come in section three. Burke explains:

[In using this rhetoric of motives] from the standpoint of rhetorical persuasion and identification, we would place the stress upon the social implications of the enigmatic, in keeping with Marx on “ideology,” Carlyle on “Clothes,” and Empson on “Pastoral.”…We have attempted to consider only those writers who, by one device or another, could be brought to “cooperate” in building this particular “philosophy of rhetoric,” and whose presence might prevent it from becoming too “idiosyncratic”…And we should have indicated how they can be all placed with reference to persuasion and/or identification as generating principles. (174, 169)

The closing of section two has Burke waxing philosophical about “nature as the ground of speech, hence nature as itself containing the principle of speech. Such an inclusive nature would be more-than-verbal rather than less-than-verbal” (180, emphasis original). While I understand my tone is unkind and disrespectful, I think it’s because Burke is having some fun at my expense. Suddenly the text makes this turn in the last few pages and goes into talk about the universal essentials and nature itself. If we return to Burke’s earlier idea:

You need but think ‘God’ or ‘Providence’ in a ‘neutral’ or ‘technical’ sense, merely as a term for the universal sense, for the sum total of conditions (scholastic theology itself having provided the bridge , in defining God as ‘the ground of all possibility’)…neither statement may be as ‘mystifying’ or ‘general’ as it seems, since it is used by people in specific social contexts, and in various unspecified ways derives meaning from such material conditions (112-113, 114)

then I think it’s possible to see he’s using the same device on you and me. A simpler, less dramatic way to think of this concept would be conceptualizing experiential reality as made by rhetoric, as built on nothing more than utterances. And at this point I don’t mean sensory stimuli (hot is still hot, cold is still cold, the heart pumps blood, and Iran is still pursuing nuclear power) but in the way language allows us to make meaning about sensory information, IE, how we use it and what courses of action we take when we construct what that information means to our immediate well being. To borrow from Burke, language is the ultimate tool. It allows for the creation of the material, experiential world.

Part Three: Order

To open this section Burke begins with the talk of “ultimate” orders. All forms of talk, according to Burke, should form a type of march towards an “ultimate vocabulary” (186). The first (and lower) forms in ascending order are positive (as in positivistic) terms and then dialectical terms; so the order (from least to greatest) is positive, dialectical, and ultimate (dialectical, oddly enough, is “on the level of parliamentary conflict, leading to compromise” and is elsewhere characterized by Burke as “horse-trading” [186-187]). Burke explains the different between dialectical confronting of parliamentary conflict and an “ultimate” treatment as such:

The “dialectical” order would leave the competing coices in a jangling relation with one another…but the “ultimate” order would place these competing voices themselves in a hierarchy, or sequence, or evaluative series, so that, in some way, we went by a fixed and reasoned progression from one of these to another, the members of the entire group being arranged developmentally with relation to one another. The “ultimate” order of terms would thus differ essentially from the “dialectical” (as we use the term in this particular connection) in that there would be a “guiding idea” or “unitary principle” behind the diversity of voices. The voices would not confront one another as somewhat disrelated competitors that work together only by the “mild demoralization” of sheer compromise; rather they would be successive positions or moments in a single process. (187)

And to paraphrase Burke, these ultimate terms make a gradiated language, one that forms the foundation for an ultimate dialectic. In this dialecitc one term leads so seemlessly into the other that the step from one term, idea, or principle is “both the fulfillment of the previous order and the transcending of it” (189).

I’m projecting that such foundational work by Burke is a way to describe what he sees as he observes people use rhetoric around him. I do not think he is positing “essential” orders nor orders that are part of some transcendental signified. As Burke states early, the term he originally planned on using instead of “ultimate” was “mystical,” but he decided against it since he thought using the word would prove to be agonistic (186) . Still, the concept of mystery goes back to his talk in the last section discussing mystery is when two different kinds of things come together; specifically, when two different kinds of people (based on social class) come together. I think (or perhaps hope) he is describing terms which are socially constructed and work within the context of a specific culture or society. Here, it would have to be one where practices and institutions are based on Western European traditions.

Building on the idea that social hierarchy is a given and does not need to be proven, Burke continues on to describe how hierarchies are a part of the rhetoric of motives. All of these hierarchies, Burke asserts, are natural to any society with any type of government and that these hierarchies are merely a reflection of the hierachies humans have used to make meaning of sensory experiences and organize the chaos that is the world. These hierarchies are built on language, identification, and persuasion; language is the way they are shared; identification is how an individual internalizes and decides to emulate the archetypical myth the hierarchy promotes; and persuasion is the end affect–how the individual garners faith in the archetypical myths. The individual lives in strange feedback loop, asserts Burke, where the through embodiment of text/idea/words the myth not only is spread but is renewed as well as having its power reified over the individual–the reification coming from the individual choosing to enact the myth. Burke explains with the story of a friend who took his son to the top of a high rise building and hag to battle the overwhelming urge to throw his child off said balcony (266).  Burke explains this is the “principle of hierarchy;” the friend “felt exalted” in sharing characteristics with “the Ultimate Father and Ultimate Son in heaven” (267), meaning that the idea of sacrifice of the individual the father was consubstantial seemed right and natural since “the ultimate father sacrifices the ultimate son [who was consubstantial with his father] for the sake of human betterment” (266).  This, in dark and obscene colors, is the rhetoric of motives.  Motivation comes from rhetoric built on archetypical narratives which are built on language which is inherently filled with and saturated in rhetoric.