Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646

Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646 Clarke,

I'm underqualified to respond to such a large historical question, but I'm also intrigued enough by your hypothesis to venture a response.

Maybe our public discourse is no less vitriolic than it has been at certain other periods in our history. (Hanging in effigy and tomato-throwing push the limits of vitriol, and civil war certainly goes beyond it.) But we feel its violence more keenly now because we live in an era that can no longer afford it (not much longer, anyway). Gone is an era when one can strike out into the wilderness in search of more "elbow room," or travel across vast territory to escape religious perspecution and found a new society. Our nation is more crowded and immediately interconnected at the same time as its ethnic and religious diversity continues to expand. We must begin to learn what the Japanese, living on a string of islands, learned long ago: the value of collectivism, the importance of protecting face, the art of consensus, etc. Moreover, the world as a whole needs to learn to promote the value of consensus for the common good. As we pollute the planet while stripping it of its resou!
rces, we can ill afford to focus our energies on squabbles rooted in past differences of opinion and conflicts.

Yet the problems of our planet are so overwhelming to contemplate, the sacrifices necessary to reverse its destruction so daunting, and the threats to our conflict-habituated identities so unnerving, it is easier and more reassuring to think of the world in the simple binaries of past eras. We distract ourselves with the spectacle of prize-fighting while our Titanic sinks. And hey, conflict SELLS. The market has proven itself as the greatest generator of prosperity (and relative poverty -- whoops!), and the market favors competition, fighting, win-lose scenarios. The "thrill of victory" and "agony of defeat" are much more entertaining than the work of negotiation and the art of consensus.

For those who try to take a larger view and give critical attention to the nature of the human barnyard in light of the needs of the whole biosphere, the frame is changed, and vitriol is more alarming than entertaining or energizing.

2 cents at best,
John


Dr. John B. Hatch
Dept. of Communication
University of Dubuque
2000 University Ave.
Dubuque, IA 52001

Fax: (563) 589-3243
>>> Clarke Rountree <> 03/17/11 11:16 AM >>>
Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646




_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe.

Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646 Clarke,

I'm underqualified to respond to such a large historical question, but I'm also intrigued enough by your hypothesis to venture a response.

Maybe our public discourse is no less vitriolic than it has been at certain other periods in our history. (Hanging in effigy and tomato-throwing push the limits of vitriol, and civil war certainly goes beyond it.) But we feel its violence more keenly now because we live in an era that can no longer afford it (not much longer, anyway). Gone is an era when one can strike out into the wilderness in search of more "elbow room," or travel across vast territory to escape religious perspecution and found a new society. Our nation is more crowded and immediately interconnected at the same time as its ethnic and religious diversity continues to expand. We must begin to learn what the Japanese, living on a string of islands, learned long ago: the value of collectivism, the importance of protecting face, the art of consensus, etc. Moreover, the world as a whole needs to learn to promote the value of consensus for the common good. As we pollute the planet while stripping it of its resou!
rces, we can ill afford to focus our energies on squabbles rooted in past differences of opinion and conflicts.

Yet the problems of our planet are so overwhelming to contemplate, the sacrifices necessary to reverse its destruction so daunting, and the threats to our conflict-habituated identities so unnerving, it is easier and more reassuring to think of the world in the simple binaries of past eras. We distract ourselves with the spectacle of prize-fighting while our Titanic sinks. And hey, conflict SELLS. The market has proven itself as the greatest generator of prosperity (and relative poverty -- whoops!), and the market favors competition, fighting, win-lose scenarios. The "thrill of victory" and "agony of defeat" are much more entertaining than the work of negotiation and the art of consensus.

For those who try to take a larger view and give critical attention to the nature of the human barnyard in light of the needs of the whole biosphere, the frame is changed, and vitriol is more alarming than entertaining or energizing.

2 cents at best,
John


Dr. John B. Hatch
Dept. of Communication
University of Dubuque
2000 University Ave.
Dubuque, IA 52001

Fax: (563) 589-3243
>>> Clarke Rountree <> 03/17/11 11:16 AM >>>
Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646




_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Here's an excerpt from something I've been writing about Ann Coulter which may (I hope) be of some interest:

Burke distinguishes between the “dialectical” order of terms and the “ultimate” order. Dialectical terms are in the realm of action and idea and attitude. They are words for principles, essences, and titles: Romanticism, capitalism, and democracy are dialectical terms. The order is “dramatic:” political conflicts in this realm are negotiated through compromise among the “jangling relation” of “competing voices” (Rhetoric 187). In the ultimate order, we consider the terms to be in a hierarchical relationship or developmental series. “The ‘ultimate’ order of terms would thus differ essentially from the ‘dialectical’ . . . in that there would be a ‘guiding idea’ or ‘unitary principle’ behind the diversity of voices” (187). (Avital Ronell is getting at the same concept when she speaks of “transcendental inscriptions” [294]). This sense of hierarchy and development is expressed in the old remark that one who is not liberal when young has no heart, and one who does not become conservative with age has no brain: liberal and conservative are here not dialectical alternatives, but developmental stages. Within an ultimate vocabulary, “a somewhat formless parliamentary wrangle can . . . be creatively endowed with design, . . . [wherein] one kind of compromise is, in the long run, to be rated as superior to another” (188). This prospect might strike us as either visionary or nightmarish, depending upon what we take to be the “God-term” at the top of the sequence. For example, the project of the American far Right to establish synonymy between conservatism and Christianity is an effort to move the political wrangle from the dialectical realm into the ultimate: for if there is continuity, a hierarchic sequence, from the Constitution upward to the Bible, with Christianity as the “guiding idea” and the final Word, then the Constitution’s apparent establishment of discontinuity between church and state cannot possibly be as absolute as it seems to be.

Sean Zwagerman
Associate Professor
Department of English
Simon Fraser University
Bunaby, BC V5A 1S6 Canada

778-782-4831

----- Original Message -----
From: Clarke Rountree <>
To: Kb list <>
Sent: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:13:37 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [KB] Political Discourse in the US

Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646



_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe.

Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646 Clarke,

I'm underqualified to respond to such a large historical question, but I'm also intrigued enough by your hypothesis to venture a response.

Maybe our public discourse is no less vitriolic than it has been at certain other periods in our history. (Hanging in effigy and tomato-throwing push the limits of vitriol, and civil war certainly goes beyond it.) But we feel its violence more keenly now because we live in an era that can no longer afford it (not much longer, anyway). Gone is an era when one can strike out into the wilderness in search of more "elbow room," or travel across vast territory to escape religious perspecution and found a new society. Our nation is more crowded and immediately interconnected at the same time as its ethnic and religious diversity continues to expand. We must begin to learn what the Japanese, living on a string of islands, learned long ago: the value of collectivism, the importance of protecting face, the art of consensus, etc. Moreover, the world as a whole needs to learn to promote the value of consensus for the common good. As we pollute the planet while stripping it of its resou!
rces, we can ill afford to focus our energies on squabbles rooted in past differences of opinion and conflicts.

Yet the problems of our planet are so overwhelming to contemplate, the sacrifices necessary to reverse its destruction so daunting, and the threats to our conflict-habituated identities so unnerving, it is easier and more reassuring to think of the world in the simple binaries of past eras. We distract ourselves with the spectacle of prize-fighting while our Titanic sinks. And hey, conflict SELLS. The market has proven itself as the greatest generator of prosperity (and relative poverty -- whoops!), and the market favors competition, fighting, win-lose scenarios. The "thrill of victory" and "agony of defeat" are much more entertaining than the work of negotiation and the art of consensus.

For those who try to take a larger view and give critical attention to the nature of the human barnyard in light of the needs of the whole biosphere, the frame is changed, and vitriol is more alarming than entertaining or energizing.

2 cents at best,
John


Dr. John B. Hatch
Dept. of Communication
University of Dubuque
2000 University Ave.
Dubuque, IA 52001

Fax: (563) 589-3243
>>> Clarke Rountree <> 03/17/11 11:16 AM >>>
Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646




_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Here's an excerpt from something I've been writing about Ann Coulter which may (I hope) be of some interest:

Burke distinguishes between the “dialectical” order of terms and the “ultimate” order. Dialectical terms are in the realm of action and idea and attitude. They are words for principles, essences, and titles: Romanticism, capitalism, and democracy are dialectical terms. The order is “dramatic:” political conflicts in this realm are negotiated through compromise among the “jangling relation” of “competing voices” (Rhetoric 187). In the ultimate order, we consider the terms to be in a hierarchical relationship or developmental series. “The ‘ultimate’ order of terms would thus differ essentially from the ‘dialectical’ . . . in that there would be a ‘guiding idea’ or ‘unitary principle’ behind the diversity of voices” (187). (Avital Ronell is getting at the same concept when she speaks of “transcendental inscriptions” [294]). This sense of hierarchy and development is expressed in the old remark that one who is not liberal when young has no heart, and one who does not become conservative with age has no brain: liberal and conservative are here not dialectical alternatives, but developmental stages. Within an ultimate vocabulary, “a somewhat formless parliamentary wrangle can . . . be creatively endowed with design, . . . [wherein] one kind of compromise is, in the long run, to be rated as superior to another” (188). This prospect might strike us as either visionary or nightmarish, depending upon what we take to be the “God-term” at the top of the sequence. For example, the project of the American far Right to establish synonymy between conservatism and Christianity is an effort to move the political wrangle from the dialectical realm into the ultimate: for if there is continuity, a hierarchic sequence, from the Constitution upward to the Bible, with Christianity as the “guiding idea” and the final Word, then the Constitution’s apparent establishment of discontinuity between church and state cannot possibly be as absolute as it seems to be.

Sean Zwagerman
Associate Professor
Department of English
Simon Fraser University
Bunaby, BC V5A 1S6 Canada

778-782-4831

----- Original Message -----
From: Clarke Rountree <>
To: Kb list <>
Sent: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:13:37 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [KB] Political Discourse in the US

Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646



_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Your question is one that I've puzzled about for some time. Both John and Sean have made some interesting points about how to orient toward the question. But it's a complex question because so many potential variables are in operation, such as issues of culture, moral codes, capitalism, competition, individualism, attitudes toward conflict, etc. Sean's point about the difference between dialectical and ultimate ordering of terms is relevant except when pushed to the point of noting the likelihood, as Derrida has suggested, that every dialectic really proceeds on underlying assumptions of a hierarchy of terms. Wherein also the participants in the "conversation" generally do not agree on the hierarchical arrangement. Politcal discourse has always trafficked in the most heated ways in the debate over values (or ends) rather than means. And in times of rapid change and exposure to diverse influences, as in the present information and global commerce era, reactions are often hot and defensive when these changes are seen to threaten traditional values and moral codes. In fact, perhaps nothing strikes at the core of human existence more than the question of the hierarchy of values. The abortion issue is a case in point.

At the risk of being perceived (perhaps correctly?) as a self-promoting putz, my most thorough and organized rumination on these weighty matters has been Chapter 15 in my book called "Our Faith in Evil"--titled "The Melodramatization of American Culture." Here I try to bring together the key threads of influence on current attitudes--threads such as those mentioned above (codes, capitalism, competition, attitudes toward conflict, etc.) in addition to the question of cultural differences between east and west mentioned by John in his recent post. This is probably more input than you would wish but I'll send you a file of the chapter. I think parts of it are highly relevant to your question and it might serve to provide one type of framework for approaching the question. And since it has section headings you can scan it for relevance (the pages are also numbered as per the book).

Best Regards,
Greg

Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646 Clarke,

I'm underqualified to respond to such a large historical question, but I'm also intrigued enough by your hypothesis to venture a response.

Maybe our public discourse is no less vitriolic than it has been at certain other periods in our history. (Hanging in effigy and tomato-throwing push the limits of vitriol, and civil war certainly goes beyond it.) But we feel its violence more keenly now because we live in an era that can no longer afford it (not much longer, anyway). Gone is an era when one can strike out into the wilderness in search of more "elbow room," or travel across vast territory to escape religious perspecution and found a new society. Our nation is more crowded and immediately interconnected at the same time as its ethnic and religious diversity continues to expand. We must begin to learn what the Japanese, living on a string of islands, learned long ago: the value of collectivism, the importance of protecting face, the art of consensus, etc. Moreover, the world as a whole needs to learn to promote the value of consensus for the common good. As we pollute the planet while stripping it of its resou!
rces, we can ill afford to focus our energies on squabbles rooted in past differences of opinion and conflicts.

Yet the problems of our planet are so overwhelming to contemplate, the sacrifices necessary to reverse its destruction so daunting, and the threats to our conflict-habituated identities so unnerving, it is easier and more reassuring to think of the world in the simple binaries of past eras. We distract ourselves with the spectacle of prize-fighting while our Titanic sinks. And hey, conflict SELLS. The market has proven itself as the greatest generator of prosperity (and relative poverty -- whoops!), and the market favors competition, fighting, win-lose scenarios. The "thrill of victory" and "agony of defeat" are much more entertaining than the work of negotiation and the art of consensus.

For those who try to take a larger view and give critical attention to the nature of the human barnyard in light of the needs of the whole biosphere, the frame is changed, and vitriol is more alarming than entertaining or energizing.

2 cents at best,
John


Dr. John B. Hatch
Dept. of Communication
University of Dubuque
2000 University Ave.
Dubuque, IA 52001

Fax: (563) 589-3243
>>> Clarke Rountree <> 03/17/11 11:16 AM >>>
Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646




_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Here's an excerpt from something I've been writing about Ann Coulter which may (I hope) be of some interest:

Burke distinguishes between the “dialectical” order of terms and the “ultimate” order. Dialectical terms are in the realm of action and idea and attitude. They are words for principles, essences, and titles: Romanticism, capitalism, and democracy are dialectical terms. The order is “dramatic:” political conflicts in this realm are negotiated through compromise among the “jangling relation” of “competing voices” (Rhetoric 187). In the ultimate order, we consider the terms to be in a hierarchical relationship or developmental series. “The ‘ultimate’ order of terms would thus differ essentially from the ‘dialectical’ . . . in that there would be a ‘guiding idea’ or ‘unitary principle’ behind the diversity of voices” (187). (Avital Ronell is getting at the same concept when she speaks of “transcendental inscriptions” [294]). This sense of hierarchy and development is expressed in the old remark that one who is not liberal when young has no heart, and one who does not become conservative with age has no brain: liberal and conservative are here not dialectical alternatives, but developmental stages. Within an ultimate vocabulary, “a somewhat formless parliamentary wrangle can . . . be creatively endowed with design, . . . [wherein] one kind of compromise is, in the long run, to be rated as superior to another” (188). This prospect might strike us as either visionary or nightmarish, depending upon what we take to be the “God-term” at the top of the sequence. For example, the project of the American far Right to establish synonymy between conservatism and Christianity is an effort to move the political wrangle from the dialectical realm into the ultimate: for if there is continuity, a hierarchic sequence, from the Constitution upward to the Bible, with Christianity as the “guiding idea” and the final Word, then the Constitution’s apparent establishment of discontinuity between church and state cannot possibly be as absolute as it seems to be.

Sean Zwagerman
Associate Professor
Department of English
Simon Fraser University
Bunaby, BC V5A 1S6 Canada

778-782-4831

----- Original Message -----
From: Clarke Rountree <>
To: Kb list <>
Sent: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:13:37 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [KB] Political Discourse in the US

Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646



_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Your question is one that I've puzzled about for some time. Both John and Sean have made some interesting points about how to orient toward the question. But it's a complex question because so many potential variables are in operation, such as issues of culture, moral codes, capitalism, competition, individualism, attitudes toward conflict, etc. Sean's point about the difference between dialectical and ultimate ordering of terms is relevant except when pushed to the point of noting the likelihood, as Derrida has suggested, that every dialectic really proceeds on underlying assumptions of a hierarchy of terms. Wherein also the participants in the "conversation" generally do not agree on the hierarchical arrangement. Politcal discourse has always trafficked in the most heated ways in the debate over values (or ends) rather than means. And in times of rapid change and exposure to diverse influences, as in the present information and global commerce era, reactions are often hot and defensive when these changes are seen to threaten traditional values and moral codes. In fact, perhaps nothing strikes at the core of human existence more than the question of the hierarchy of values. The abortion issue is a case in point.

At the risk of being perceived (perhaps correctly?) as a self-promoting putz, my most thorough and organized rumination on these weighty matters has been Chapter 15 in my book called "Our Faith in Evil"--titled "The Melodramatization of American Culture." Here I try to bring together the key threads of influence on current attitudes--threads such as those mentioned above (codes, capitalism, competition, attitudes toward conflict, etc.) in addition to the question of cultural differences between east and west mentioned by John in his recent post. This is probably more input than you would wish but I'll send you a file of the chapter. I think parts of it are highly relevant to your question and it might serve to provide one type of framework for approaching the question. And since it has section headings you can scan it for relevance (the pages are also numbered as per the book).

Best Regards,
Greg Clarke,
A short answer to your complicated question: The US has always had
contentiously divided politics, ad hominems galore, etc. What looks
different to me now is the reach of the media culture. What was once mainly
in pamphlets or party newspapers is now on television, radio, and the web,
and what was once considered too much for television or radio has now become
common fare (the Gary Hart episode was one of a number of watershed
moments). The political din is now considerable.

And "din" is a good word, I think, because it expresses the sense of so much
noise that thinking straight becomes difficult. Any number of C20 media
critics predicted problems with mass-mediated democracy, Habermas among
them. We certainly have a more established right-wing media than, say,
twenty years ago, and the internet has provided a volatile blogosphere. The
increase in political argument from all these different and conflicting
sources is much more apparent and easy to disseminate than ever before, and
the degree to which all mass media are driven by the imperatives of
spectacle to attract audiences itself has become part of the dynamic of
shocking political discourse.

Do I think it marks a drastic change in the degree of division we face? I'm
skeptical about that. Has it increased the publicity and the velocity of
public discourse? No question about it. I have become increasingly convinced
that the primary role media plays in elections lies in discouraging
political opponents and encouraging possible political allies -- the basic
need to get-out-the-vote. The political information that I continue to
search for in vain in stories about elections is -- who voted? and who
stayed home? The conflation of winning an election by getting 55% of a 55%
turnout with "the will of the people," for all that it is tiresome and
misleading, nevertheless encourages some people and discourages others --
not to mention election dirty tricks, registration challenges, and the like.


Given a dissonant media environment, where only a very few journalists and
commentators can rise above horse-race spectacle, the (by now) long-eroded
New Deal Democratic coalition v. Republicans has devolved into a de facto
three-party electorate, with a growing Independent 'center' that has come
more from Democrat ranks than Republican. Obama managed to capture enough of
the middle to get elected, but the economic disaster he inherited has now
'become' his -- which is to say, he's blamed for not fixing it (at best),
along with the Congressional Democrats, and so the so-called Blue Dog
Democratic districts swung back to the Republicans, whose libertarian wing
had become energized by Tea Party populism. They're not identical, mind, but
many libertarian-leaning conservatives jumped on the Tea Party energy and
are now in Congress.

This brings me back to the question of genuine, deeply seated differences in
world views. Libertarians have managed to get out in front of the Tea Party
to the extent they have because they offer what looks like a coherent and
reasoned analysis of the economic situation. They've cast themselves as a
sort of intelligentsia for the Tea Party, whose original impetus was a
resentful populism largely stemming from a fear of lost privileges. The
assumptions and beliefs that underlie the analyses of people like Rand Paul
are fundamentally different, however, root and branch, from the ideas of
economic interdependence and social safety net that motivated Democratic
strategies in the late C20. There is very little common ground now in
Congress on the most fundamental economic understandings. That constitutes a
fundamental division that, I believe, accounts for a great deal of the
vitriol. I stress "fundamental" because the division is not easily amenable
to 'the force of the better argument,' to use Habermas's phrase. The
assumptions are too different for much of anything resembling rational
argument to take place, at least so far. Practically speaking, that's partly
because the insurgent libertarians have not had to actually offer plans of
their own so far. That advantage will erode as time passes.

Well, this is hardly a short answer any more, but to conclude, I think we
are not anywhere near being out of the woods yet, economically, and the
condition of the economy will continue to drive politics, and the level of
political vitriol will continue and probably increase. Its primary effect,
as I see it, is to inflate and deflate, respectively, the energy of friends
and opponents. I do think the libertarian victories, which are by thin
margins in a depressed electorate, are largely the consequence of
discouragement among Progressives, Democrats, and Democratic-leaning
Independents. To say so is to argue the opposite case from Karl Rove's
'America is a center-right nation', but it may be that we are simply too
divided on too many issues to have a coherent governing majority any more.
And, to end on a provocative note, I do think that the thorny problem of
American Individualism (caps intended) emerges on the left in a refusal on
grounds of conscience to vote pragmatically -- i.e., to stay home or to vote
for third parties.

Gee, Clark, I think you touched a nerve...

Paul


On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 9:13 AM, Clarke Rountree <> wrote:

> Dear Burkelers--
>
> I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I
> have a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief
> that political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than
> it is today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been
> a qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
> culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
> and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
> venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
> reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
> cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
> believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
> politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
> incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
> and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
> behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
> undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
> the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
> cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
> (and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.
>
> What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
> form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Clarke
>
> --
> Dr. Clarke Rountree
> Professor of Communication Arts
> 342 Morton Hall
> University of Alabama in Huntsville
> Huntsville, AL 35899
> <256-824-6646> <256-824-6646>256-824-6646
>
>
> _______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe.

Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646 Clarke,

I'm underqualified to respond to such a large historical question, but I'm also intrigued enough by your hypothesis to venture a response.

Maybe our public discourse is no less vitriolic than it has been at certain other periods in our history. (Hanging in effigy and tomato-throwing push the limits of vitriol, and civil war certainly goes beyond it.) But we feel its violence more keenly now because we live in an era that can no longer afford it (not much longer, anyway). Gone is an era when one can strike out into the wilderness in search of more "elbow room," or travel across vast territory to escape religious perspecution and found a new society. Our nation is more crowded and immediately interconnected at the same time as its ethnic and religious diversity continues to expand. We must begin to learn what the Japanese, living on a string of islands, learned long ago: the value of collectivism, the importance of protecting face, the art of consensus, etc. Moreover, the world as a whole needs to learn to promote the value of consensus for the common good. As we pollute the planet while stripping it of its resou!
rces, we can ill afford to focus our energies on squabbles rooted in past differences of opinion and conflicts.

Yet the problems of our planet are so overwhelming to contemplate, the sacrifices necessary to reverse its destruction so daunting, and the threats to our conflict-habituated identities so unnerving, it is easier and more reassuring to think of the world in the simple binaries of past eras. We distract ourselves with the spectacle of prize-fighting while our Titanic sinks. And hey, conflict SELLS. The market has proven itself as the greatest generator of prosperity (and relative poverty -- whoops!), and the market favors competition, fighting, win-lose scenarios. The "thrill of victory" and "agony of defeat" are much more entertaining than the work of negotiation and the art of consensus.

For those who try to take a larger view and give critical attention to the nature of the human barnyard in light of the needs of the whole biosphere, the frame is changed, and vitriol is more alarming than entertaining or energizing.

2 cents at best,
John


Dr. John B. Hatch
Dept. of Communication
University of Dubuque
2000 University Ave.
Dubuque, IA 52001

Fax: (563) 589-3243
>>> Clarke Rountree <> 03/17/11 11:16 AM >>>
Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646




_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Here's an excerpt from something I've been writing about Ann Coulter which may (I hope) be of some interest:

Burke distinguishes between the “dialectical” order of terms and the “ultimate” order. Dialectical terms are in the realm of action and idea and attitude. They are words for principles, essences, and titles: Romanticism, capitalism, and democracy are dialectical terms. The order is “dramatic:” political conflicts in this realm are negotiated through compromise among the “jangling relation” of “competing voices” (Rhetoric 187). In the ultimate order, we consider the terms to be in a hierarchical relationship or developmental series. “The ‘ultimate’ order of terms would thus differ essentially from the ‘dialectical’ . . . in that there would be a ‘guiding idea’ or ‘unitary principle’ behind the diversity of voices” (187). (Avital Ronell is getting at the same concept when she speaks of “transcendental inscriptions” [294]). This sense of hierarchy and development is expressed in the old remark that one who is not liberal when young has no heart, and one who does not become conservative with age has no brain: liberal and conservative are here not dialectical alternatives, but developmental stages. Within an ultimate vocabulary, “a somewhat formless parliamentary wrangle can . . . be creatively endowed with design, . . . [wherein] one kind of compromise is, in the long run, to be rated as superior to another” (188). This prospect might strike us as either visionary or nightmarish, depending upon what we take to be the “God-term” at the top of the sequence. For example, the project of the American far Right to establish synonymy between conservatism and Christianity is an effort to move the political wrangle from the dialectical realm into the ultimate: for if there is continuity, a hierarchic sequence, from the Constitution upward to the Bible, with Christianity as the “guiding idea” and the final Word, then the Constitution’s apparent establishment of discontinuity between church and state cannot possibly be as absolute as it seems to be.

Sean Zwagerman
Associate Professor
Department of English
Simon Fraser University
Bunaby, BC V5A 1S6 Canada

778-782-4831

----- Original Message -----
From: Clarke Rountree <>
To: Kb list <>
Sent: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:13:37 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [KB] Political Discourse in the US

Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646



_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Your question is one that I've puzzled about for some time. Both John and Sean have made some interesting points about how to orient toward the question. But it's a complex question because so many potential variables are in operation, such as issues of culture, moral codes, capitalism, competition, individualism, attitudes toward conflict, etc. Sean's point about the difference between dialectical and ultimate ordering of terms is relevant except when pushed to the point of noting the likelihood, as Derrida has suggested, that every dialectic really proceeds on underlying assumptions of a hierarchy of terms. Wherein also the participants in the "conversation" generally do not agree on the hierarchical arrangement. Politcal discourse has always trafficked in the most heated ways in the debate over values (or ends) rather than means. And in times of rapid change and exposure to diverse influences, as in the present information and global commerce era, reactions are often hot and defensive when these changes are seen to threaten traditional values and moral codes. In fact, perhaps nothing strikes at the core of human existence more than the question of the hierarchy of values. The abortion issue is a case in point.

At the risk of being perceived (perhaps correctly?) as a self-promoting putz, my most thorough and organized rumination on these weighty matters has been Chapter 15 in my book called "Our Faith in Evil"--titled "The Melodramatization of American Culture." Here I try to bring together the key threads of influence on current attitudes--threads such as those mentioned above (codes, capitalism, competition, attitudes toward conflict, etc.) in addition to the question of cultural differences between east and west mentioned by John in his recent post. This is probably more input than you would wish but I'll send you a file of the chapter. I think parts of it are highly relevant to your question and it might serve to provide one type of framework for approaching the question. And since it has section headings you can scan it for relevance (the pages are also numbered as per the book).

Best Regards,
Greg Clarke,
A short answer to your complicated question: The US has always had
contentiously divided politics, ad hominems galore, etc. What looks
different to me now is the reach of the media culture. What was once mainly
in pamphlets or party newspapers is now on television, radio, and the web,
and what was once considered too much for television or radio has now become
common fare (the Gary Hart episode was one of a number of watershed
moments). The political din is now considerable.

And "din" is a good word, I think, because it expresses the sense of so much
noise that thinking straight becomes difficult. Any number of C20 media
critics predicted problems with mass-mediated democracy, Habermas among
them. We certainly have a more established right-wing media than, say,
twenty years ago, and the internet has provided a volatile blogosphere. The
increase in political argument from all these different and conflicting
sources is much more apparent and easy to disseminate than ever before, and
the degree to which all mass media are driven by the imperatives of
spectacle to attract audiences itself has become part of the dynamic of
shocking political discourse.

Do I think it marks a drastic change in the degree of division we face? I'm
skeptical about that. Has it increased the publicity and the velocity of
public discourse? No question about it. I have become increasingly convinced
that the primary role media plays in elections lies in discouraging
political opponents and encouraging possible political allies -- the basic
need to get-out-the-vote. The political information that I continue to
search for in vain in stories about elections is -- who voted? and who
stayed home? The conflation of winning an election by getting 55% of a 55%
turnout with "the will of the people," for all that it is tiresome and
misleading, nevertheless encourages some people and discourages others --
not to mention election dirty tricks, registration challenges, and the like.


Given a dissonant media environment, where only a very few journalists and
commentators can rise above horse-race spectacle, the (by now) long-eroded
New Deal Democratic coalition v. Republicans has devolved into a de facto
three-party electorate, with a growing Independent 'center' that has come
more from Democrat ranks than Republican. Obama managed to capture enough of
the middle to get elected, but the economic disaster he inherited has now
'become' his -- which is to say, he's blamed for not fixing it (at best),
along with the Congressional Democrats, and so the so-called Blue Dog
Democratic districts swung back to the Republicans, whose libertarian wing
had become energized by Tea Party populism. They're not identical, mind, but
many libertarian-leaning conservatives jumped on the Tea Party energy and
are now in Congress.

This brings me back to the question of genuine, deeply seated differences in
world views. Libertarians have managed to get out in front of the Tea Party
to the extent they have because they offer what looks like a coherent and
reasoned analysis of the economic situation. They've cast themselves as a
sort of intelligentsia for the Tea Party, whose original impetus was a
resentful populism largely stemming from a fear of lost privileges. The
assumptions and beliefs that underlie the analyses of people like Rand Paul
are fundamentally different, however, root and branch, from the ideas of
economic interdependence and social safety net that motivated Democratic
strategies in the late C20. There is very little common ground now in
Congress on the most fundamental economic understandings. That constitutes a
fundamental division that, I believe, accounts for a great deal of the
vitriol. I stress "fundamental" because the division is not easily amenable
to 'the force of the better argument,' to use Habermas's phrase. The
assumptions are too different for much of anything resembling rational
argument to take place, at least so far. Practically speaking, that's partly
because the insurgent libertarians have not had to actually offer plans of
their own so far. That advantage will erode as time passes.

Well, this is hardly a short answer any more, but to conclude, I think we
are not anywhere near being out of the woods yet, economically, and the
condition of the economy will continue to drive politics, and the level of
political vitriol will continue and probably increase. Its primary effect,
as I see it, is to inflate and deflate, respectively, the energy of friends
and opponents. I do think the libertarian victories, which are by thin
margins in a depressed electorate, are largely the consequence of
discouragement among Progressives, Democrats, and Democratic-leaning
Independents. To say so is to argue the opposite case from Karl Rove's
'America is a center-right nation', but it may be that we are simply too
divided on too many issues to have a coherent governing majority any more.
And, to end on a provocative note, I do think that the thorny problem of
American Individualism (caps intended) emerges on the left in a refusal on
grounds of conscience to vote pragmatically -- i.e., to stay home or to vote
for third parties.

Gee, Clark, I think you touched a nerve...

Paul


On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 9:13 AM, Clarke Rountree <> wrote:

> Dear Burkelers--
>
> I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I
> have a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief
> that political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than
> it is today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been
> a qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
> culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
> and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
> venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
> reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
> cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
> believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
> politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
> incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
> and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
> behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
> undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
> the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
> cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
> (and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.
>
> What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
> form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Clarke
>
> --
> Dr. Clarke Rountree
> Professor of Communication Arts
> 342 Morton Hall
> University of Alabama in Huntsville
> Huntsville, AL 35899
> <256-824-6646> <256-824-6646>256-824-6646
>
>
> _______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Clarke, a few thoughts--

I'd question your "perhaps never." Having lived though the Vietnam
era, for example, I'd say that that era was worse. The battles
surrounding Clinton over the years indicate how people who came of age
during that era are likely to keep fighting until they die.

What makes things seem especially bad now, I think, is the ineptness
of the Democratic Party. The Democrats pass a health care law based
mainly on Republican ideas, then the Republicans convince a lot of
voters that the law is a socialist plot. Right now, the Democrats are
once again letting the Republicans control the agenda with all the
hysteria over the deficit. That plays right into the Republican
strategy to use the budget to attack SS, Medicare, etc. Why can't the
Democrats control the public agenda?

Rather than trying to decide whether our era is the worst ever, it
might be better to analyze, from a rhetorical standpoint, why the
Democratic Party has become so rhetorically inept.

You mention race. That is part of the story but it is old news. People
tend to forget that in 1980, afer getting nominated, Reagan made his
first speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, precisely where Cheney,
Schwerner, Goodman were murdered. TALK ABOUT A SIGNAL! Here, the
Republicans exploit a "rhetorical situation" wherein they win by nods
and winks. Reagan could say he was for "states rights" knowing the
voters he wanted to reach would hear what he really meant.

Another problem is that the Democrats keep conceding the premises of
the Republican argument, leaving themselves without a leg to stand on.
The classic is Clinton's "the era of big government is over." They
have done the same thing over the deficit. Obama currently seems to be
doing it again over the issue of unions for government workers.

I'd recast your points along similar lines.

That is what initially comes to mind for me.

Good luck with your project.

Bob


Quoting Clarke Rountree <>:

> Dear Burkelers--
>
> I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
> a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
> political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
> today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
> qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
> culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
> and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
> venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
> reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
> cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
> believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
> politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
> incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
> and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
> behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
> undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
> the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
> cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
> (and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.
>
> What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
> form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Clarke
>
> --
> Dr. Clarke Rountree
> Professor of Communication Arts
> 342 Morton Hall
> University of Alabama in Huntsville
> Huntsville, AL 35899
> 256-824-6646
>
>





_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe.

Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646 Clarke,

I'm underqualified to respond to such a large historical question, but I'm also intrigued enough by your hypothesis to venture a response.

Maybe our public discourse is no less vitriolic than it has been at certain other periods in our history. (Hanging in effigy and tomato-throwing push the limits of vitriol, and civil war certainly goes beyond it.) But we feel its violence more keenly now because we live in an era that can no longer afford it (not much longer, anyway). Gone is an era when one can strike out into the wilderness in search of more "elbow room," or travel across vast territory to escape religious perspecution and found a new society. Our nation is more crowded and immediately interconnected at the same time as its ethnic and religious diversity continues to expand. We must begin to learn what the Japanese, living on a string of islands, learned long ago: the value of collectivism, the importance of protecting face, the art of consensus, etc. Moreover, the world as a whole needs to learn to promote the value of consensus for the common good. As we pollute the planet while stripping it of its resou!
rces, we can ill afford to focus our energies on squabbles rooted in past differences of opinion and conflicts.

Yet the problems of our planet are so overwhelming to contemplate, the sacrifices necessary to reverse its destruction so daunting, and the threats to our conflict-habituated identities so unnerving, it is easier and more reassuring to think of the world in the simple binaries of past eras. We distract ourselves with the spectacle of prize-fighting while our Titanic sinks. And hey, conflict SELLS. The market has proven itself as the greatest generator of prosperity (and relative poverty -- whoops!), and the market favors competition, fighting, win-lose scenarios. The "thrill of victory" and "agony of defeat" are much more entertaining than the work of negotiation and the art of consensus.

For those who try to take a larger view and give critical attention to the nature of the human barnyard in light of the needs of the whole biosphere, the frame is changed, and vitriol is more alarming than entertaining or energizing.

2 cents at best,
John


Dr. John B. Hatch
Dept. of Communication
University of Dubuque
2000 University Ave.
Dubuque, IA 52001

Fax: (563) 589-3243
>>> Clarke Rountree <> 03/17/11 11:16 AM >>>
Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646




_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Here's an excerpt from something I've been writing about Ann Coulter which may (I hope) be of some interest:

Burke distinguishes between the “dialectical” order of terms and the “ultimate” order. Dialectical terms are in the realm of action and idea and attitude. They are words for principles, essences, and titles: Romanticism, capitalism, and democracy are dialectical terms. The order is “dramatic:” political conflicts in this realm are negotiated through compromise among the “jangling relation” of “competing voices” (Rhetoric 187). In the ultimate order, we consider the terms to be in a hierarchical relationship or developmental series. “The ‘ultimate’ order of terms would thus differ essentially from the ‘dialectical’ . . . in that there would be a ‘guiding idea’ or ‘unitary principle’ behind the diversity of voices” (187). (Avital Ronell is getting at the same concept when she speaks of “transcendental inscriptions” [294]). This sense of hierarchy and development is expressed in the old remark that one who is not liberal when young has no heart, and one who does not become conservative with age has no brain: liberal and conservative are here not dialectical alternatives, but developmental stages. Within an ultimate vocabulary, “a somewhat formless parliamentary wrangle can . . . be creatively endowed with design, . . . [wherein] one kind of compromise is, in the long run, to be rated as superior to another” (188). This prospect might strike us as either visionary or nightmarish, depending upon what we take to be the “God-term” at the top of the sequence. For example, the project of the American far Right to establish synonymy between conservatism and Christianity is an effort to move the political wrangle from the dialectical realm into the ultimate: for if there is continuity, a hierarchic sequence, from the Constitution upward to the Bible, with Christianity as the “guiding idea” and the final Word, then the Constitution’s apparent establishment of discontinuity between church and state cannot possibly be as absolute as it seems to be.

Sean Zwagerman
Associate Professor
Department of English
Simon Fraser University
Bunaby, BC V5A 1S6 Canada

778-782-4831

----- Original Message -----
From: Clarke Rountree <>
To: Kb list <>
Sent: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:13:37 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [KB] Political Discourse in the US

Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646



_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Your question is one that I've puzzled about for some time. Both John and Sean have made some interesting points about how to orient toward the question. But it's a complex question because so many potential variables are in operation, such as issues of culture, moral codes, capitalism, competition, individualism, attitudes toward conflict, etc. Sean's point about the difference between dialectical and ultimate ordering of terms is relevant except when pushed to the point of noting the likelihood, as Derrida has suggested, that every dialectic really proceeds on underlying assumptions of a hierarchy of terms. Wherein also the participants in the "conversation" generally do not agree on the hierarchical arrangement. Politcal discourse has always trafficked in the most heated ways in the debate over values (or ends) rather than means. And in times of rapid change and exposure to diverse influences, as in the present information and global commerce era, reactions are often hot and defensive when these changes are seen to threaten traditional values and moral codes. In fact, perhaps nothing strikes at the core of human existence more than the question of the hierarchy of values. The abortion issue is a case in point.

At the risk of being perceived (perhaps correctly?) as a self-promoting putz, my most thorough and organized rumination on these weighty matters has been Chapter 15 in my book called "Our Faith in Evil"--titled "The Melodramatization of American Culture." Here I try to bring together the key threads of influence on current attitudes--threads such as those mentioned above (codes, capitalism, competition, attitudes toward conflict, etc.) in addition to the question of cultural differences between east and west mentioned by John in his recent post. This is probably more input than you would wish but I'll send you a file of the chapter. I think parts of it are highly relevant to your question and it might serve to provide one type of framework for approaching the question. And since it has section headings you can scan it for relevance (the pages are also numbered as per the book).

Best Regards,
Greg Clarke,
A short answer to your complicated question: The US has always had
contentiously divided politics, ad hominems galore, etc. What looks
different to me now is the reach of the media culture. What was once mainly
in pamphlets or party newspapers is now on television, radio, and the web,
and what was once considered too much for television or radio has now become
common fare (the Gary Hart episode was one of a number of watershed
moments). The political din is now considerable.

And "din" is a good word, I think, because it expresses the sense of so much
noise that thinking straight becomes difficult. Any number of C20 media
critics predicted problems with mass-mediated democracy, Habermas among
them. We certainly have a more established right-wing media than, say,
twenty years ago, and the internet has provided a volatile blogosphere. The
increase in political argument from all these different and conflicting
sources is much more apparent and easy to disseminate than ever before, and
the degree to which all mass media are driven by the imperatives of
spectacle to attract audiences itself has become part of the dynamic of
shocking political discourse.

Do I think it marks a drastic change in the degree of division we face? I'm
skeptical about that. Has it increased the publicity and the velocity of
public discourse? No question about it. I have become increasingly convinced
that the primary role media plays in elections lies in discouraging
political opponents and encouraging possible political allies -- the basic
need to get-out-the-vote. The political information that I continue to
search for in vain in stories about elections is -- who voted? and who
stayed home? The conflation of winning an election by getting 55% of a 55%
turnout with "the will of the people," for all that it is tiresome and
misleading, nevertheless encourages some people and discourages others --
not to mention election dirty tricks, registration challenges, and the like.


Given a dissonant media environment, where only a very few journalists and
commentators can rise above horse-race spectacle, the (by now) long-eroded
New Deal Democratic coalition v. Republicans has devolved into a de facto
three-party electorate, with a growing Independent 'center' that has come
more from Democrat ranks than Republican. Obama managed to capture enough of
the middle to get elected, but the economic disaster he inherited has now
'become' his -- which is to say, he's blamed for not fixing it (at best),
along with the Congressional Democrats, and so the so-called Blue Dog
Democratic districts swung back to the Republicans, whose libertarian wing
had become energized by Tea Party populism. They're not identical, mind, but
many libertarian-leaning conservatives jumped on the Tea Party energy and
are now in Congress.

This brings me back to the question of genuine, deeply seated differences in
world views. Libertarians have managed to get out in front of the Tea Party
to the extent they have because they offer what looks like a coherent and
reasoned analysis of the economic situation. They've cast themselves as a
sort of intelligentsia for the Tea Party, whose original impetus was a
resentful populism largely stemming from a fear of lost privileges. The
assumptions and beliefs that underlie the analyses of people like Rand Paul
are fundamentally different, however, root and branch, from the ideas of
economic interdependence and social safety net that motivated Democratic
strategies in the late C20. There is very little common ground now in
Congress on the most fundamental economic understandings. That constitutes a
fundamental division that, I believe, accounts for a great deal of the
vitriol. I stress "fundamental" because the division is not easily amenable
to 'the force of the better argument,' to use Habermas's phrase. The
assumptions are too different for much of anything resembling rational
argument to take place, at least so far. Practically speaking, that's partly
because the insurgent libertarians have not had to actually offer plans of
their own so far. That advantage will erode as time passes.

Well, this is hardly a short answer any more, but to conclude, I think we
are not anywhere near being out of the woods yet, economically, and the
condition of the economy will continue to drive politics, and the level of
political vitriol will continue and probably increase. Its primary effect,
as I see it, is to inflate and deflate, respectively, the energy of friends
and opponents. I do think the libertarian victories, which are by thin
margins in a depressed electorate, are largely the consequence of
discouragement among Progressives, Democrats, and Democratic-leaning
Independents. To say so is to argue the opposite case from Karl Rove's
'America is a center-right nation', but it may be that we are simply too
divided on too many issues to have a coherent governing majority any more.
And, to end on a provocative note, I do think that the thorny problem of
American Individualism (caps intended) emerges on the left in a refusal on
grounds of conscience to vote pragmatically -- i.e., to stay home or to vote
for third parties.

Gee, Clark, I think you touched a nerve...

Paul


On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 9:13 AM, Clarke Rountree <> wrote:

> Dear Burkelers--
>
> I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I
> have a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief
> that political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than
> it is today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been
> a qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
> culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
> and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
> venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
> reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
> cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
> believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
> politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
> incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
> and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
> behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
> undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
> the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
> cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
> (and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.
>
> What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
> form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Clarke
>
> --
> Dr. Clarke Rountree
> Professor of Communication Arts
> 342 Morton Hall
> University of Alabama in Huntsville
> Huntsville, AL 35899
> <256-824-6646> <256-824-6646>256-824-6646
>
>
> _______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Clarke, a few thoughts--

I'd question your "perhaps never." Having lived though the Vietnam
era, for example, I'd say that that era was worse. The battles
surrounding Clinton over the years indicate how people who came of age
during that era are likely to keep fighting until they die.

What makes things seem especially bad now, I think, is the ineptness
of the Democratic Party. The Democrats pass a health care law based
mainly on Republican ideas, then the Republicans convince a lot of
voters that the law is a socialist plot. Right now, the Democrats are
once again letting the Republicans control the agenda with all the
hysteria over the deficit. That plays right into the Republican
strategy to use the budget to attack SS, Medicare, etc. Why can't the
Democrats control the public agenda?

Rather than trying to decide whether our era is the worst ever, it
might be better to analyze, from a rhetorical standpoint, why the
Democratic Party has become so rhetorically inept.

You mention race. That is part of the story but it is old news. People
tend to forget that in 1980, afer getting nominated, Reagan made his
first speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, precisely where Cheney,
Schwerner, Goodman were murdered. TALK ABOUT A SIGNAL! Here, the
Republicans exploit a "rhetorical situation" wherein they win by nods
and winks. Reagan could say he was for "states rights" knowing the
voters he wanted to reach would hear what he really meant.

Another problem is that the Democrats keep conceding the premises of
the Republican argument, leaving themselves without a leg to stand on.
The classic is Clinton's "the era of big government is over." They
have done the same thing over the deficit. Obama currently seems to be
doing it again over the issue of unions for government workers.

I'd recast your points along similar lines.

That is what initially comes to mind for me.

Good luck with your project.

Bob


Quoting Clarke Rountree <>:

> Dear Burkelers--
>
> I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
> a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
> political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
> today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
> qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
> culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
> and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
> venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
> reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
> cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
> believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
> politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
> incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
> and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
> behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
> undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
> the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
> cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
> (and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.
>
> What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
> form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Clarke
>
> --
> Dr. Clarke Rountree
> Professor of Communication Arts
> 342 Morton Hall
> University of Alabama in Huntsville
> Huntsville, AL 35899
> 256-824-6646
>
>





_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. That last bit about religion in Sean's message got me thinking.  It is a move
toward a different order of authority, one that scares many because it has
dangerous precedence:  absolute authority for absolute power.  Lots of factors
feed into debates this complex, of course, but I think we can put a rhetorical
finger on Obama's 2004 speech at the Democratic convention:  People in blue
states worship an awesome God, and people in red states have friends who are
gay.  It's a transcendent move, the dialectic of the upper way, but also a
brilliant move tactically and politically.  If progressives/liberals just give
up on God territory, then it's too easy for the dialectic of Godless liberals
and God-fearing conservatives to be constructed, which kicks in all kinds of
automatic assumptions and hierarchies of values. 


I can't help but think of this in terms of "winning" and "losing" (guess the
Charlie Sheen meme, fortified with tiger's blood and Adonis DNA, is pretty
powerful stuff).  But if we progressive/liberals concede God, we lose the
argument. Isn't that a lot of what Lakoff has been arguing the last decade or
so?  We liberals lose because we don't make the argument effectively.  We
allow conservatives to own the terms of the debate, so the battle is lost before
it's even begun.   So on Gay rights/marriage, if the debate is allowed to be
framed between upright Christian values and decadent urban hedonism, then we
lose.  Civil Rights lose.  It becomes another secular/religious debate.  I
remind my students constantly that this is a war within Christianity, that the
gay marriage debate became a big deal because Christians were marrying gay
people, because major mainstream faiths (Episcopals, Methodists) re-evaluated
their positions on sin and homosexuality.  This isn't the godless liberals vs.
the good Christians, but arguments within the faith, over the meaning of faith
and ethics. 


In short, "we" win when we work the dialectic better, when we make the better
argument.  Not red or blue but united.  Not christian vs. secular but all of us
struggling to live an ethical life.  DADT is history, and so is DOMA.  To the
general question, maybe the tensions are more pronounced now because liberalism
is "winning" in a way it hasn't since before Reagan.  Maybe the tenor of the
debate reflects a real and credible threat to the conservative regime's power. 
So the Koch brothers of the world are fighting more viciously than ever, because
they see the writing on the wall.  Their time is done.   


But that's too naive and optimistic.  It's obviously more complicated.  There's
the influence of the "sheer brute materials of the world," for example.  I don't
remember a serious, vigorous debate in this country over nuclear power and
safety since the late 1970s.  Japan changed that.  Major events and pressures,
the arguments we can't answer, the ultimate realities of death, nature, and
physics also shape this debate.  I don't think it's just imagination, fear, or
media saturation.  I've seen more crazy stuff in the past ten years than at any
other time in my life.  Too many times, the tv news resembles a disaster movie,
with this vague, gnawing sense of forboding and deja vu.   

And finally, there's this persistent attitude I just can't comprehend.  Why did
teachers become the bad guys?  Why are we seen as the embodiment of our
culture's corruption?  Our pensions, salaries, and collective bargaining are
driving state governments into the ditch????  It just makes no sense to me. 
Logically, such claims are easy to discredit, but it's not the logic of the
argument that matters.  It's the persistence of belief and attitude, the
chicken-pecking principle.  Working class folks are feeling the squeeze, but
instead of turning their rage against their corporate masters, they turn against
their neighbors.  That's a weird one, not a new force, but definitely a
pronounced one.  I'm not sure how it's going to play out.  I guess a lot depends
on us and how well we fight this war of words and ideas. 


--Jerry 


Jerry Ross, Assistant Professor
Department of Communications and Humanities
Southwestern Illinois College
2700 Carlyle Avenue
Belleville, IL 62221
(618) 235-2700 Ext. 5415
http://fac.swic.edu/english/





________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe.

Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646 Clarke,

I'm underqualified to respond to such a large historical question, but I'm also intrigued enough by your hypothesis to venture a response.

Maybe our public discourse is no less vitriolic than it has been at certain other periods in our history. (Hanging in effigy and tomato-throwing push the limits of vitriol, and civil war certainly goes beyond it.) But we feel its violence more keenly now because we live in an era that can no longer afford it (not much longer, anyway). Gone is an era when one can strike out into the wilderness in search of more "elbow room," or travel across vast territory to escape religious perspecution and found a new society. Our nation is more crowded and immediately interconnected at the same time as its ethnic and religious diversity continues to expand. We must begin to learn what the Japanese, living on a string of islands, learned long ago: the value of collectivism, the importance of protecting face, the art of consensus, etc. Moreover, the world as a whole needs to learn to promote the value of consensus for the common good. As we pollute the planet while stripping it of its resou!
rces, we can ill afford to focus our energies on squabbles rooted in past differences of opinion and conflicts.

Yet the problems of our planet are so overwhelming to contemplate, the sacrifices necessary to reverse its destruction so daunting, and the threats to our conflict-habituated identities so unnerving, it is easier and more reassuring to think of the world in the simple binaries of past eras. We distract ourselves with the spectacle of prize-fighting while our Titanic sinks. And hey, conflict SELLS. The market has proven itself as the greatest generator of prosperity (and relative poverty -- whoops!), and the market favors competition, fighting, win-lose scenarios. The "thrill of victory" and "agony of defeat" are much more entertaining than the work of negotiation and the art of consensus.

For those who try to take a larger view and give critical attention to the nature of the human barnyard in light of the needs of the whole biosphere, the frame is changed, and vitriol is more alarming than entertaining or energizing.

2 cents at best,
John


Dr. John B. Hatch
Dept. of Communication
University of Dubuque
2000 University Ave.
Dubuque, IA 52001

Fax: (563) 589-3243
>>> Clarke Rountree <> 03/17/11 11:16 AM >>>
Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646




_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Here's an excerpt from something I've been writing about Ann Coulter which may (I hope) be of some interest:

Burke distinguishes between the “dialectical” order of terms and the “ultimate” order. Dialectical terms are in the realm of action and idea and attitude. They are words for principles, essences, and titles: Romanticism, capitalism, and democracy are dialectical terms. The order is “dramatic:” political conflicts in this realm are negotiated through compromise among the “jangling relation” of “competing voices” (Rhetoric 187). In the ultimate order, we consider the terms to be in a hierarchical relationship or developmental series. “The ‘ultimate’ order of terms would thus differ essentially from the ‘dialectical’ . . . in that there would be a ‘guiding idea’ or ‘unitary principle’ behind the diversity of voices” (187). (Avital Ronell is getting at the same concept when she speaks of “transcendental inscriptions” [294]). This sense of hierarchy and development is expressed in the old remark that one who is not liberal when young has no heart, and one who does not become conservative with age has no brain: liberal and conservative are here not dialectical alternatives, but developmental stages. Within an ultimate vocabulary, “a somewhat formless parliamentary wrangle can . . . be creatively endowed with design, . . . [wherein] one kind of compromise is, in the long run, to be rated as superior to another” (188). This prospect might strike us as either visionary or nightmarish, depending upon what we take to be the “God-term” at the top of the sequence. For example, the project of the American far Right to establish synonymy between conservatism and Christianity is an effort to move the political wrangle from the dialectical realm into the ultimate: for if there is continuity, a hierarchic sequence, from the Constitution upward to the Bible, with Christianity as the “guiding idea” and the final Word, then the Constitution’s apparent establishment of discontinuity between church and state cannot possibly be as absolute as it seems to be.

Sean Zwagerman
Associate Professor
Department of English
Simon Fraser University
Bunaby, BC V5A 1S6 Canada

778-782-4831

----- Original Message -----
From: Clarke Rountree <>
To: Kb list <>
Sent: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:13:37 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [KB] Political Discourse in the US

Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646



_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Your question is one that I've puzzled about for some time. Both John and Sean have made some interesting points about how to orient toward the question. But it's a complex question because so many potential variables are in operation, such as issues of culture, moral codes, capitalism, competition, individualism, attitudes toward conflict, etc. Sean's point about the difference between dialectical and ultimate ordering of terms is relevant except when pushed to the point of noting the likelihood, as Derrida has suggested, that every dialectic really proceeds on underlying assumptions of a hierarchy of terms. Wherein also the participants in the "conversation" generally do not agree on the hierarchical arrangement. Politcal discourse has always trafficked in the most heated ways in the debate over values (or ends) rather than means. And in times of rapid change and exposure to diverse influences, as in the present information and global commerce era, reactions are often hot and defensive when these changes are seen to threaten traditional values and moral codes. In fact, perhaps nothing strikes at the core of human existence more than the question of the hierarchy of values. The abortion issue is a case in point.

At the risk of being perceived (perhaps correctly?) as a self-promoting putz, my most thorough and organized rumination on these weighty matters has been Chapter 15 in my book called "Our Faith in Evil"--titled "The Melodramatization of American Culture." Here I try to bring together the key threads of influence on current attitudes--threads such as those mentioned above (codes, capitalism, competition, attitudes toward conflict, etc.) in addition to the question of cultural differences between east and west mentioned by John in his recent post. This is probably more input than you would wish but I'll send you a file of the chapter. I think parts of it are highly relevant to your question and it might serve to provide one type of framework for approaching the question. And since it has section headings you can scan it for relevance (the pages are also numbered as per the book).

Best Regards,
Greg Clarke,
A short answer to your complicated question: The US has always had
contentiously divided politics, ad hominems galore, etc. What looks
different to me now is the reach of the media culture. What was once mainly
in pamphlets or party newspapers is now on television, radio, and the web,
and what was once considered too much for television or radio has now become
common fare (the Gary Hart episode was one of a number of watershed
moments). The political din is now considerable.

And "din" is a good word, I think, because it expresses the sense of so much
noise that thinking straight becomes difficult. Any number of C20 media
critics predicted problems with mass-mediated democracy, Habermas among
them. We certainly have a more established right-wing media than, say,
twenty years ago, and the internet has provided a volatile blogosphere. The
increase in political argument from all these different and conflicting
sources is much more apparent and easy to disseminate than ever before, and
the degree to which all mass media are driven by the imperatives of
spectacle to attract audiences itself has become part of the dynamic of
shocking political discourse.

Do I think it marks a drastic change in the degree of division we face? I'm
skeptical about that. Has it increased the publicity and the velocity of
public discourse? No question about it. I have become increasingly convinced
that the primary role media plays in elections lies in discouraging
political opponents and encouraging possible political allies -- the basic
need to get-out-the-vote. The political information that I continue to
search for in vain in stories about elections is -- who voted? and who
stayed home? The conflation of winning an election by getting 55% of a 55%
turnout with "the will of the people," for all that it is tiresome and
misleading, nevertheless encourages some people and discourages others --
not to mention election dirty tricks, registration challenges, and the like.


Given a dissonant media environment, where only a very few journalists and
commentators can rise above horse-race spectacle, the (by now) long-eroded
New Deal Democratic coalition v. Republicans has devolved into a de facto
three-party electorate, with a growing Independent 'center' that has come
more from Democrat ranks than Republican. Obama managed to capture enough of
the middle to get elected, but the economic disaster he inherited has now
'become' his -- which is to say, he's blamed for not fixing it (at best),
along with the Congressional Democrats, and so the so-called Blue Dog
Democratic districts swung back to the Republicans, whose libertarian wing
had become energized by Tea Party populism. They're not identical, mind, but
many libertarian-leaning conservatives jumped on the Tea Party energy and
are now in Congress.

This brings me back to the question of genuine, deeply seated differences in
world views. Libertarians have managed to get out in front of the Tea Party
to the extent they have because they offer what looks like a coherent and
reasoned analysis of the economic situation. They've cast themselves as a
sort of intelligentsia for the Tea Party, whose original impetus was a
resentful populism largely stemming from a fear of lost privileges. The
assumptions and beliefs that underlie the analyses of people like Rand Paul
are fundamentally different, however, root and branch, from the ideas of
economic interdependence and social safety net that motivated Democratic
strategies in the late C20. There is very little common ground now in
Congress on the most fundamental economic understandings. That constitutes a
fundamental division that, I believe, accounts for a great deal of the
vitriol. I stress "fundamental" because the division is not easily amenable
to 'the force of the better argument,' to use Habermas's phrase. The
assumptions are too different for much of anything resembling rational
argument to take place, at least so far. Practically speaking, that's partly
because the insurgent libertarians have not had to actually offer plans of
their own so far. That advantage will erode as time passes.

Well, this is hardly a short answer any more, but to conclude, I think we
are not anywhere near being out of the woods yet, economically, and the
condition of the economy will continue to drive politics, and the level of
political vitriol will continue and probably increase. Its primary effect,
as I see it, is to inflate and deflate, respectively, the energy of friends
and opponents. I do think the libertarian victories, which are by thin
margins in a depressed electorate, are largely the consequence of
discouragement among Progressives, Democrats, and Democratic-leaning
Independents. To say so is to argue the opposite case from Karl Rove's
'America is a center-right nation', but it may be that we are simply too
divided on too many issues to have a coherent governing majority any more.
And, to end on a provocative note, I do think that the thorny problem of
American Individualism (caps intended) emerges on the left in a refusal on
grounds of conscience to vote pragmatically -- i.e., to stay home or to vote
for third parties.

Gee, Clark, I think you touched a nerve...

Paul


On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 9:13 AM, Clarke Rountree <> wrote:

> Dear Burkelers--
>
> I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I
> have a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief
> that political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than
> it is today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been
> a qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
> culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
> and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
> venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
> reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
> cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
> believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
> politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
> incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
> and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
> behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
> undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
> the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
> cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
> (and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.
>
> What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
> form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Clarke
>
> --
> Dr. Clarke Rountree
> Professor of Communication Arts
> 342 Morton Hall
> University of Alabama in Huntsville
> Huntsville, AL 35899
> <256-824-6646> <256-824-6646>256-824-6646
>
>
> _______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Clarke, a few thoughts--

I'd question your "perhaps never." Having lived though the Vietnam
era, for example, I'd say that that era was worse. The battles
surrounding Clinton over the years indicate how people who came of age
during that era are likely to keep fighting until they die.

What makes things seem especially bad now, I think, is the ineptness
of the Democratic Party. The Democrats pass a health care law based
mainly on Republican ideas, then the Republicans convince a lot of
voters that the law is a socialist plot. Right now, the Democrats are
once again letting the Republicans control the agenda with all the
hysteria over the deficit. That plays right into the Republican
strategy to use the budget to attack SS, Medicare, etc. Why can't the
Democrats control the public agenda?

Rather than trying to decide whether our era is the worst ever, it
might be better to analyze, from a rhetorical standpoint, why the
Democratic Party has become so rhetorically inept.

You mention race. That is part of the story but it is old news. People
tend to forget that in 1980, afer getting nominated, Reagan made his
first speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, precisely where Cheney,
Schwerner, Goodman were murdered. TALK ABOUT A SIGNAL! Here, the
Republicans exploit a "rhetorical situation" wherein they win by nods
and winks. Reagan could say he was for "states rights" knowing the
voters he wanted to reach would hear what he really meant.

Another problem is that the Democrats keep conceding the premises of
the Republican argument, leaving themselves without a leg to stand on.
The classic is Clinton's "the era of big government is over." They
have done the same thing over the deficit. Obama currently seems to be
doing it again over the issue of unions for government workers.

I'd recast your points along similar lines.

That is what initially comes to mind for me.

Good luck with your project.

Bob


Quoting Clarke Rountree <>:

> Dear Burkelers--
>
> I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
> a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
> political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
> today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
> qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
> culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
> and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
> venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
> reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
> cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
> believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
> politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
> incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
> and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
> behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
> undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
> the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
> cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
> (and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.
>
> What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
> form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Clarke
>
> --
> Dr. Clarke Rountree
> Professor of Communication Arts
> 342 Morton Hall
> University of Alabama in Huntsville
> Huntsville, AL 35899
> 256-824-6646
>
>





_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. That last bit about religion in Sean's message got me thinking.  It is a move
toward a different order of authority, one that scares many because it has
dangerous precedence:  absolute authority for absolute power.  Lots of factors
feed into debates this complex, of course, but I think we can put a rhetorical
finger on Obama's 2004 speech at the Democratic convention:  People in blue
states worship an awesome God, and people in red states have friends who are
gay.  It's a transcendent move, the dialectic of the upper way, but also a
brilliant move tactically and politically.  If progressives/liberals just give
up on God territory, then it's too easy for the dialectic of Godless liberals
and God-fearing conservatives to be constructed, which kicks in all kinds of
automatic assumptions and hierarchies of values. 


I can't help but think of this in terms of "winning" and "losing" (guess the
Charlie Sheen meme, fortified with tiger's blood and Adonis DNA, is pretty
powerful stuff).  But if we progressive/liberals concede God, we lose the
argument. Isn't that a lot of what Lakoff has been arguing the last decade or
so?  We liberals lose because we don't make the argument effectively.  We
allow conservatives to own the terms of the debate, so the battle is lost before
it's even begun.   So on Gay rights/marriage, if the debate is allowed to be
framed between upright Christian values and decadent urban hedonism, then we
lose.  Civil Rights lose.  It becomes another secular/religious debate.  I
remind my students constantly that this is a war within Christianity, that the
gay marriage debate became a big deal because Christians were marrying gay
people, because major mainstream faiths (Episcopals, Methodists) re-evaluated
their positions on sin and homosexuality.  This isn't the godless liberals vs.
the good Christians, but arguments within the faith, over the meaning of faith
and ethics. 


In short, "we" win when we work the dialectic better, when we make the better
argument.  Not red or blue but united.  Not christian vs. secular but all of us
struggling to live an ethical life.  DADT is history, and so is DOMA.  To the
general question, maybe the tensions are more pronounced now because liberalism
is "winning" in a way it hasn't since before Reagan.  Maybe the tenor of the
debate reflects a real and credible threat to the conservative regime's power. 
So the Koch brothers of the world are fighting more viciously than ever, because
they see the writing on the wall.  Their time is done.   


But that's too naive and optimistic.  It's obviously more complicated.  There's
the influence of the "sheer brute materials of the world," for example.  I don't
remember a serious, vigorous debate in this country over nuclear power and
safety since the late 1970s.  Japan changed that.  Major events and pressures,
the arguments we can't answer, the ultimate realities of death, nature, and
physics also shape this debate.  I don't think it's just imagination, fear, or
media saturation.  I've seen more crazy stuff in the past ten years than at any
other time in my life.  Too many times, the tv news resembles a disaster movie,
with this vague, gnawing sense of forboding and deja vu.   

And finally, there's this persistent attitude I just can't comprehend.  Why did
teachers become the bad guys?  Why are we seen as the embodiment of our
culture's corruption?  Our pensions, salaries, and collective bargaining are
driving state governments into the ditch????  It just makes no sense to me. 
Logically, such claims are easy to discredit, but it's not the logic of the
argument that matters.  It's the persistence of belief and attitude, the
chicken-pecking principle.  Working class folks are feeling the squeeze, but
instead of turning their rage against their corporate masters, they turn against
their neighbors.  That's a weird one, not a new force, but definitely a
pronounced one.  I'm not sure how it's going to play out.  I guess a lot depends
on us and how well we fight this war of words and ideas. 


--Jerry 


Jerry Ross, Assistant Professor
Department of Communications and Humanities
Southwestern Illinois College
2700 Carlyle Avenue
Belleville, IL 62221
(618) 235-2700 Ext. 5415
http://fac.swic.edu/english/





________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Teachers are not the bad guys. *Unions* are the bad guys, and teachers are a
target as long as they are identified with unions. This is what I meant by
the fundamental division the libertarian vision is pushing: unions are
incontrovertibly bad to them. There *cannot possibly* be a good union in
libertarian thinking. That's the point I was trying to make, and there is no
logical counter for it, because any such logic relies on assumptions &
values that are antithetical to libertarians.

Paul

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 9:20 PM, liminal man <> wrote:

> That last bit about religion in Sean's message got me thinking. It is a
> move toward a different order of authority, one that scares many because it
> has dangerous precedence: absolute authority for absolute power. Lots of
> factors feed into debates this complex, of course, but I think we can put a
> rhetorical finger on Obama's 2004 speech at the Democratic
> convention: People in blue states worship an awesome God, and people in red
> states have friends who are gay. It's a transcendent move, the dialectic of
> the upper way, but also a brilliant move tactically and politically. If
> progressives/liberals just give up on God territory, then it's too easy for
> the dialectic of Godless liberals and God-fearing conservatives to be
> constructed, which kicks in all kinds of automatic assumptions and
> hierarchies of values.
>
> I can't help but think of this in terms of "winning" and "losing" (guess
> the Charlie Sheen meme, fortified with tiger's blood and Adonis DNA,
> is pretty powerful stuff). But if we progressive/liberals concede God, we
> lose the argument. Isn't that a lot of what Lakoff has been arguing the last
> decade or so? We liberals lose because we don't make the argument
> effectively. We allow conservatives to own the terms of the debate, so the
> battle is lost before it's even begun. So on Gay rights/marriage, if the
> debate is allowed to be framed between upright Christian values and decadent
> urban hedonism, then we lose. Civil Rights lose. It becomes another
> secular/religious debate. I remind my students constantly that this is a
> war within Christianity, that the gay marriage debate became a big deal
> because Christians were marrying gay people, because major mainstream faiths
> (Episcopals, Methodists) re-evaluated their positions on sin and
> homosexuality. This isn't the godless liberals vs. the good Christians, but
> arguments within the faith, over the meaning of faith and ethics.
>
> In short, "we" win when we work the dialectic better, when we make the
> better argument. Not red or blue but united. Not christian vs. secular but
> all of us struggling to live an ethical life. DADT is history, and so
> is DOMA. To the general question, maybe the tensions are more pronounced
> now because liberalism is "winning" in a way it hasn't since before Reagan.
> Maybe the tenor of the debate reflects a real and credible threat to
> the conservative regime's power. So the Koch brothers of the world are
> fighting more viciously than ever, because they see the writing on the
> wall. Their time is done.
>
> But that's too naive and optimistic. It's obviously more complicated.
> There's the influence of the "sheer brute materials of the world," for
> example. I don't remember a serious, vigorous debate in this country over
> nuclear power and safety since the late 1970s. Japan changed that. Major
> events and pressures, the arguments we can't answer, the ultimate realities
> of death, nature, and physics also shape this debate. I don't think it's
> just imagination, fear, or media saturation. I've seen more crazy stuff in
> the past ten years than at any other time in my life. Too many times, the
> tv news resembles a disaster movie, with this vague, gnawing sense of
> forboding and deja vu.
>
> And finally, there's this persistent attitude I just can't comprehend. Why
> did teachers become the bad guys? Why are we seen as the embodiment of our
> culture's corruption? Our pensions, salaries, and collective bargaining are
> driving state governments into the ditch???? It just makes no sense to me.
> Logically, such claims are easy to discredit, but it's not the logic of the
> argument that matters. It's the persistence of belief and attitude, the
> chicken-pecking principle. Working class folks are feeling the squeeze, but
> instead of turning their rage against their corporate masters, they turn
> against their neighbors. That's a weird one, not a new force, but
> definitely a pronounced one. I'm not sure how it's going to play out. I
> guess a lot depends on us and how well we fight this war of words and
> ideas.
>
> --Jerry
>
>
>
> Jerry Ross, Assistant Professor
> Department of Communications and Humanities
> Southwestern Illinois College
> 2700 Carlyle Avenue
> Belleville, IL 62221
> (618) 235-2700 Ext. 5415
>
> http://fac.swic.edu/english/
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Sean Zwagerman <>
> *To:*
> *Sent:* Thu, March 17, 2011 1:41:59 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [KB] Political Discourse in the US
>
> Here's an excerpt from something I've been writing about Ann Coulter which
> may (I hope) be of some interest:
>
> Burke distinguishes between the �dialectical� order of terms and the
> �ultimate� order. Dialectical terms are in the realm of action and idea and
> attitude. They are words for principles, essences, and titles: Romanticism,
> capitalism, and democracy are dialectical terms. The order is �dramatic:�
> political conflicts in this realm are negotiated through compromise among
> the �jangling relation� of �competing voices� (Rhetoric 187). In the
> ultimate order, we consider the terms to be in a hierarchical relationship
> or developmental series. �The �ultimate� order of terms would thus differ
> essentially from the �dialectical� . . . in that there would be a �guiding
> idea� or �unitary principle� behind the diversity of voices� (187). (Avital
> Ronell is getting at the same concept when she speaks of �transcendental
> inscriptions� [294]). This sense of hierarchy and development is expressed
> in the old remark that one who is not liberal when young has no heart, and
> one who does not become conservative with age has no brain: liberal and
> conservative are here not dialectical alternatives, but developmental
> stages. Within an ultimate vocabulary, �a somewhat formless parliamentary
> wrangle can . . . be creatively endowed with design, . . . [wherein] one
> kind of compromise is, in the long run, to be rated as superior to another�
> (188). This prospect might strike us as either visionary or nightmarish,
> depending upon what we take to be the �God-term� at the top of the sequence.
> For example, the project of the American far Right to establish synonymy
> between conservatism and Christianity is an effort to move the political
> wrangle from the dialectical realm into the ultimate: for if there is
> continuity, a hierarchic sequence, from the Constitution upward to the
> Bible, with Christianity as the �guiding idea� and the final Word, then the
> Constitution�s apparent establishment of discontinuity between church and
> state cannot possibly be as absolute as it seems to be.
>
> Sean Zwagerman
> Associate Professor
> Department of English
> Simon Fraser University
> Bunaby, BC V5A 1S6 Canada
>
> 778-782-4831
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Clarke Rountree <>
> To: Kb list <>
> Sent: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:13:37 -0700 (PDT)
> Subject: [KB] Political Discourse in the US
>
> Dear Burkelers--
>
> I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I
> have
> a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
> political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it
> is
> today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
> qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
> culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against
> Obama
> and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods
> of
> venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
> reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
> cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
> believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
> politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of
> middle-class
> incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
> and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days
> are
> behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
> undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
> the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
> cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
> (and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.
>
> What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
> form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Clarke
>
> --
> Dr. Clarke Rountree
> Professor of Communication Arts
> 342 Morton Hall
> University of Alabama in Huntsville
> Huntsville, AL 35899
> 256-824-6646
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe.

Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646 Clarke,

I'm underqualified to respond to such a large historical question, but I'm also intrigued enough by your hypothesis to venture a response.

Maybe our public discourse is no less vitriolic than it has been at certain other periods in our history. (Hanging in effigy and tomato-throwing push the limits of vitriol, and civil war certainly goes beyond it.) But we feel its violence more keenly now because we live in an era that can no longer afford it (not much longer, anyway). Gone is an era when one can strike out into the wilderness in search of more "elbow room," or travel across vast territory to escape religious perspecution and found a new society. Our nation is more crowded and immediately interconnected at the same time as its ethnic and religious diversity continues to expand. We must begin to learn what the Japanese, living on a string of islands, learned long ago: the value of collectivism, the importance of protecting face, the art of consensus, etc. Moreover, the world as a whole needs to learn to promote the value of consensus for the common good. As we pollute the planet while stripping it of its resou!
rces, we can ill afford to focus our energies on squabbles rooted in past differences of opinion and conflicts.

Yet the problems of our planet are so overwhelming to contemplate, the sacrifices necessary to reverse its destruction so daunting, and the threats to our conflict-habituated identities so unnerving, it is easier and more reassuring to think of the world in the simple binaries of past eras. We distract ourselves with the spectacle of prize-fighting while our Titanic sinks. And hey, conflict SELLS. The market has proven itself as the greatest generator of prosperity (and relative poverty -- whoops!), and the market favors competition, fighting, win-lose scenarios. The "thrill of victory" and "agony of defeat" are much more entertaining than the work of negotiation and the art of consensus.

For those who try to take a larger view and give critical attention to the nature of the human barnyard in light of the needs of the whole biosphere, the frame is changed, and vitriol is more alarming than entertaining or energizing.

2 cents at best,
John


Dr. John B. Hatch
Dept. of Communication
University of Dubuque
2000 University Ave.
Dubuque, IA 52001

Fax: (563) 589-3243
>>> Clarke Rountree <> 03/17/11 11:16 AM >>>
Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646




_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Here's an excerpt from something I've been writing about Ann Coulter which may (I hope) be of some interest:

Burke distinguishes between the “dialectical” order of terms and the “ultimate” order. Dialectical terms are in the realm of action and idea and attitude. They are words for principles, essences, and titles: Romanticism, capitalism, and democracy are dialectical terms. The order is “dramatic:” political conflicts in this realm are negotiated through compromise among the “jangling relation” of “competing voices” (Rhetoric 187). In the ultimate order, we consider the terms to be in a hierarchical relationship or developmental series. “The ‘ultimate’ order of terms would thus differ essentially from the ‘dialectical’ . . . in that there would be a ‘guiding idea’ or ‘unitary principle’ behind the diversity of voices” (187). (Avital Ronell is getting at the same concept when she speaks of “transcendental inscriptions” [294]). This sense of hierarchy and development is expressed in the old remark that one who is not liberal when young has no heart, and one who does not become conservative with age has no brain: liberal and conservative are here not dialectical alternatives, but developmental stages. Within an ultimate vocabulary, “a somewhat formless parliamentary wrangle can . . . be creatively endowed with design, . . . [wherein] one kind of compromise is, in the long run, to be rated as superior to another” (188). This prospect might strike us as either visionary or nightmarish, depending upon what we take to be the “God-term” at the top of the sequence. For example, the project of the American far Right to establish synonymy between conservatism and Christianity is an effort to move the political wrangle from the dialectical realm into the ultimate: for if there is continuity, a hierarchic sequence, from the Constitution upward to the Bible, with Christianity as the “guiding idea” and the final Word, then the Constitution’s apparent establishment of discontinuity between church and state cannot possibly be as absolute as it seems to be.

Sean Zwagerman
Associate Professor
Department of English
Simon Fraser University
Bunaby, BC V5A 1S6 Canada

778-782-4831

----- Original Message -----
From: Clarke Rountree <>
To: Kb list <>
Sent: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:13:37 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [KB] Political Discourse in the US

Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646



_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Your question is one that I've puzzled about for some time. Both John and Sean have made some interesting points about how to orient toward the question. But it's a complex question because so many potential variables are in operation, such as issues of culture, moral codes, capitalism, competition, individualism, attitudes toward conflict, etc. Sean's point about the difference between dialectical and ultimate ordering of terms is relevant except when pushed to the point of noting the likelihood, as Derrida has suggested, that every dialectic really proceeds on underlying assumptions of a hierarchy of terms. Wherein also the participants in the "conversation" generally do not agree on the hierarchical arrangement. Politcal discourse has always trafficked in the most heated ways in the debate over values (or ends) rather than means. And in times of rapid change and exposure to diverse influences, as in the present information and global commerce era, reactions are often hot and defensive when these changes are seen to threaten traditional values and moral codes. In fact, perhaps nothing strikes at the core of human existence more than the question of the hierarchy of values. The abortion issue is a case in point.

At the risk of being perceived (perhaps correctly?) as a self-promoting putz, my most thorough and organized rumination on these weighty matters has been Chapter 15 in my book called "Our Faith in Evil"--titled "The Melodramatization of American Culture." Here I try to bring together the key threads of influence on current attitudes--threads such as those mentioned above (codes, capitalism, competition, attitudes toward conflict, etc.) in addition to the question of cultural differences between east and west mentioned by John in his recent post. This is probably more input than you would wish but I'll send you a file of the chapter. I think parts of it are highly relevant to your question and it might serve to provide one type of framework for approaching the question. And since it has section headings you can scan it for relevance (the pages are also numbered as per the book).

Best Regards,
Greg Clarke,
A short answer to your complicated question: The US has always had
contentiously divided politics, ad hominems galore, etc. What looks
different to me now is the reach of the media culture. What was once mainly
in pamphlets or party newspapers is now on television, radio, and the web,
and what was once considered too much for television or radio has now become
common fare (the Gary Hart episode was one of a number of watershed
moments). The political din is now considerable.

And "din" is a good word, I think, because it expresses the sense of so much
noise that thinking straight becomes difficult. Any number of C20 media
critics predicted problems with mass-mediated democracy, Habermas among
them. We certainly have a more established right-wing media than, say,
twenty years ago, and the internet has provided a volatile blogosphere. The
increase in political argument from all these different and conflicting
sources is much more apparent and easy to disseminate than ever before, and
the degree to which all mass media are driven by the imperatives of
spectacle to attract audiences itself has become part of the dynamic of
shocking political discourse.

Do I think it marks a drastic change in the degree of division we face? I'm
skeptical about that. Has it increased the publicity and the velocity of
public discourse? No question about it. I have become increasingly convinced
that the primary role media plays in elections lies in discouraging
political opponents and encouraging possible political allies -- the basic
need to get-out-the-vote. The political information that I continue to
search for in vain in stories about elections is -- who voted? and who
stayed home? The conflation of winning an election by getting 55% of a 55%
turnout with "the will of the people," for all that it is tiresome and
misleading, nevertheless encourages some people and discourages others --
not to mention election dirty tricks, registration challenges, and the like.


Given a dissonant media environment, where only a very few journalists and
commentators can rise above horse-race spectacle, the (by now) long-eroded
New Deal Democratic coalition v. Republicans has devolved into a de facto
three-party electorate, with a growing Independent 'center' that has come
more from Democrat ranks than Republican. Obama managed to capture enough of
the middle to get elected, but the economic disaster he inherited has now
'become' his -- which is to say, he's blamed for not fixing it (at best),
along with the Congressional Democrats, and so the so-called Blue Dog
Democratic districts swung back to the Republicans, whose libertarian wing
had become energized by Tea Party populism. They're not identical, mind, but
many libertarian-leaning conservatives jumped on the Tea Party energy and
are now in Congress.

This brings me back to the question of genuine, deeply seated differences in
world views. Libertarians have managed to get out in front of the Tea Party
to the extent they have because they offer what looks like a coherent and
reasoned analysis of the economic situation. They've cast themselves as a
sort of intelligentsia for the Tea Party, whose original impetus was a
resentful populism largely stemming from a fear of lost privileges. The
assumptions and beliefs that underlie the analyses of people like Rand Paul
are fundamentally different, however, root and branch, from the ideas of
economic interdependence and social safety net that motivated Democratic
strategies in the late C20. There is very little common ground now in
Congress on the most fundamental economic understandings. That constitutes a
fundamental division that, I believe, accounts for a great deal of the
vitriol. I stress "fundamental" because the division is not easily amenable
to 'the force of the better argument,' to use Habermas's phrase. The
assumptions are too different for much of anything resembling rational
argument to take place, at least so far. Practically speaking, that's partly
because the insurgent libertarians have not had to actually offer plans of
their own so far. That advantage will erode as time passes.

Well, this is hardly a short answer any more, but to conclude, I think we
are not anywhere near being out of the woods yet, economically, and the
condition of the economy will continue to drive politics, and the level of
political vitriol will continue and probably increase. Its primary effect,
as I see it, is to inflate and deflate, respectively, the energy of friends
and opponents. I do think the libertarian victories, which are by thin
margins in a depressed electorate, are largely the consequence of
discouragement among Progressives, Democrats, and Democratic-leaning
Independents. To say so is to argue the opposite case from Karl Rove's
'America is a center-right nation', but it may be that we are simply too
divided on too many issues to have a coherent governing majority any more.
And, to end on a provocative note, I do think that the thorny problem of
American Individualism (caps intended) emerges on the left in a refusal on
grounds of conscience to vote pragmatically -- i.e., to stay home or to vote
for third parties.

Gee, Clark, I think you touched a nerve...

Paul


On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 9:13 AM, Clarke Rountree <> wrote:

> Dear Burkelers--
>
> I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I
> have a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief
> that political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than
> it is today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been
> a qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
> culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
> and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
> venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
> reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
> cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
> believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
> politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
> incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
> and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
> behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
> undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
> the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
> cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
> (and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.
>
> What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
> form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Clarke
>
> --
> Dr. Clarke Rountree
> Professor of Communication Arts
> 342 Morton Hall
> University of Alabama in Huntsville
> Huntsville, AL 35899
> <256-824-6646> <256-824-6646>256-824-6646
>
>
> _______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Clarke, a few thoughts--

I'd question your "perhaps never." Having lived though the Vietnam
era, for example, I'd say that that era was worse. The battles
surrounding Clinton over the years indicate how people who came of age
during that era are likely to keep fighting until they die.

What makes things seem especially bad now, I think, is the ineptness
of the Democratic Party. The Democrats pass a health care law based
mainly on Republican ideas, then the Republicans convince a lot of
voters that the law is a socialist plot. Right now, the Democrats are
once again letting the Republicans control the agenda with all the
hysteria over the deficit. That plays right into the Republican
strategy to use the budget to attack SS, Medicare, etc. Why can't the
Democrats control the public agenda?

Rather than trying to decide whether our era is the worst ever, it
might be better to analyze, from a rhetorical standpoint, why the
Democratic Party has become so rhetorically inept.

You mention race. That is part of the story but it is old news. People
tend to forget that in 1980, afer getting nominated, Reagan made his
first speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, precisely where Cheney,
Schwerner, Goodman were murdered. TALK ABOUT A SIGNAL! Here, the
Republicans exploit a "rhetorical situation" wherein they win by nods
and winks. Reagan could say he was for "states rights" knowing the
voters he wanted to reach would hear what he really meant.

Another problem is that the Democrats keep conceding the premises of
the Republican argument, leaving themselves without a leg to stand on.
The classic is Clinton's "the era of big government is over." They
have done the same thing over the deficit. Obama currently seems to be
doing it again over the issue of unions for government workers.

I'd recast your points along similar lines.

That is what initially comes to mind for me.

Good luck with your project.

Bob


Quoting Clarke Rountree <>:

> Dear Burkelers--
>
> I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
> a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
> political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
> today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
> qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
> culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
> and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
> venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
> reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
> cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
> believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
> politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
> incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
> and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
> behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
> undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
> the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
> cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
> (and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.
>
> What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
> form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Clarke
>
> --
> Dr. Clarke Rountree
> Professor of Communication Arts
> 342 Morton Hall
> University of Alabama in Huntsville
> Huntsville, AL 35899
> 256-824-6646
>
>





_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. That last bit about religion in Sean's message got me thinking.  It is a move
toward a different order of authority, one that scares many because it has
dangerous precedence:  absolute authority for absolute power.  Lots of factors
feed into debates this complex, of course, but I think we can put a rhetorical
finger on Obama's 2004 speech at the Democratic convention:  People in blue
states worship an awesome God, and people in red states have friends who are
gay.  It's a transcendent move, the dialectic of the upper way, but also a
brilliant move tactically and politically.  If progressives/liberals just give
up on God territory, then it's too easy for the dialectic of Godless liberals
and God-fearing conservatives to be constructed, which kicks in all kinds of
automatic assumptions and hierarchies of values. 


I can't help but think of this in terms of "winning" and "losing" (guess the
Charlie Sheen meme, fortified with tiger's blood and Adonis DNA, is pretty
powerful stuff).  But if we progressive/liberals concede God, we lose the
argument. Isn't that a lot of what Lakoff has been arguing the last decade or
so?  We liberals lose because we don't make the argument effectively.  We
allow conservatives to own the terms of the debate, so the battle is lost before
it's even begun.   So on Gay rights/marriage, if the debate is allowed to be
framed between upright Christian values and decadent urban hedonism, then we
lose.  Civil Rights lose.  It becomes another secular/religious debate.  I
remind my students constantly that this is a war within Christianity, that the
gay marriage debate became a big deal because Christians were marrying gay
people, because major mainstream faiths (Episcopals, Methodists) re-evaluated
their positions on sin and homosexuality.  This isn't the godless liberals vs.
the good Christians, but arguments within the faith, over the meaning of faith
and ethics. 


In short, "we" win when we work the dialectic better, when we make the better
argument.  Not red or blue but united.  Not christian vs. secular but all of us
struggling to live an ethical life.  DADT is history, and so is DOMA.  To the
general question, maybe the tensions are more pronounced now because liberalism
is "winning" in a way it hasn't since before Reagan.  Maybe the tenor of the
debate reflects a real and credible threat to the conservative regime's power. 
So the Koch brothers of the world are fighting more viciously than ever, because
they see the writing on the wall.  Their time is done.   


But that's too naive and optimistic.  It's obviously more complicated.  There's
the influence of the "sheer brute materials of the world," for example.  I don't
remember a serious, vigorous debate in this country over nuclear power and
safety since the late 1970s.  Japan changed that.  Major events and pressures,
the arguments we can't answer, the ultimate realities of death, nature, and
physics also shape this debate.  I don't think it's just imagination, fear, or
media saturation.  I've seen more crazy stuff in the past ten years than at any
other time in my life.  Too many times, the tv news resembles a disaster movie,
with this vague, gnawing sense of forboding and deja vu.   

And finally, there's this persistent attitude I just can't comprehend.  Why did
teachers become the bad guys?  Why are we seen as the embodiment of our
culture's corruption?  Our pensions, salaries, and collective bargaining are
driving state governments into the ditch????  It just makes no sense to me. 
Logically, such claims are easy to discredit, but it's not the logic of the
argument that matters.  It's the persistence of belief and attitude, the
chicken-pecking principle.  Working class folks are feeling the squeeze, but
instead of turning their rage against their corporate masters, they turn against
their neighbors.  That's a weird one, not a new force, but definitely a
pronounced one.  I'm not sure how it's going to play out.  I guess a lot depends
on us and how well we fight this war of words and ideas. 


--Jerry 


Jerry Ross, Assistant Professor
Department of Communications and Humanities
Southwestern Illinois College
2700 Carlyle Avenue
Belleville, IL 62221
(618) 235-2700 Ext. 5415
http://fac.swic.edu/english/





________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Teachers are not the bad guys. *Unions* are the bad guys, and teachers are a
target as long as they are identified with unions. This is what I meant by
the fundamental division the libertarian vision is pushing: unions are
incontrovertibly bad to them. There *cannot possibly* be a good union in
libertarian thinking. That's the point I was trying to make, and there is no
logical counter for it, because any such logic relies on assumptions &
values that are antithetical to libertarians.

Paul

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 9:20 PM, liminal man <> wrote:

> That last bit about religion in Sean's message got me thinking. It is a
> move toward a different order of authority, one that scares many because it
> has dangerous precedence: absolute authority for absolute power. Lots of
> factors feed into debates this complex, of course, but I think we can put a
> rhetorical finger on Obama's 2004 speech at the Democratic
> convention: People in blue states worship an awesome God, and people in red
> states have friends who are gay. It's a transcendent move, the dialectic of
> the upper way, but also a brilliant move tactically and politically. If
> progressives/liberals just give up on God territory, then it's too easy for
> the dialectic of Godless liberals and God-fearing conservatives to be
> constructed, which kicks in all kinds of automatic assumptions and
> hierarchies of values.
>
> I can't help but think of this in terms of "winning" and "losing" (guess
> the Charlie Sheen meme, fortified with tiger's blood and Adonis DNA,
> is pretty powerful stuff). But if we progressive/liberals concede God, we
> lose the argument. Isn't that a lot of what Lakoff has been arguing the last
> decade or so? We liberals lose because we don't make the argument
> effectively. We allow conservatives to own the terms of the debate, so the
> battle is lost before it's even begun. So on Gay rights/marriage, if the
> debate is allowed to be framed between upright Christian values and decadent
> urban hedonism, then we lose. Civil Rights lose. It becomes another
> secular/religious debate. I remind my students constantly that this is a
> war within Christianity, that the gay marriage debate became a big deal
> because Christians were marrying gay people, because major mainstream faiths
> (Episcopals, Methodists) re-evaluated their positions on sin and
> homosexuality. This isn't the godless liberals vs. the good Christians, but
> arguments within the faith, over the meaning of faith and ethics.
>
> In short, "we" win when we work the dialectic better, when we make the
> better argument. Not red or blue but united. Not christian vs. secular but
> all of us struggling to live an ethical life. DADT is history, and so
> is DOMA. To the general question, maybe the tensions are more pronounced
> now because liberalism is "winning" in a way it hasn't since before Reagan.
> Maybe the tenor of the debate reflects a real and credible threat to
> the conservative regime's power. So the Koch brothers of the world are
> fighting more viciously than ever, because they see the writing on the
> wall. Their time is done.
>
> But that's too naive and optimistic. It's obviously more complicated.
> There's the influence of the "sheer brute materials of the world," for
> example. I don't remember a serious, vigorous debate in this country over
> nuclear power and safety since the late 1970s. Japan changed that. Major
> events and pressures, the arguments we can't answer, the ultimate realities
> of death, nature, and physics also shape this debate. I don't think it's
> just imagination, fear, or media saturation. I've seen more crazy stuff in
> the past ten years than at any other time in my life. Too many times, the
> tv news resembles a disaster movie, with this vague, gnawing sense of
> forboding and deja vu.
>
> And finally, there's this persistent attitude I just can't comprehend. Why
> did teachers become the bad guys? Why are we seen as the embodiment of our
> culture's corruption? Our pensions, salaries, and collective bargaining are
> driving state governments into the ditch???? It just makes no sense to me.
> Logically, such claims are easy to discredit, but it's not the logic of the
> argument that matters. It's the persistence of belief and attitude, the
> chicken-pecking principle. Working class folks are feeling the squeeze, but
> instead of turning their rage against their corporate masters, they turn
> against their neighbors. That's a weird one, not a new force, but
> definitely a pronounced one. I'm not sure how it's going to play out. I
> guess a lot depends on us and how well we fight this war of words and
> ideas.
>
> --Jerry
>
>
>
> Jerry Ross, Assistant Professor
> Department of Communications and Humanities
> Southwestern Illinois College
> 2700 Carlyle Avenue
> Belleville, IL 62221
> (618) 235-2700 Ext. 5415
>
> http://fac.swic.edu/english/
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Sean Zwagerman <>
> *To:*
> *Sent:* Thu, March 17, 2011 1:41:59 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [KB] Political Discourse in the US
>
> Here's an excerpt from something I've been writing about Ann Coulter which
> may (I hope) be of some interest:
>
> Burke distinguishes between the �dialectical� order of terms and the
> �ultimate� order. Dialectical terms are in the realm of action and idea and
> attitude. They are words for principles, essences, and titles: Romanticism,
> capitalism, and democracy are dialectical terms. The order is �dramatic:�
> political conflicts in this realm are negotiated through compromise among
> the �jangling relation� of �competing voices� (Rhetoric 187). In the
> ultimate order, we consider the terms to be in a hierarchical relationship
> or developmental series. �The �ultimate� order of terms would thus differ
> essentially from the �dialectical� . . . in that there would be a �guiding
> idea� or �unitary principle� behind the diversity of voices� (187). (Avital
> Ronell is getting at the same concept when she speaks of �transcendental
> inscriptions� [294]). This sense of hierarchy and development is expressed
> in the old remark that one who is not liberal when young has no heart, and
> one who does not become conservative with age has no brain: liberal and
> conservative are here not dialectical alternatives, but developmental
> stages. Within an ultimate vocabulary, �a somewhat formless parliamentary
> wrangle can . . . be creatively endowed with design, . . . [wherein] one
> kind of compromise is, in the long run, to be rated as superior to another�
> (188). This prospect might strike us as either visionary or nightmarish,
> depending upon what we take to be the �God-term� at the top of the sequence.
> For example, the project of the American far Right to establish synonymy
> between conservatism and Christianity is an effort to move the political
> wrangle from the dialectical realm into the ultimate: for if there is
> continuity, a hierarchic sequence, from the Constitution upward to the
> Bible, with Christianity as the �guiding idea� and the final Word, then the
> Constitution�s apparent establishment of discontinuity between church and
> state cannot possibly be as absolute as it seems to be.
>
> Sean Zwagerman
> Associate Professor
> Department of English
> Simon Fraser University
> Bunaby, BC V5A 1S6 Canada
>
> 778-782-4831
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Clarke Rountree <>
> To: Kb list <>
> Sent: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:13:37 -0700 (PDT)
> Subject: [KB] Political Discourse in the US
>
> Dear Burkelers--
>
> I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I
> have
> a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
> political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it
> is
> today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
> qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
> culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against
> Obama
> and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods
> of
> venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
> reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
> cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
> believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
> politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of
> middle-class
> incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
> and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days
> are
> behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
> undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
> the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
> cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
> (and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.
>
> What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
> form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Clarke
>
> --
> Dr. Clarke Rountree
> Professor of Communication Arts
> 342 Morton Hall
> University of Alabama in Huntsville
> Huntsville, AL 35899
> 256-824-6646
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. This is a short answer to Jerry's question about how (I think) teachers became vilified (and, not THE answer, of course): Teacher's represent two things repugnant to neo-cons, namely, "unchecked" union power (which is a joke) and unchecked liberal ideology (another joke, though this charge is usually leveled against the professoriate, something people too easily conflate with "education" in general). Together, neo-cons see this as a slide toward further socialism and would like nothing better than to bury all socialist institutions by replacing them with the market-forces privatization that, they naively feel, is the more self-corrective alternative. This includes police forces and fire departments, though they have certainly not been vilified the way teachers have, interestingly. While I think there are some problems with teacher's unions (the ease of achieving public school tenure and a lack of performance oversight promoted in the name of professional protectionism, e.g.), I also think it is a red herring and a simple scapegoating mechanism designed to take our attention away from the insanely complex problem that is public school education -- a system that is flawed on so many levels. For those who would damn teachers for social problems, though, it is an easy matter of the "think-of-the-children" trope that is so effective with the adults of this country. Teachers are, to such minds, universally selfish, underworked, overpaid, lazy, incompetent ideologues who think of themselves over the students they teach. An easy target.

Dave


***************************

David J. Tietge, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English
Director of First-Year Composition
Monmouth University

________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe.

Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646 Clarke,

I'm underqualified to respond to such a large historical question, but I'm also intrigued enough by your hypothesis to venture a response.

Maybe our public discourse is no less vitriolic than it has been at certain other periods in our history. (Hanging in effigy and tomato-throwing push the limits of vitriol, and civil war certainly goes beyond it.) But we feel its violence more keenly now because we live in an era that can no longer afford it (not much longer, anyway). Gone is an era when one can strike out into the wilderness in search of more "elbow room," or travel across vast territory to escape religious perspecution and found a new society. Our nation is more crowded and immediately interconnected at the same time as its ethnic and religious diversity continues to expand. We must begin to learn what the Japanese, living on a string of islands, learned long ago: the value of collectivism, the importance of protecting face, the art of consensus, etc. Moreover, the world as a whole needs to learn to promote the value of consensus for the common good. As we pollute the planet while stripping it of its resou!
rces, we can ill afford to focus our energies on squabbles rooted in past differences of opinion and conflicts.

Yet the problems of our planet are so overwhelming to contemplate, the sacrifices necessary to reverse its destruction so daunting, and the threats to our conflict-habituated identities so unnerving, it is easier and more reassuring to think of the world in the simple binaries of past eras. We distract ourselves with the spectacle of prize-fighting while our Titanic sinks. And hey, conflict SELLS. The market has proven itself as the greatest generator of prosperity (and relative poverty -- whoops!), and the market favors competition, fighting, win-lose scenarios. The "thrill of victory" and "agony of defeat" are much more entertaining than the work of negotiation and the art of consensus.

For those who try to take a larger view and give critical attention to the nature of the human barnyard in light of the needs of the whole biosphere, the frame is changed, and vitriol is more alarming than entertaining or energizing.

2 cents at best,
John


Dr. John B. Hatch
Dept. of Communication
University of Dubuque
2000 University Ave.
Dubuque, IA 52001

Fax: (563) 589-3243
>>> Clarke Rountree <> 03/17/11 11:16 AM >>>
Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646




_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Here's an excerpt from something I've been writing about Ann Coulter which may (I hope) be of some interest:

Burke distinguishes between the “dialectical” order of terms and the “ultimate” order. Dialectical terms are in the realm of action and idea and attitude. They are words for principles, essences, and titles: Romanticism, capitalism, and democracy are dialectical terms. The order is “dramatic:” political conflicts in this realm are negotiated through compromise among the “jangling relation” of “competing voices” (Rhetoric 187). In the ultimate order, we consider the terms to be in a hierarchical relationship or developmental series. “The ‘ultimate’ order of terms would thus differ essentially from the ‘dialectical’ . . . in that there would be a ‘guiding idea’ or ‘unitary principle’ behind the diversity of voices” (187). (Avital Ronell is getting at the same concept when she speaks of “transcendental inscriptions” [294]). This sense of hierarchy and development is expressed in the old remark that one who is not liberal when young has no heart, and one who does not become conservative with age has no brain: liberal and conservative are here not dialectical alternatives, but developmental stages. Within an ultimate vocabulary, “a somewhat formless parliamentary wrangle can . . . be creatively endowed with design, . . . [wherein] one kind of compromise is, in the long run, to be rated as superior to another” (188). This prospect might strike us as either visionary or nightmarish, depending upon what we take to be the “God-term” at the top of the sequence. For example, the project of the American far Right to establish synonymy between conservatism and Christianity is an effort to move the political wrangle from the dialectical realm into the ultimate: for if there is continuity, a hierarchic sequence, from the Constitution upward to the Bible, with Christianity as the “guiding idea” and the final Word, then the Constitution’s apparent establishment of discontinuity between church and state cannot possibly be as absolute as it seems to be.

Sean Zwagerman
Associate Professor
Department of English
Simon Fraser University
Bunaby, BC V5A 1S6 Canada

778-782-4831

----- Original Message -----
From: Clarke Rountree <>
To: Kb list <>
Sent: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:13:37 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [KB] Political Discourse in the US

Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646



_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Your question is one that I've puzzled about for some time. Both John and Sean have made some interesting points about how to orient toward the question. But it's a complex question because so many potential variables are in operation, such as issues of culture, moral codes, capitalism, competition, individualism, attitudes toward conflict, etc. Sean's point about the difference between dialectical and ultimate ordering of terms is relevant except when pushed to the point of noting the likelihood, as Derrida has suggested, that every dialectic really proceeds on underlying assumptions of a hierarchy of terms. Wherein also the participants in the "conversation" generally do not agree on the hierarchical arrangement. Politcal discourse has always trafficked in the most heated ways in the debate over values (or ends) rather than means. And in times of rapid change and exposure to diverse influences, as in the present information and global commerce era, reactions are often hot and defensive when these changes are seen to threaten traditional values and moral codes. In fact, perhaps nothing strikes at the core of human existence more than the question of the hierarchy of values. The abortion issue is a case in point.

At the risk of being perceived (perhaps correctly?) as a self-promoting putz, my most thorough and organized rumination on these weighty matters has been Chapter 15 in my book called "Our Faith in Evil"--titled "The Melodramatization of American Culture." Here I try to bring together the key threads of influence on current attitudes--threads such as those mentioned above (codes, capitalism, competition, attitudes toward conflict, etc.) in addition to the question of cultural differences between east and west mentioned by John in his recent post. This is probably more input than you would wish but I'll send you a file of the chapter. I think parts of it are highly relevant to your question and it might serve to provide one type of framework for approaching the question. And since it has section headings you can scan it for relevance (the pages are also numbered as per the book).

Best Regards,
Greg Clarke,
A short answer to your complicated question: The US has always had
contentiously divided politics, ad hominems galore, etc. What looks
different to me now is the reach of the media culture. What was once mainly
in pamphlets or party newspapers is now on television, radio, and the web,
and what was once considered too much for television or radio has now become
common fare (the Gary Hart episode was one of a number of watershed
moments). The political din is now considerable.

And "din" is a good word, I think, because it expresses the sense of so much
noise that thinking straight becomes difficult. Any number of C20 media
critics predicted problems with mass-mediated democracy, Habermas among
them. We certainly have a more established right-wing media than, say,
twenty years ago, and the internet has provided a volatile blogosphere. The
increase in political argument from all these different and conflicting
sources is much more apparent and easy to disseminate than ever before, and
the degree to which all mass media are driven by the imperatives of
spectacle to attract audiences itself has become part of the dynamic of
shocking political discourse.

Do I think it marks a drastic change in the degree of division we face? I'm
skeptical about that. Has it increased the publicity and the velocity of
public discourse? No question about it. I have become increasingly convinced
that the primary role media plays in elections lies in discouraging
political opponents and encouraging possible political allies -- the basic
need to get-out-the-vote. The political information that I continue to
search for in vain in stories about elections is -- who voted? and who
stayed home? The conflation of winning an election by getting 55% of a 55%
turnout with "the will of the people," for all that it is tiresome and
misleading, nevertheless encourages some people and discourages others --
not to mention election dirty tricks, registration challenges, and the like.


Given a dissonant media environment, where only a very few journalists and
commentators can rise above horse-race spectacle, the (by now) long-eroded
New Deal Democratic coalition v. Republicans has devolved into a de facto
three-party electorate, with a growing Independent 'center' that has come
more from Democrat ranks than Republican. Obama managed to capture enough of
the middle to get elected, but the economic disaster he inherited has now
'become' his -- which is to say, he's blamed for not fixing it (at best),
along with the Congressional Democrats, and so the so-called Blue Dog
Democratic districts swung back to the Republicans, whose libertarian wing
had become energized by Tea Party populism. They're not identical, mind, but
many libertarian-leaning conservatives jumped on the Tea Party energy and
are now in Congress.

This brings me back to the question of genuine, deeply seated differences in
world views. Libertarians have managed to get out in front of the Tea Party
to the extent they have because they offer what looks like a coherent and
reasoned analysis of the economic situation. They've cast themselves as a
sort of intelligentsia for the Tea Party, whose original impetus was a
resentful populism largely stemming from a fear of lost privileges. The
assumptions and beliefs that underlie the analyses of people like Rand Paul
are fundamentally different, however, root and branch, from the ideas of
economic interdependence and social safety net that motivated Democratic
strategies in the late C20. There is very little common ground now in
Congress on the most fundamental economic understandings. That constitutes a
fundamental division that, I believe, accounts for a great deal of the
vitriol. I stress "fundamental" because the division is not easily amenable
to 'the force of the better argument,' to use Habermas's phrase. The
assumptions are too different for much of anything resembling rational
argument to take place, at least so far. Practically speaking, that's partly
because the insurgent libertarians have not had to actually offer plans of
their own so far. That advantage will erode as time passes.

Well, this is hardly a short answer any more, but to conclude, I think we
are not anywhere near being out of the woods yet, economically, and the
condition of the economy will continue to drive politics, and the level of
political vitriol will continue and probably increase. Its primary effect,
as I see it, is to inflate and deflate, respectively, the energy of friends
and opponents. I do think the libertarian victories, which are by thin
margins in a depressed electorate, are largely the consequence of
discouragement among Progressives, Democrats, and Democratic-leaning
Independents. To say so is to argue the opposite case from Karl Rove's
'America is a center-right nation', but it may be that we are simply too
divided on too many issues to have a coherent governing majority any more.
And, to end on a provocative note, I do think that the thorny problem of
American Individualism (caps intended) emerges on the left in a refusal on
grounds of conscience to vote pragmatically -- i.e., to stay home or to vote
for third parties.

Gee, Clark, I think you touched a nerve...

Paul


On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 9:13 AM, Clarke Rountree <> wrote:

> Dear Burkelers--
>
> I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I
> have a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief
> that political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than
> it is today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been
> a qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
> culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
> and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
> venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
> reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
> cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
> believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
> politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
> incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
> and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
> behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
> undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
> the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
> cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
> (and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.
>
> What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
> form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Clarke
>
> --
> Dr. Clarke Rountree
> Professor of Communication Arts
> 342 Morton Hall
> University of Alabama in Huntsville
> Huntsville, AL 35899
> <256-824-6646> <256-824-6646>256-824-6646
>
>
> _______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Clarke, a few thoughts--

I'd question your "perhaps never." Having lived though the Vietnam
era, for example, I'd say that that era was worse. The battles
surrounding Clinton over the years indicate how people who came of age
during that era are likely to keep fighting until they die.

What makes things seem especially bad now, I think, is the ineptness
of the Democratic Party. The Democrats pass a health care law based
mainly on Republican ideas, then the Republicans convince a lot of
voters that the law is a socialist plot. Right now, the Democrats are
once again letting the Republicans control the agenda with all the
hysteria over the deficit. That plays right into the Republican
strategy to use the budget to attack SS, Medicare, etc. Why can't the
Democrats control the public agenda?

Rather than trying to decide whether our era is the worst ever, it
might be better to analyze, from a rhetorical standpoint, why the
Democratic Party has become so rhetorically inept.

You mention race. That is part of the story but it is old news. People
tend to forget that in 1980, afer getting nominated, Reagan made his
first speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, precisely where Cheney,
Schwerner, Goodman were murdered. TALK ABOUT A SIGNAL! Here, the
Republicans exploit a "rhetorical situation" wherein they win by nods
and winks. Reagan could say he was for "states rights" knowing the
voters he wanted to reach would hear what he really meant.

Another problem is that the Democrats keep conceding the premises of
the Republican argument, leaving themselves without a leg to stand on.
The classic is Clinton's "the era of big government is over." They
have done the same thing over the deficit. Obama currently seems to be
doing it again over the issue of unions for government workers.

I'd recast your points along similar lines.

That is what initially comes to mind for me.

Good luck with your project.

Bob


Quoting Clarke Rountree <>:

> Dear Burkelers--
>
> I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
> a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
> political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
> today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
> qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
> culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
> and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
> venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
> reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
> cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
> believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
> politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
> incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
> and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
> behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
> undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
> the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
> cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
> (and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.
>
> What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
> form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Clarke
>
> --
> Dr. Clarke Rountree
> Professor of Communication Arts
> 342 Morton Hall
> University of Alabama in Huntsville
> Huntsville, AL 35899
> 256-824-6646
>
>





_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. That last bit about religion in Sean's message got me thinking.  It is a move
toward a different order of authority, one that scares many because it has
dangerous precedence:  absolute authority for absolute power.  Lots of factors
feed into debates this complex, of course, but I think we can put a rhetorical
finger on Obama's 2004 speech at the Democratic convention:  People in blue
states worship an awesome God, and people in red states have friends who are
gay.  It's a transcendent move, the dialectic of the upper way, but also a
brilliant move tactically and politically.  If progressives/liberals just give
up on God territory, then it's too easy for the dialectic of Godless liberals
and God-fearing conservatives to be constructed, which kicks in all kinds of
automatic assumptions and hierarchies of values. 


I can't help but think of this in terms of "winning" and "losing" (guess the
Charlie Sheen meme, fortified with tiger's blood and Adonis DNA, is pretty
powerful stuff).  But if we progressive/liberals concede God, we lose the
argument. Isn't that a lot of what Lakoff has been arguing the last decade or
so?  We liberals lose because we don't make the argument effectively.  We
allow conservatives to own the terms of the debate, so the battle is lost before
it's even begun.   So on Gay rights/marriage, if the debate is allowed to be
framed between upright Christian values and decadent urban hedonism, then we
lose.  Civil Rights lose.  It becomes another secular/religious debate.  I
remind my students constantly that this is a war within Christianity, that the
gay marriage debate became a big deal because Christians were marrying gay
people, because major mainstream faiths (Episcopals, Methodists) re-evaluated
their positions on sin and homosexuality.  This isn't the godless liberals vs.
the good Christians, but arguments within the faith, over the meaning of faith
and ethics. 


In short, "we" win when we work the dialectic better, when we make the better
argument.  Not red or blue but united.  Not christian vs. secular but all of us
struggling to live an ethical life.  DADT is history, and so is DOMA.  To the
general question, maybe the tensions are more pronounced now because liberalism
is "winning" in a way it hasn't since before Reagan.  Maybe the tenor of the
debate reflects a real and credible threat to the conservative regime's power. 
So the Koch brothers of the world are fighting more viciously than ever, because
they see the writing on the wall.  Their time is done.   


But that's too naive and optimistic.  It's obviously more complicated.  There's
the influence of the "sheer brute materials of the world," for example.  I don't
remember a serious, vigorous debate in this country over nuclear power and
safety since the late 1970s.  Japan changed that.  Major events and pressures,
the arguments we can't answer, the ultimate realities of death, nature, and
physics also shape this debate.  I don't think it's just imagination, fear, or
media saturation.  I've seen more crazy stuff in the past ten years than at any
other time in my life.  Too many times, the tv news resembles a disaster movie,
with this vague, gnawing sense of forboding and deja vu.   

And finally, there's this persistent attitude I just can't comprehend.  Why did
teachers become the bad guys?  Why are we seen as the embodiment of our
culture's corruption?  Our pensions, salaries, and collective bargaining are
driving state governments into the ditch????  It just makes no sense to me. 
Logically, such claims are easy to discredit, but it's not the logic of the
argument that matters.  It's the persistence of belief and attitude, the
chicken-pecking principle.  Working class folks are feeling the squeeze, but
instead of turning their rage against their corporate masters, they turn against
their neighbors.  That's a weird one, not a new force, but definitely a
pronounced one.  I'm not sure how it's going to play out.  I guess a lot depends
on us and how well we fight this war of words and ideas. 


--Jerry 


Jerry Ross, Assistant Professor
Department of Communications and Humanities
Southwestern Illinois College
2700 Carlyle Avenue
Belleville, IL 62221
(618) 235-2700 Ext. 5415
http://fac.swic.edu/english/





________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Teachers are not the bad guys. *Unions* are the bad guys, and teachers are a
target as long as they are identified with unions. This is what I meant by
the fundamental division the libertarian vision is pushing: unions are
incontrovertibly bad to them. There *cannot possibly* be a good union in
libertarian thinking. That's the point I was trying to make, and there is no
logical counter for it, because any such logic relies on assumptions &
values that are antithetical to libertarians.

Paul

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 9:20 PM, liminal man <> wrote:

> That last bit about religion in Sean's message got me thinking. It is a
> move toward a different order of authority, one that scares many because it
> has dangerous precedence: absolute authority for absolute power. Lots of
> factors feed into debates this complex, of course, but I think we can put a
> rhetorical finger on Obama's 2004 speech at the Democratic
> convention: People in blue states worship an awesome God, and people in red
> states have friends who are gay. It's a transcendent move, the dialectic of
> the upper way, but also a brilliant move tactically and politically. If
> progressives/liberals just give up on God territory, then it's too easy for
> the dialectic of Godless liberals and God-fearing conservatives to be
> constructed, which kicks in all kinds of automatic assumptions and
> hierarchies of values.
>
> I can't help but think of this in terms of "winning" and "losing" (guess
> the Charlie Sheen meme, fortified with tiger's blood and Adonis DNA,
> is pretty powerful stuff). But if we progressive/liberals concede God, we
> lose the argument. Isn't that a lot of what Lakoff has been arguing the last
> decade or so? We liberals lose because we don't make the argument
> effectively. We allow conservatives to own the terms of the debate, so the
> battle is lost before it's even begun. So on Gay rights/marriage, if the
> debate is allowed to be framed between upright Christian values and decadent
> urban hedonism, then we lose. Civil Rights lose. It becomes another
> secular/religious debate. I remind my students constantly that this is a
> war within Christianity, that the gay marriage debate became a big deal
> because Christians were marrying gay people, because major mainstream faiths
> (Episcopals, Methodists) re-evaluated their positions on sin and
> homosexuality. This isn't the godless liberals vs. the good Christians, but
> arguments within the faith, over the meaning of faith and ethics.
>
> In short, "we" win when we work the dialectic better, when we make the
> better argument. Not red or blue but united. Not christian vs. secular but
> all of us struggling to live an ethical life. DADT is history, and so
> is DOMA. To the general question, maybe the tensions are more pronounced
> now because liberalism is "winning" in a way it hasn't since before Reagan.
> Maybe the tenor of the debate reflects a real and credible threat to
> the conservative regime's power. So the Koch brothers of the world are
> fighting more viciously than ever, because they see the writing on the
> wall. Their time is done.
>
> But that's too naive and optimistic. It's obviously more complicated.
> There's the influence of the "sheer brute materials of the world," for
> example. I don't remember a serious, vigorous debate in this country over
> nuclear power and safety since the late 1970s. Japan changed that. Major
> events and pressures, the arguments we can't answer, the ultimate realities
> of death, nature, and physics also shape this debate. I don't think it's
> just imagination, fear, or media saturation. I've seen more crazy stuff in
> the past ten years than at any other time in my life. Too many times, the
> tv news resembles a disaster movie, with this vague, gnawing sense of
> forboding and deja vu.
>
> And finally, there's this persistent attitude I just can't comprehend. Why
> did teachers become the bad guys? Why are we seen as the embodiment of our
> culture's corruption? Our pensions, salaries, and collective bargaining are
> driving state governments into the ditch???? It just makes no sense to me.
> Logically, such claims are easy to discredit, but it's not the logic of the
> argument that matters. It's the persistence of belief and attitude, the
> chicken-pecking principle. Working class folks are feeling the squeeze, but
> instead of turning their rage against their corporate masters, they turn
> against their neighbors. That's a weird one, not a new force, but
> definitely a pronounced one. I'm not sure how it's going to play out. I
> guess a lot depends on us and how well we fight this war of words and
> ideas.
>
> --Jerry
>
>
>
> Jerry Ross, Assistant Professor
> Department of Communications and Humanities
> Southwestern Illinois College
> 2700 Carlyle Avenue
> Belleville, IL 62221
> (618) 235-2700 Ext. 5415
>
> http://fac.swic.edu/english/
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Sean Zwagerman <>
> *To:*
> *Sent:* Thu, March 17, 2011 1:41:59 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [KB] Political Discourse in the US
>
> Here's an excerpt from something I've been writing about Ann Coulter which
> may (I hope) be of some interest:
>
> Burke distinguishes between the �dialectical� order of terms and the
> �ultimate� order. Dialectical terms are in the realm of action and idea and
> attitude. They are words for principles, essences, and titles: Romanticism,
> capitalism, and democracy are dialectical terms. The order is �dramatic:�
> political conflicts in this realm are negotiated through compromise among
> the �jangling relation� of �competing voices� (Rhetoric 187). In the
> ultimate order, we consider the terms to be in a hierarchical relationship
> or developmental series. �The �ultimate� order of terms would thus differ
> essentially from the �dialectical� . . . in that there would be a �guiding
> idea� or �unitary principle� behind the diversity of voices� (187). (Avital
> Ronell is getting at the same concept when she speaks of �transcendental
> inscriptions� [294]). This sense of hierarchy and development is expressed
> in the old remark that one who is not liberal when young has no heart, and
> one who does not become conservative with age has no brain: liberal and
> conservative are here not dialectical alternatives, but developmental
> stages. Within an ultimate vocabulary, �a somewhat formless parliamentary
> wrangle can . . . be creatively endowed with design, . . . [wherein] one
> kind of compromise is, in the long run, to be rated as superior to another�
> (188). This prospect might strike us as either visionary or nightmarish,
> depending upon what we take to be the �God-term� at the top of the sequence.
> For example, the project of the American far Right to establish synonymy
> between conservatism and Christianity is an effort to move the political
> wrangle from the dialectical realm into the ultimate: for if there is
> continuity, a hierarchic sequence, from the Constitution upward to the
> Bible, with Christianity as the �guiding idea� and the final Word, then the
> Constitution�s apparent establishment of discontinuity between church and
> state cannot possibly be as absolute as it seems to be.
>
> Sean Zwagerman
> Associate Professor
> Department of English
> Simon Fraser University
> Bunaby, BC V5A 1S6 Canada
>
> 778-782-4831
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Clarke Rountree <>
> To: Kb list <>
> Sent: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:13:37 -0700 (PDT)
> Subject: [KB] Political Discourse in the US
>
> Dear Burkelers--
>
> I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I
> have
> a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
> political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it
> is
> today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
> qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
> culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against
> Obama
> and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods
> of
> venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
> reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
> cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
> believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
> politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of
> middle-class
> incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
> and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days
> are
> behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
> undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
> the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
> cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
> (and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.
>
> What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
> form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Clarke
>
> --
> Dr. Clarke Rountree
> Professor of Communication Arts
> 342 Morton Hall
> University of Alabama in Huntsville
> Huntsville, AL 35899
> 256-824-6646
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. This is a short answer to Jerry's question about how (I think) teachers became vilified (and, not THE answer, of course): Teacher's represent two things repugnant to neo-cons, namely, "unchecked" union power (which is a joke) and unchecked liberal ideology (another joke, though this charge is usually leveled against the professoriate, something people too easily conflate with "education" in general). Together, neo-cons see this as a slide toward further socialism and would like nothing better than to bury all socialist institutions by replacing them with the market-forces privatization that, they naively feel, is the more self-corrective alternative. This includes police forces and fire departments, though they have certainly not been vilified the way teachers have, interestingly. While I think there are some problems with teacher's unions (the ease of achieving public school tenure and a lack of performance oversight promoted in the name of professional protectionism, e.g.), I also think it is a red herring and a simple scapegoating mechanism designed to take our attention away from the insanely complex problem that is public school education -- a system that is flawed on so many levels. For those who would damn teachers for social problems, though, it is an easy matter of the "think-of-the-children" trope that is so effective with the adults of this country. Teachers are, to such minds, universally selfish, underworked, overpaid, lazy, incompetent ideologues who think of themselves over the students they teach. An easy target.

Dave


***************************

David J. Tietge, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English
Director of First-Year Composition
Monmouth University

________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Yes, Professor Rountree has started something, but it�s been fun reading these posts.

I�d have to agree with Prof. Hatch that the vitriol isn�t unique to this era; in fact, it�s likely been far worse. I would also agree with Prof. Turpin�s indication that we should probably look to institutional structures, especially those of the New Media, to analyze the state of political discourse (�mass-mediated democracy�).

Prof. Hatch also mentions the matter of space which leads me, and probably others, to consider public/private concerns. Paul Turpin also mentioned the significance of this hyper-capitalized institution (the media) whose political power reaches, by its nature, beyond anything a commercial organization has ever attempted to attain. The purpose of a media organization is no longer the production of a commodity. It is the public mask of a union of powerful corporate actors with similar goals.

Behind the mask, these industrial groups are generally referred to as �associations,� and they lobby for political favors, scheme around regulations, collude to help their members out in any way they can, etc. Many are international in scope and their loyalty is to their member corporations. They pay fees just like union members, but their power is far greater and gaining. The very activities corporations by nature involve themselves in are precisely the activities of which they wish to deprive the people, and especially their workers. While they act in concert, they keep individuals acting independently, or alone. The best way to maintain division is by preying on the most basic emotion (of the loner), resentment.

For example, Jerry�s posts re: Teacher Hate; these emotions aren�t new to the people. Not long ago, we were told that auto workers made huge sums and were lounging in the lap of luxury. The scapegoating relies on the biggest lever of motivation in the USA: resentment. It�s easy to pit prole against prole using this fabulously effective tool.

So, while Prof. Turpin already suggested the importance of considering this new media structure, I might have to disagree to an extent with his skepticism about this indicating some �drastic change in the degree of division we face.� Above, I noted that the vituperative nature of our discourse is nothing new, but it could have a different effect on many of our New Proles. Besides, government, the only remaining foil to corporate whim and power, is utterly entwined with and dependent on that corporate power. It could mean the rebirth of unions or other organizations, or it could mean an era of complete domination.

I think that the division may be considered, if not drastic, then qualitatively different from that which came before it. The differences are also often associated with the current changes in wealth distribution (apparently that gap is as radical as that in the late nineteenth century).

I like Turpin�s categories and find them useful, but as we are now told that there is no working class (we only hear about the middle class in the media) our new reactionary proles may be a throw-back to an earlier time, or at least possibly grotesques of a Roman version. If the New Media made this regression possible, then it�s an excellent area to investigate, as Prof. Turpin�s contribution implies.

The effectiveness of scapegoating through incitement is brought about much more effectively now than ever before through the �free speech� of massive communication corporations. I think we can mostly agree that the difference in this institution is qualitative, as the printing press must have been shortly before the Reformation.

Prof Zwagerman�s comments re: transforming the dialectical into the ultimate appears accurate, but it�s one side (of possibly a two-sided entity). People can be motivated by enlisting them into �greater enterprises� that are beyond themselves, preferably otherworldy. (Thus the popularity of the apocalyptical beliefs and identification with US military power (a vicarious pleasure for most).)

However, the same masses can be motivated, simultaneously, by both resentment (hatred) and their superiority to others (the identification with the God figure and role as punishers). They can be part of the beyond, and of course, on the side of Good in their fight against Evil (healthcare, socialism, cultural liberalism, etc.). The righteous indignation associated with the latter meshes well with their underlying motivation: resentment. Does the purpose have to be recaptured by Democrats, as Jerry suggests, or do they have to find a way to redirect feelings of resentment, or both? It seems that unions attempted to play the game by "supporting" sympathetic candidates. They can't buy enough sympathy, so why even try.




_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe.

Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646 Clarke,

I'm underqualified to respond to such a large historical question, but I'm also intrigued enough by your hypothesis to venture a response.

Maybe our public discourse is no less vitriolic than it has been at certain other periods in our history. (Hanging in effigy and tomato-throwing push the limits of vitriol, and civil war certainly goes beyond it.) But we feel its violence more keenly now because we live in an era that can no longer afford it (not much longer, anyway). Gone is an era when one can strike out into the wilderness in search of more "elbow room," or travel across vast territory to escape religious perspecution and found a new society. Our nation is more crowded and immediately interconnected at the same time as its ethnic and religious diversity continues to expand. We must begin to learn what the Japanese, living on a string of islands, learned long ago: the value of collectivism, the importance of protecting face, the art of consensus, etc. Moreover, the world as a whole needs to learn to promote the value of consensus for the common good. As we pollute the planet while stripping it of its resou!
rces, we can ill afford to focus our energies on squabbles rooted in past differences of opinion and conflicts.

Yet the problems of our planet are so overwhelming to contemplate, the sacrifices necessary to reverse its destruction so daunting, and the threats to our conflict-habituated identities so unnerving, it is easier and more reassuring to think of the world in the simple binaries of past eras. We distract ourselves with the spectacle of prize-fighting while our Titanic sinks. And hey, conflict SELLS. The market has proven itself as the greatest generator of prosperity (and relative poverty -- whoops!), and the market favors competition, fighting, win-lose scenarios. The "thrill of victory" and "agony of defeat" are much more entertaining than the work of negotiation and the art of consensus.

For those who try to take a larger view and give critical attention to the nature of the human barnyard in light of the needs of the whole biosphere, the frame is changed, and vitriol is more alarming than entertaining or energizing.

2 cents at best,
John


Dr. John B. Hatch
Dept. of Communication
University of Dubuque
2000 University Ave.
Dubuque, IA 52001

Fax: (563) 589-3243
>>> Clarke Rountree <> 03/17/11 11:16 AM >>>
Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646




_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Here's an excerpt from something I've been writing about Ann Coulter which may (I hope) be of some interest:

Burke distinguishes between the “dialectical” order of terms and the “ultimate” order. Dialectical terms are in the realm of action and idea and attitude. They are words for principles, essences, and titles: Romanticism, capitalism, and democracy are dialectical terms. The order is “dramatic:” political conflicts in this realm are negotiated through compromise among the “jangling relation” of “competing voices” (Rhetoric 187). In the ultimate order, we consider the terms to be in a hierarchical relationship or developmental series. “The ‘ultimate’ order of terms would thus differ essentially from the ‘dialectical’ . . . in that there would be a ‘guiding idea’ or ‘unitary principle’ behind the diversity of voices” (187). (Avital Ronell is getting at the same concept when she speaks of “transcendental inscriptions” [294]). This sense of hierarchy and development is expressed in the old remark that one who is not liberal when young has no heart, and one who does not become conservative with age has no brain: liberal and conservative are here not dialectical alternatives, but developmental stages. Within an ultimate vocabulary, “a somewhat formless parliamentary wrangle can . . . be creatively endowed with design, . . . [wherein] one kind of compromise is, in the long run, to be rated as superior to another” (188). This prospect might strike us as either visionary or nightmarish, depending upon what we take to be the “God-term” at the top of the sequence. For example, the project of the American far Right to establish synonymy between conservatism and Christianity is an effort to move the political wrangle from the dialectical realm into the ultimate: for if there is continuity, a hierarchic sequence, from the Constitution upward to the Bible, with Christianity as the “guiding idea” and the final Word, then the Constitution’s apparent establishment of discontinuity between church and state cannot possibly be as absolute as it seems to be.

Sean Zwagerman
Associate Professor
Department of English
Simon Fraser University
Bunaby, BC V5A 1S6 Canada

778-782-4831

----- Original Message -----
From: Clarke Rountree <>
To: Kb list <>
Sent: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:13:37 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [KB] Political Discourse in the US

Dear Burkelers--

I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
(and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.

What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.

Cheers,

Clarke

--
Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
342 Morton Hall
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL 35899
256-824-6646



_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Your question is one that I've puzzled about for some time. Both John and Sean have made some interesting points about how to orient toward the question. But it's a complex question because so many potential variables are in operation, such as issues of culture, moral codes, capitalism, competition, individualism, attitudes toward conflict, etc. Sean's point about the difference between dialectical and ultimate ordering of terms is relevant except when pushed to the point of noting the likelihood, as Derrida has suggested, that every dialectic really proceeds on underlying assumptions of a hierarchy of terms. Wherein also the participants in the "conversation" generally do not agree on the hierarchical arrangement. Politcal discourse has always trafficked in the most heated ways in the debate over values (or ends) rather than means. And in times of rapid change and exposure to diverse influences, as in the present information and global commerce era, reactions are often hot and defensive when these changes are seen to threaten traditional values and moral codes. In fact, perhaps nothing strikes at the core of human existence more than the question of the hierarchy of values. The abortion issue is a case in point.

At the risk of being perceived (perhaps correctly?) as a self-promoting putz, my most thorough and organized rumination on these weighty matters has been Chapter 15 in my book called "Our Faith in Evil"--titled "The Melodramatization of American Culture." Here I try to bring together the key threads of influence on current attitudes--threads such as those mentioned above (codes, capitalism, competition, attitudes toward conflict, etc.) in addition to the question of cultural differences between east and west mentioned by John in his recent post. This is probably more input than you would wish but I'll send you a file of the chapter. I think parts of it are highly relevant to your question and it might serve to provide one type of framework for approaching the question. And since it has section headings you can scan it for relevance (the pages are also numbered as per the book).

Best Regards,
Greg Clarke,
A short answer to your complicated question: The US has always had
contentiously divided politics, ad hominems galore, etc. What looks
different to me now is the reach of the media culture. What was once mainly
in pamphlets or party newspapers is now on television, radio, and the web,
and what was once considered too much for television or radio has now become
common fare (the Gary Hart episode was one of a number of watershed
moments). The political din is now considerable.

And "din" is a good word, I think, because it expresses the sense of so much
noise that thinking straight becomes difficult. Any number of C20 media
critics predicted problems with mass-mediated democracy, Habermas among
them. We certainly have a more established right-wing media than, say,
twenty years ago, and the internet has provided a volatile blogosphere. The
increase in political argument from all these different and conflicting
sources is much more apparent and easy to disseminate than ever before, and
the degree to which all mass media are driven by the imperatives of
spectacle to attract audiences itself has become part of the dynamic of
shocking political discourse.

Do I think it marks a drastic change in the degree of division we face? I'm
skeptical about that. Has it increased the publicity and the velocity of
public discourse? No question about it. I have become increasingly convinced
that the primary role media plays in elections lies in discouraging
political opponents and encouraging possible political allies -- the basic
need to get-out-the-vote. The political information that I continue to
search for in vain in stories about elections is -- who voted? and who
stayed home? The conflation of winning an election by getting 55% of a 55%
turnout with "the will of the people," for all that it is tiresome and
misleading, nevertheless encourages some people and discourages others --
not to mention election dirty tricks, registration challenges, and the like.


Given a dissonant media environment, where only a very few journalists and
commentators can rise above horse-race spectacle, the (by now) long-eroded
New Deal Democratic coalition v. Republicans has devolved into a de facto
three-party electorate, with a growing Independent 'center' that has come
more from Democrat ranks than Republican. Obama managed to capture enough of
the middle to get elected, but the economic disaster he inherited has now
'become' his -- which is to say, he's blamed for not fixing it (at best),
along with the Congressional Democrats, and so the so-called Blue Dog
Democratic districts swung back to the Republicans, whose libertarian wing
had become energized by Tea Party populism. They're not identical, mind, but
many libertarian-leaning conservatives jumped on the Tea Party energy and
are now in Congress.

This brings me back to the question of genuine, deeply seated differences in
world views. Libertarians have managed to get out in front of the Tea Party
to the extent they have because they offer what looks like a coherent and
reasoned analysis of the economic situation. They've cast themselves as a
sort of intelligentsia for the Tea Party, whose original impetus was a
resentful populism largely stemming from a fear of lost privileges. The
assumptions and beliefs that underlie the analyses of people like Rand Paul
are fundamentally different, however, root and branch, from the ideas of
economic interdependence and social safety net that motivated Democratic
strategies in the late C20. There is very little common ground now in
Congress on the most fundamental economic understandings. That constitutes a
fundamental division that, I believe, accounts for a great deal of the
vitriol. I stress "fundamental" because the division is not easily amenable
to 'the force of the better argument,' to use Habermas's phrase. The
assumptions are too different for much of anything resembling rational
argument to take place, at least so far. Practically speaking, that's partly
because the insurgent libertarians have not had to actually offer plans of
their own so far. That advantage will erode as time passes.

Well, this is hardly a short answer any more, but to conclude, I think we
are not anywhere near being out of the woods yet, economically, and the
condition of the economy will continue to drive politics, and the level of
political vitriol will continue and probably increase. Its primary effect,
as I see it, is to inflate and deflate, respectively, the energy of friends
and opponents. I do think the libertarian victories, which are by thin
margins in a depressed electorate, are largely the consequence of
discouragement among Progressives, Democrats, and Democratic-leaning
Independents. To say so is to argue the opposite case from Karl Rove's
'America is a center-right nation', but it may be that we are simply too
divided on too many issues to have a coherent governing majority any more.
And, to end on a provocative note, I do think that the thorny problem of
American Individualism (caps intended) emerges on the left in a refusal on
grounds of conscience to vote pragmatically -- i.e., to stay home or to vote
for third parties.

Gee, Clark, I think you touched a nerve...

Paul


On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 9:13 AM, Clarke Rountree <> wrote:

> Dear Burkelers--
>
> I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I
> have a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief
> that political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than
> it is today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been
> a qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
> culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
> and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
> venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
> reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
> cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
> believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
> politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
> incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
> and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
> behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
> undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
> the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
> cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
> (and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.
>
> What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
> form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Clarke
>
> --
> Dr. Clarke Rountree
> Professor of Communication Arts
> 342 Morton Hall
> University of Alabama in Huntsville
> Huntsville, AL 35899
> <256-824-6646> <256-824-6646>256-824-6646
>
>
> _______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Clarke, a few thoughts--

I'd question your "perhaps never." Having lived though the Vietnam
era, for example, I'd say that that era was worse. The battles
surrounding Clinton over the years indicate how people who came of age
during that era are likely to keep fighting until they die.

What makes things seem especially bad now, I think, is the ineptness
of the Democratic Party. The Democrats pass a health care law based
mainly on Republican ideas, then the Republicans convince a lot of
voters that the law is a socialist plot. Right now, the Democrats are
once again letting the Republicans control the agenda with all the
hysteria over the deficit. That plays right into the Republican
strategy to use the budget to attack SS, Medicare, etc. Why can't the
Democrats control the public agenda?

Rather than trying to decide whether our era is the worst ever, it
might be better to analyze, from a rhetorical standpoint, why the
Democratic Party has become so rhetorically inept.

You mention race. That is part of the story but it is old news. People
tend to forget that in 1980, afer getting nominated, Reagan made his
first speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, precisely where Cheney,
Schwerner, Goodman were murdered. TALK ABOUT A SIGNAL! Here, the
Republicans exploit a "rhetorical situation" wherein they win by nods
and winks. Reagan could say he was for "states rights" knowing the
voters he wanted to reach would hear what he really meant.

Another problem is that the Democrats keep conceding the premises of
the Republican argument, leaving themselves without a leg to stand on.
The classic is Clinton's "the era of big government is over." They
have done the same thing over the deficit. Obama currently seems to be
doing it again over the issue of unions for government workers.

I'd recast your points along similar lines.

That is what initially comes to mind for me.

Good luck with your project.

Bob


Quoting Clarke Rountree <>:

> Dear Burkelers--
>
> I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I have
> a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
> political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it is
> today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
> qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
> culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against Obama
> and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods of
> venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
> reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
> cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
> believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
> politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of middle-class
> incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
> and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days are
> behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
> undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
> the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
> cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
> (and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.
>
> What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
> form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Clarke
>
> --
> Dr. Clarke Rountree
> Professor of Communication Arts
> 342 Morton Hall
> University of Alabama in Huntsville
> Huntsville, AL 35899
> 256-824-6646
>
>





_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. That last bit about religion in Sean's message got me thinking.  It is a move
toward a different order of authority, one that scares many because it has
dangerous precedence:  absolute authority for absolute power.  Lots of factors
feed into debates this complex, of course, but I think we can put a rhetorical
finger on Obama's 2004 speech at the Democratic convention:  People in blue
states worship an awesome God, and people in red states have friends who are
gay.  It's a transcendent move, the dialectic of the upper way, but also a
brilliant move tactically and politically.  If progressives/liberals just give
up on God territory, then it's too easy for the dialectic of Godless liberals
and God-fearing conservatives to be constructed, which kicks in all kinds of
automatic assumptions and hierarchies of values. 


I can't help but think of this in terms of "winning" and "losing" (guess the
Charlie Sheen meme, fortified with tiger's blood and Adonis DNA, is pretty
powerful stuff).  But if we progressive/liberals concede God, we lose the
argument. Isn't that a lot of what Lakoff has been arguing the last decade or
so?  We liberals lose because we don't make the argument effectively.  We
allow conservatives to own the terms of the debate, so the battle is lost before
it's even begun.   So on Gay rights/marriage, if the debate is allowed to be
framed between upright Christian values and decadent urban hedonism, then we
lose.  Civil Rights lose.  It becomes another secular/religious debate.  I
remind my students constantly that this is a war within Christianity, that the
gay marriage debate became a big deal because Christians were marrying gay
people, because major mainstream faiths (Episcopals, Methodists) re-evaluated
their positions on sin and homosexuality.  This isn't the godless liberals vs.
the good Christians, but arguments within the faith, over the meaning of faith
and ethics. 


In short, "we" win when we work the dialectic better, when we make the better
argument.  Not red or blue but united.  Not christian vs. secular but all of us
struggling to live an ethical life.  DADT is history, and so is DOMA.  To the
general question, maybe the tensions are more pronounced now because liberalism
is "winning" in a way it hasn't since before Reagan.  Maybe the tenor of the
debate reflects a real and credible threat to the conservative regime's power. 
So the Koch brothers of the world are fighting more viciously than ever, because
they see the writing on the wall.  Their time is done.   


But that's too naive and optimistic.  It's obviously more complicated.  There's
the influence of the "sheer brute materials of the world," for example.  I don't
remember a serious, vigorous debate in this country over nuclear power and
safety since the late 1970s.  Japan changed that.  Major events and pressures,
the arguments we can't answer, the ultimate realities of death, nature, and
physics also shape this debate.  I don't think it's just imagination, fear, or
media saturation.  I've seen more crazy stuff in the past ten years than at any
other time in my life.  Too many times, the tv news resembles a disaster movie,
with this vague, gnawing sense of forboding and deja vu.   

And finally, there's this persistent attitude I just can't comprehend.  Why did
teachers become the bad guys?  Why are we seen as the embodiment of our
culture's corruption?  Our pensions, salaries, and collective bargaining are
driving state governments into the ditch????  It just makes no sense to me. 
Logically, such claims are easy to discredit, but it's not the logic of the
argument that matters.  It's the persistence of belief and attitude, the
chicken-pecking principle.  Working class folks are feeling the squeeze, but
instead of turning their rage against their corporate masters, they turn against
their neighbors.  That's a weird one, not a new force, but definitely a
pronounced one.  I'm not sure how it's going to play out.  I guess a lot depends
on us and how well we fight this war of words and ideas. 


--Jerry 


Jerry Ross, Assistant Professor
Department of Communications and Humanities
Southwestern Illinois College
2700 Carlyle Avenue
Belleville, IL 62221
(618) 235-2700 Ext. 5415
http://fac.swic.edu/english/





________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Teachers are not the bad guys. *Unions* are the bad guys, and teachers are a
target as long as they are identified with unions. This is what I meant by
the fundamental division the libertarian vision is pushing: unions are
incontrovertibly bad to them. There *cannot possibly* be a good union in
libertarian thinking. That's the point I was trying to make, and there is no
logical counter for it, because any such logic relies on assumptions &
values that are antithetical to libertarians.

Paul

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 9:20 PM, liminal man <> wrote:

> That last bit about religion in Sean's message got me thinking. It is a
> move toward a different order of authority, one that scares many because it
> has dangerous precedence: absolute authority for absolute power. Lots of
> factors feed into debates this complex, of course, but I think we can put a
> rhetorical finger on Obama's 2004 speech at the Democratic
> convention: People in blue states worship an awesome God, and people in red
> states have friends who are gay. It's a transcendent move, the dialectic of
> the upper way, but also a brilliant move tactically and politically. If
> progressives/liberals just give up on God territory, then it's too easy for
> the dialectic of Godless liberals and God-fearing conservatives to be
> constructed, which kicks in all kinds of automatic assumptions and
> hierarchies of values.
>
> I can't help but think of this in terms of "winning" and "losing" (guess
> the Charlie Sheen meme, fortified with tiger's blood and Adonis DNA,
> is pretty powerful stuff). But if we progressive/liberals concede God, we
> lose the argument. Isn't that a lot of what Lakoff has been arguing the last
> decade or so? We liberals lose because we don't make the argument
> effectively. We allow conservatives to own the terms of the debate, so the
> battle is lost before it's even begun. So on Gay rights/marriage, if the
> debate is allowed to be framed between upright Christian values and decadent
> urban hedonism, then we lose. Civil Rights lose. It becomes another
> secular/religious debate. I remind my students constantly that this is a
> war within Christianity, that the gay marriage debate became a big deal
> because Christians were marrying gay people, because major mainstream faiths
> (Episcopals, Methodists) re-evaluated their positions on sin and
> homosexuality. This isn't the godless liberals vs. the good Christians, but
> arguments within the faith, over the meaning of faith and ethics.
>
> In short, "we" win when we work the dialectic better, when we make the
> better argument. Not red or blue but united. Not christian vs. secular but
> all of us struggling to live an ethical life. DADT is history, and so
> is DOMA. To the general question, maybe the tensions are more pronounced
> now because liberalism is "winning" in a way it hasn't since before Reagan.
> Maybe the tenor of the debate reflects a real and credible threat to
> the conservative regime's power. So the Koch brothers of the world are
> fighting more viciously than ever, because they see the writing on the
> wall. Their time is done.
>
> But that's too naive and optimistic. It's obviously more complicated.
> There's the influence of the "sheer brute materials of the world," for
> example. I don't remember a serious, vigorous debate in this country over
> nuclear power and safety since the late 1970s. Japan changed that. Major
> events and pressures, the arguments we can't answer, the ultimate realities
> of death, nature, and physics also shape this debate. I don't think it's
> just imagination, fear, or media saturation. I've seen more crazy stuff in
> the past ten years than at any other time in my life. Too many times, the
> tv news resembles a disaster movie, with this vague, gnawing sense of
> forboding and deja vu.
>
> And finally, there's this persistent attitude I just can't comprehend. Why
> did teachers become the bad guys? Why are we seen as the embodiment of our
> culture's corruption? Our pensions, salaries, and collective bargaining are
> driving state governments into the ditch???? It just makes no sense to me.
> Logically, such claims are easy to discredit, but it's not the logic of the
> argument that matters. It's the persistence of belief and attitude, the
> chicken-pecking principle. Working class folks are feeling the squeeze, but
> instead of turning their rage against their corporate masters, they turn
> against their neighbors. That's a weird one, not a new force, but
> definitely a pronounced one. I'm not sure how it's going to play out. I
> guess a lot depends on us and how well we fight this war of words and
> ideas.
>
> --Jerry
>
>
>
> Jerry Ross, Assistant Professor
> Department of Communications and Humanities
> Southwestern Illinois College
> 2700 Carlyle Avenue
> Belleville, IL 62221
> (618) 235-2700 Ext. 5415
>
> http://fac.swic.edu/english/
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Sean Zwagerman <>
> *To:*
> *Sent:* Thu, March 17, 2011 1:41:59 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [KB] Political Discourse in the US
>
> Here's an excerpt from something I've been writing about Ann Coulter which
> may (I hope) be of some interest:
>
> Burke distinguishes between the �dialectical� order of terms and the
> �ultimate� order. Dialectical terms are in the realm of action and idea and
> attitude. They are words for principles, essences, and titles: Romanticism,
> capitalism, and democracy are dialectical terms. The order is �dramatic:�
> political conflicts in this realm are negotiated through compromise among
> the �jangling relation� of �competing voices� (Rhetoric 187). In the
> ultimate order, we consider the terms to be in a hierarchical relationship
> or developmental series. �The �ultimate� order of terms would thus differ
> essentially from the �dialectical� . . . in that there would be a �guiding
> idea� or �unitary principle� behind the diversity of voices� (187). (Avital
> Ronell is getting at the same concept when she speaks of �transcendental
> inscriptions� [294]). This sense of hierarchy and development is expressed
> in the old remark that one who is not liberal when young has no heart, and
> one who does not become conservative with age has no brain: liberal and
> conservative are here not dialectical alternatives, but developmental
> stages. Within an ultimate vocabulary, �a somewhat formless parliamentary
> wrangle can . . . be creatively endowed with design, . . . [wherein] one
> kind of compromise is, in the long run, to be rated as superior to another�
> (188). This prospect might strike us as either visionary or nightmarish,
> depending upon what we take to be the �God-term� at the top of the sequence.
> For example, the project of the American far Right to establish synonymy
> between conservatism and Christianity is an effort to move the political
> wrangle from the dialectical realm into the ultimate: for if there is
> continuity, a hierarchic sequence, from the Constitution upward to the
> Bible, with Christianity as the �guiding idea� and the final Word, then the
> Constitution�s apparent establishment of discontinuity between church and
> state cannot possibly be as absolute as it seems to be.
>
> Sean Zwagerman
> Associate Professor
> Department of English
> Simon Fraser University
> Bunaby, BC V5A 1S6 Canada
>
> 778-782-4831
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Clarke Rountree <>
> To: Kb list <>
> Sent: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:13:37 -0700 (PDT)
> Subject: [KB] Political Discourse in the US
>
> Dear Burkelers--
>
> I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I
> have
> a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
> political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it
> is
> today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
> qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
> culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against
> Obama
> and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods
> of
> venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
> reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
> cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
> believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
> politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of
> middle-class
> incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
> and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days
> are
> behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
> undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
> the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
> cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
> (and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.
>
> What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a new
> form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Clarke
>
> --
> Dr. Clarke Rountree
> Professor of Communication Arts
> 342 Morton Hall
> University of Alabama in Huntsville
> Huntsville, AL 35899
> 256-824-6646
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. This is a short answer to Jerry's question about how (I think) teachers became vilified (and, not THE answer, of course): Teacher's represent two things repugnant to neo-cons, namely, "unchecked" union power (which is a joke) and unchecked liberal ideology (another joke, though this charge is usually leveled against the professoriate, something people too easily conflate with "education" in general). Together, neo-cons see this as a slide toward further socialism and would like nothing better than to bury all socialist institutions by replacing them with the market-forces privatization that, they naively feel, is the more self-corrective alternative. This includes police forces and fire departments, though they have certainly not been vilified the way teachers have, interestingly. While I think there are some problems with teacher's unions (the ease of achieving public school tenure and a lack of performance oversight promoted in the name of professional protectionism, e.g.), I also think it is a red herring and a simple scapegoating mechanism designed to take our attention away from the insanely complex problem that is public school education -- a system that is flawed on so many levels. For those who would damn teachers for social problems, though, it is an easy matter of the "think-of-the-children" trope that is so effective with the adults of this country. Teachers are, to such minds, universally selfish, underworked, overpaid, lazy, incompetent ideologues who think of themselves over the students they teach. An easy target.

Dave


***************************

David J. Tietge, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English
Director of First-Year Composition
Monmouth University

________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. Yes, Professor Rountree has started something, but it�s been fun reading these posts.

I�d have to agree with Prof. Hatch that the vitriol isn�t unique to this era; in fact, it�s likely been far worse. I would also agree with Prof. Turpin�s indication that we should probably look to institutional structures, especially those of the New Media, to analyze the state of political discourse (�mass-mediated democracy�).

Prof. Hatch also mentions the matter of space which leads me, and probably others, to consider public/private concerns. Paul Turpin also mentioned the significance of this hyper-capitalized institution (the media) whose political power reaches, by its nature, beyond anything a commercial organization has ever attempted to attain. The purpose of a media organization is no longer the production of a commodity. It is the public mask of a union of powerful corporate actors with similar goals.

Behind the mask, these industrial groups are generally referred to as �associations,� and they lobby for political favors, scheme around regulations, collude to help their members out in any way they can, etc. Many are international in scope and their loyalty is to their member corporations. They pay fees just like union members, but their power is far greater and gaining. The very activities corporations by nature involve themselves in are precisely the activities of which they wish to deprive the people, and especially their workers. While they act in concert, they keep individuals acting independently, or alone. The best way to maintain division is by preying on the most basic emotion (of the loner), resentment.

For example, Jerry�s posts re: Teacher Hate; these emotions aren�t new to the people. Not long ago, we were told that auto workers made huge sums and were lounging in the lap of luxury. The scapegoating relies on the biggest lever of motivation in the USA: resentment. It�s easy to pit prole against prole using this fabulously effective tool.

So, while Prof. Turpin already suggested the importance of considering this new media structure, I might have to disagree to an extent with his skepticism about this indicating some �drastic change in the degree of division we face.� Above, I noted that the vituperative nature of our discourse is nothing new, but it could have a different effect on many of our New Proles. Besides, government, the only remaining foil to corporate whim and power, is utterly entwined with and dependent on that corporate power. It could mean the rebirth of unions or other organizations, or it could mean an era of complete domination.

I think that the division may be considered, if not drastic, then qualitatively different from that which came before it. The differences are also often associated with the current changes in wealth distribution (apparently that gap is as radical as that in the late nineteenth century).

I like Turpin�s categories and find them useful, but as we are now told that there is no working class (we only hear about the middle class in the media) our new reactionary proles may be a throw-back to an earlier time, or at least possibly grotesques of a Roman version. If the New Media made this regression possible, then it�s an excellent area to investigate, as Prof. Turpin�s contribution implies.

The effectiveness of scapegoating through incitement is brought about much more effectively now than ever before through the �free speech� of massive communication corporations. I think we can mostly agree that the difference in this institution is qualitative, as the printing press must have been shortly before the Reformation.

Prof Zwagerman�s comments re: transforming the dialectical into the ultimate appears accurate, but it�s one side (of possibly a two-sided entity). People can be motivated by enlisting them into �greater enterprises� that are beyond themselves, preferably otherworldy. (Thus the popularity of the apocalyptical beliefs and identification with US military power (a vicarious pleasure for most).)

However, the same masses can be motivated, simultaneously, by both resentment (hatred) and their superiority to others (the identification with the God figure and role as punishers). They can be part of the beyond, and of course, on the side of Good in their fight against Evil (healthcare, socialism, cultural liberalism, etc.). The righteous indignation associated with the latter meshes well with their underlying motivation: resentment. Does the purpose have to be recaptured by Democrats, as Jerry suggests, or do they have to find a way to redirect feelings of resentment, or both? It seems that unions attempted to play the game by "supporting" sympathetic candidates. They can't buy enough sympathy, so why even try.




_______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe. A belated note on this thread, regarding my comment that unions, not
teachers per se, are the bad guys: there is a public exigence that motivates
the focus on teachers -- namely, that education outcomes have been declining
over time. Because teachers have largely been unionized, unions come in for
the blame (despite, for example, the evidence of the non-unionized
worst-performing states). From a libertarian perspective, bad outcomes must
be caused by bad teachers, and unions get in the way of dismissing bad
teachers. It's an inadequately simplistic view of education, but still
prevalent.

That said, with regard to the recent posts on this thread that suggest new
ways of framing the issue, reframing will only work where the possibility of
framing shared assumptions has a chance. It's important to recognize that
some audiences will remain fundamentally opposed. Politically, the game
continues to be capturing the middle.

Paul

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 9:34 PM, Paul Turpin <> wrote:

> Teachers are not the bad guys. *Unions* are the bad guys, and teachers are
> a target as long as they are identified with unions. This is what I meant by
> the fundamental division the libertarian vision is pushing: unions are
> incontrovertibly bad to them. There *cannot possibly* be a good union in
> libertarian thinking. That's the point I was trying to make, and there is no
> logical counter for it, because any such logic relies on assumptions &
> values that are antithetical to libertarians.
>
> Paul
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 9:20 PM, liminal man <> wrote:
>
>> That last bit about religion in Sean's message got me thinking. It is a
>> move toward a different order of authority, one that scares many because it
>> has dangerous precedence: absolute authority for absolute power. Lots of
>> factors feed into debates this complex, of course, but I think we can put a
>> rhetorical finger on Obama's 2004 speech at the Democratic
>> convention: People in blue states worship an awesome God, and people in red
>> states have friends who are gay. It's a transcendent move, the dialectic of
>> the upper way, but also a brilliant move tactically and politically. If
>> progressives/liberals just give up on God territory, then it's too easy for
>> the dialectic of Godless liberals and God-fearing conservatives to be
>> constructed, which kicks in all kinds of automatic assumptions and
>> hierarchies of values.
>>
>> I can't help but think of this in terms of "winning" and "losing" (guess
>> the Charlie Sheen meme, fortified with tiger's blood and Adonis DNA,
>> is pretty powerful stuff). But if we progressive/liberals concede God, we
>> lose the argument. Isn't that a lot of what Lakoff has been arguing the last
>> decade or so? We liberals lose because we don't make the argument
>> effectively. We allow conservatives to own the terms of the debate, so the
>> battle is lost before it's even begun. So on Gay rights/marriage, if the
>> debate is allowed to be framed between upright Christian values and decadent
>> urban hedonism, then we lose. Civil Rights lose. It becomes another
>> secular/religious debate. I remind my students constantly that this is a
>> war within Christianity, that the gay marriage debate became a big deal
>> because Christians were marrying gay people, because major mainstream faiths
>> (Episcopals, Methodists) re-evaluated their positions on sin and
>> homosexuality. This isn't the godless liberals vs. the good Christians, but
>> arguments within the faith, over the meaning of faith and ethics.
>>
>> In short, "we" win when we work the dialectic better, when we make the
>> better argument. Not red or blue but united. Not christian vs. secular but
>> all of us struggling to live an ethical life. DADT is history, and so
>> is DOMA. To the general question, maybe the tensions are more pronounced
>> now because liberalism is "winning" in a way it hasn't since before Reagan.
>> Maybe the tenor of the debate reflects a real and credible threat to
>> the conservative regime's power. So the Koch brothers of the world are
>> fighting more viciously than ever, because they see the writing on the
>> wall. Their time is done.
>>
>> But that's too naive and optimistic. It's obviously more complicated.
>> There's the influence of the "sheer brute materials of the world," for
>> example. I don't remember a serious, vigorous debate in this country over
>> nuclear power and safety since the late 1970s. Japan changed that. Major
>> events and pressures, the arguments we can't answer, the ultimate realities
>> of death, nature, and physics also shape this debate. I don't think it's
>> just imagination, fear, or media saturation. I've seen more crazy stuff in
>> the past ten years than at any other time in my life. Too many times, the
>> tv news resembles a disaster movie, with this vague, gnawing sense of
>> forboding and deja vu.
>>
>> And finally, there's this persistent attitude I just can't comprehend.
>> Why did teachers become the bad guys? Why are we seen as the embodiment
>> of our culture's corruption? Our pensions, salaries, and collective
>> bargaining are driving state governments into the ditch???? It just makes
>> no sense to me. Logically, such claims are easy to discredit, but it's not
>> the logic of the argument that matters. It's the persistence of belief and
>> attitude, the chicken-pecking principle. Working class folks are feeling
>> the squeeze, but instead of turning their rage against their corporate
>> masters, they turn against their neighbors. That's a weird one, not a new
>> force, but definitely a pronounced one. I'm not sure how it's going to play
>> out. I guess a lot depends on us and how well we fight this war of words
>> and ideas.
>>
>> --Jerry
>>
>>
>>
>> Jerry Ross, Assistant Professor
>> Department of Communications and Humanities
>> Southwestern Illinois College
>> 2700 Carlyle Avenue
>> Belleville, IL 62221
>> (618) 235-2700 Ext. 5415
>>
>> http://fac.swic.edu/english/
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* Sean Zwagerman <>
>> *To:*
>> *Sent:* Thu, March 17, 2011 1:41:59 PM
>> *Subject:* Re: [KB] Political Discourse in the US
>>
>> Here's an excerpt from something I've been writing about Ann Coulter which
>> may (I hope) be of some interest:
>>
>> Burke distinguishes between the �dialectical� order of terms and the
>> �ultimate� order. Dialectical terms are in the realm of action and idea and
>> attitude. They are words for principles, essences, and titles: Romanticism,
>> capitalism, and democracy are dialectical terms. The order is �dramatic:�
>> political conflicts in this realm are negotiated through compromise among
>> the �jangling relation� of �competing voices� (Rhetoric 187). In the
>> ultimate order, we consider the terms to be in a hierarchical relationship
>> or developmental series. �The �ultimate� order of terms would thus differ
>> essentially from the �dialectical� . . . in that there would be a �guiding
>> idea� or �unitary principle� behind the diversity of voices� (187). (Avital
>> Ronell is getting at the same concept when she speaks of �transcendental
>> inscriptions� [294]). This sense of hierarchy and development is expressed
>> in the old remark that one who is not liberal when young has no heart, and
>> one who does not become conservative with age has no brain: liberal and
>> conservative are here not dialectical alternatives, but developmental
>> stages. Within an ultimate vocabulary, �a somewhat formless parliamentary
>> wrangle can . . . be creatively endowed with design, . . . [wherein] one
>> kind of compromise is, in the long run, to be rated as superior to another�
>> (188). This prospect might strike us as either visionary or nightmarish,
>> depending upon what we take to be the �God-term� at the top of the sequence.
>> For example, the project of the American far Right to establish synonymy
>> between conservatism and Christianity is an effort to move the political
>> wrangle from the dialectical realm into the ultimate: for if there is
>> continuity, a hierarchic sequence, from the Constitution upward to the
>> Bible, with Christianity as the �guiding idea� and the final Word, then the
>> Constitution�s apparent establishment of discontinuity between church and
>> state cannot possibly be as absolute as it seems to be.
>>
>> Sean Zwagerman
>> Associate Professor
>> Department of English
>> Simon Fraser University
>> Bunaby, BC V5A 1S6 Canada
>>
>> 778-782-4831
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Clarke Rountree <>
>> To: Kb list <>
>> Sent: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:13:37 -0700 (PDT)
>> Subject: [KB] Political Discourse in the US
>>
>> Dear Burkelers--
>>
>> I'm writing a paper on problems in USAmerican political discourse and I
>> have
>> a large question for all of you related to this work. It is my belief that
>> political discourse has rarely (perhaps never) been more troubled than it
>> is
>> today. I believe that at least since the Clinton days, there has been a
>> qualitative and significant worsening of our political climate that is
>> culminating in the barely-hidden racism that fuels the vitriol against
>> Obama
>> and the Democrats. I'm not suggesting that we haven't had serious periods
>> of
>> venomous speech and ad hominem attacks in the past. I know that news
>> reporters during the Jefferson-Adams presidential contests were cataloging
>> cabbages, tomatoes, and other vegetation hurled at spokespersons. But, I
>> believe that several factors have made this a uniquely ugly period for our
>> politics. I think racism has grown out of the steady decline of
>> middle-class
>> incomes and job security (with Tea Partiers pointing the blame at the left
>> and Obama), endless culture wars, a pervasive feeling that our best days
>> are
>> behind us (which is not wholly unfounded), continuing wars with religious
>> undertones, the rights' sense that they can capitalize on all this to kill
>> the last vestiges of the New Deal (leading them to seek victory at any
>> cost), the media echo chamber driven by Fox and vicious internet bloggers
>> (and the failure of the left to match them), etc., etc.
>>
>> What do you think? Are we in unique times or is the same old stuff in a
>> new
>> form? I would appreciate your insights, corrections, examples, etc.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Clarke
>>
>> --
>> Dr. Clarke Rountree
>> Professor of Communication Arts
>> 342 Morton Hall
>> University of Alabama in Huntsville
>> Huntsville, AL 35899
>> 256-824-6646
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
___________________________________________________

Posted on the KB mailing list. Go to https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/kb to subscribe.