Burke Dramatism and Obama

caerglas: Looking for feedback on Obama. Also: my take on his Rhetoric.

Obama can talk, he's great. His Ethos and Pathos are strong. He sounds very sincere and caring, and what he says is often what I've felt has needed to be said, and is something I feel I can get behind. He's a modern day Cicero--and that guy was a jerk, an autocrat who made the people feel very good and pleased with themselves for doing what he wanted them to do. Or he's a modern day Saruman, to be a nerd--his logic, his policies weren't good at all, but he sounded really wise while saying it and everyone wanted to agree with it as it sounded great the way he said it.

Obama's Rhetorical style in this speech gives me pause--it gives me great pause, really. It's big on hierarchies and centralizing power into his hands. In brief: it's pretty big with Kenneth Burke's (I think) Dramaticism. That's a style that's great on Ethos and Pathos. It's a style that encourages the audience to identify with the speaker, to identify themselves (and the speaker) with his description of the current state of affairs. This description must paint the current state of affairs as flawed and troubled--but the speaker knows a way to improve the current problems and transcend the current state of affairs into an improved situation, while at the same time the speaker and the audience transcend from their current state and into an improved state--not just because they've identified with the current situation, and that situation has improved--but also through the audience's allegiance with the speaker.

Perhaps this is necessary for getting groups of people together... but it's dangerous as it throws a lot of power into the hands of the 'leader.' It's also dangerous as it causes centralization of power and 'unification' among the followers. Dramatism requires hierarchies--'you must transcend the troubled times by following me as the leader; through following me, who is one of you, we all will transcend into a better state.' And that's what's up with my concern on trusting Obama. Such charisma is not necessarily to be lauded in a leader we cannot predict, and I cannot predict him. Aside from the Rhetorical clues in his style, Obama explicitly called the present as a time for "unity," or unification. He's very much against divisive speech here.

Over de retoriek van de oorlog: ‘Hollywood regisseert mee de oorlog van George W. Bush’. De Morgen 19.3.2008.

Vandaag vijf jaar na het begin van de oorlog in Irak proberen voormalige Hollywoodmedewerkers vanuit het Witte Huis het conflict in de media nog steeds zo heroïsch mogelijk te verkopen. Op de wijze van 'artificial reality imagineers' die de optredens van VS-president George W. Bush mee regisseren.

(...)

In 'De verkoop van een oorlog' toonde het Nederlandse VPRO-programma Tegenlicht maandag met dit voorbeeld aan hoe het Witte Huis de beeldvorming over de Irakoorlog manipuleerde met behulp van 'artificial reality imagineers', communicatie-experts die naast de gewone werkelijkheid een gemedialiseerde - en politieke - realiteit bouwen. Ze doen dat op de wijze van Scott Sforza, die, tot zijn vertrek uit het Witte Huis in de zomer van 2007 , de zichtbare optredens van Bush regisseerde.

Visual Rhetoric

Een interessante vraag over de relatie tussen retoriek en visuele geletterdheid:

Reading Response « Rhetoric and Technology - ENC 6421

Prompt 2: Drawing on at least two of the readings, explain what is rhetorical about the visual turn.

In the introductory chapter of The Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle defines rhetoric as “the technique of discovering the persuasive aspects of any given subject-matter.” Rhetoric, as Aristotle defines it, could be applied to nearly any medium, any object, anything that communicates a meaning or attempts to persuade a viewer, reader, hearer, or observer. So what is.

(…)

The visual turn is rhetorical in its very nature – visual elements communicate and persuade, whether intentionally or not.

Presidential Rhetoric

Off the Page: The Harvard Press Author Forum: Presidential rhetoric in historical perspective

PARTICIPATING AUTHOR: BRYAN GARSTEN

Bryan Garsten is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University, and author of Saving Persuasion: A Defense of Rhetoric and Judgment.

R for Rhetoric

Her Scarlet Letters: R is for Rhetoric

R is for Rhetoric I once pursued a masters degree in political rhetoric. I investigated speeches and

political discourse, every day, all day, for two years.

And I STILL can't tell you why a candidate can adjust the mental connection with an audience in an instant - or why an audience is moved to act, as opposed to just react.

Rhetoriek and Memory

Rhetoric and Memory. Een blog ove retoriek:

This blog has been created in an effort to trace the place and space of Memory in the History of Rhetoric and other domains such as pop culture, current media, music, film and my personal vida.

Retoriek-propaganda

Een bedenking over het verschil tussen retoriek en propaganda/
Separating propaganda from rhetoric - a three-point guide « World of words

Someone asked me the other day what the difference between rhetoric and propaganda is. It’s a good question: linguistically speaking, there is little to separate the two, although they are distinct forms of persuasion.

It would be easy to trot out an answer along the lines of the old “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”, ie that it all depends on your cultural/political position – after all, no text or speech is free from cultural influence, and a speech that one group sees as rhetoric may be seen as propaganda by groups with different cultural standpoints.

O’Shaughnessy acknowledges the “very fine line between political oratory and propaganda” (p19) and Bryant (Jowett & O’Donell, p43) notes that propaganda’s techniques are “rhetorical techniques gone wrong”.

Rhetoric or Revolution?

Russell Goldman, ‘Rhetoric or Revolution? Obama Rev's Fiery Language’. March 21, 2008. ABC News.

Naar aanleiding van de klacht over de racistische taal van de predikant uit de kerk waar Obama geregeld aanwezig is, volgde een debat over de retoriek van dergelijke preken.

But for thousands of parishioners who fill the pews of America's black churches, the Illinois senator did not need to contextualize Wright's message of black nationalism and apocalyptic prophecy -- they hear it every Sunday.

De preek wordt geplaatst binnen een retoirsche traditie:

But beyond black liberation theology, scholars and his fellow ministers put Wright in an even older tradition, in which black ministers, like the biblical prophets, used their pulpits to chide the nation into moral action.

(…)

It is all about context, say Wright's supporters, including Obama. Parishioners raised in the church understand that preaching is loud, physical and theatrical.

"There is a performative style that accompanies black preaching," Erskine said. "You have to act it -- take the way he was fanning himself. How you say things is more important than what you say. There is a power in words and the way they are expressed."

If whites are surprised by the rhetoric, it is only because they are not familiar with the culture of the black church, Obama said in his speech Tuesday in Philadelphia.

Rhetoric of Love

Liefde & Retoriek. Interessante teksten:

RHE 309K, The Rhetoric of Love and Seduction Course Homepage Spring 2004

Why Rhetoric?

Neem, Johann N. (2008), ‘Obama's critics overlook an important point: Ideas matter. The Seattle Times.

Een reflectie over de waarde van retoriek: daden versus woorden. Verwijten van de kanidaten: John McCain stelt dat retoriek geen vervanging is voor harde politiek, Hillary Clinton contrasteert de retoriek met vroegere beloftes.

Neem (2008) constateert: “What all these criticisms ignore, however, is that ideas matter”.

Ideas matter. Rhetoric is not just rhetoric. Words define for us — political elites and ordinary voters — what problems we are facing and what kinds of solutions we have for them.

Johann Neem gebruikt de metafoor van de “lens”:

Parties must have platforms that inspire voters. The test for any candidate is how well he or she crafts the lens voters wear to make sense of the world. Obama's challenge — the Democrats' challenge — is to do for his party what Reagan did for the Republicans.

But ideas, once accepted, create a new context.

If Obama helps the Democratic Party find focus, his followers will expect him to make good on his promises. Ideas are not effervescent. A successful idea changes how we think and what we expect; it becomes the barometer by which we then assess our leaders.

Scientific Prose

A discursive examination of scientific prose by Eric Knickerbocker

This essay is designed to argue that, no matter how cleverly disguised behind technical terms any given piece of scientific writing may be, it reflects its own form of rhetoric: rehashing, reinterpreting, and reprocessing the claims made from previous scientists in an effort to cajole and persuade.

Blogs

Weblogs about rhetoric, rhetoricians, and the teaching of communication skills.

Rhetoric Website

Rhetoric
This website is intended to list a variety of resources useful to rhetoricians.

While many rhetoric and composition pages on the Web are written in conjunction with writing centers or specialize in computer-mediated communication, this page also has links to works of classical rhetoric, articles on literacy and education, comprehensive bibliographies in the field and a few miscellaneous but useful things--how to suscribe to some highly-trafficked mailing lists and links to glossaries of rhetorical terms, for example.

If you have any suggestions or documents you think should be added, please use the "join" option below to join one of our editorial teams; we're particularly interested in getting more contemporary writing about rhetoric online.

Rhetoric Obama

How to Inspire People Like Obama Does
by Carmine Gallo
BusinessWeek

Public speaking skills are critical to the success of every leader. Here are four techniques you can borrow from the Presidential candidate

Over the past several years, I have been interviewing, observing, and writing about business, academic, and political leaders who have the ability to influence their audience—leaders who fire up the rest of us. Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is one of them. For a look at what makes Obama's public speaking skills so effective, I outline four techniques he's mastered and explain ways to use them in your own repertoire.

1. Parallel structure We can thank the ancient Greeks for this rhetorical tool—they called it "anaphora." It simply means repeating the same word or expression at the beginning of successive sentences or phrases (…)

2. Alliteration.

3. Rich Imagery Persuasive speakers have long understood the power of imagery to stir emotions—the creation of mental pictures through the words.

Exude Confident Body Language

Pay attention to what your body is saying (BusinessWeek.com, 4/30/07). Communicate confidence, competence, and control.

Use Dynamic Vocal Delivery

A monotonous speaking style lulls the listener to sleep, regardless of the power of the content. Obama knows how to enhance (BusinessWeek.com, 5/16/06) his delivery. Consider these three aspects of his delivery.

Zie verder

Rhetoric Pop Music

ROCKWRITE pop music as a site for rhetoric and inquiry

WHY ROCKWRITE?

Usually people use this term, "rockwrite," to talk about writing about rock -- rock criticism, like Lester Bangs, Richard Meltzer, Paul Williams -- some of the people who started the contemporary rock criticism movement. But it also describes the spirit of the writing they did, writing that was like rock, that rocked, even when it was not about rock. Rockwrite combines the two verbs into a new verb that can do twice as much.