The Rhetorical Pursuit of Political Advantage

The Rhetorical Pursuit of Political Advantage PDF Author: Scott Michael Welsh
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Oral communication
Languages : en
Pages : 668

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Book Description
This dissertation explores the relationship between rhetoric and democracy. More specifically, it examines the theoretical demeaning of the rhetorical pursuit of political advantage that pervades normative theories of public deliberation in democracy, including both liberal and discourse theories. The main argument of the dissertation is that such theories wrongly oppose the idea of authentically democratic speech to strategic, tactical, or rhetorical modes of address. In contrast with the aversion to rhetoric found in normative theories of public deliberation, particularly those variously inspired by John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas, I advance an argument for an essential and productive relationship between rhetoric and democracy as suggested by Kenneth Burke and Michel de Certeau. Since currently marginalized citizens must, by necessity, deploy hegemonic discourses strategically in pursuit of a measure of political power or representation, theories of public deliberation in democracy that deny the general democratic legitimacy of the rhetorical pursuit of political advantage ideologically undermine democratic challengers. Instead of encouraging citizens to seriously attend to, and value, the essential democratic struggle for political advantage, prominent theories of public deliberation in democracy denigrate it. While the rhetorical pursuit of political advantage is susceptible to anti-democratic excesses, particularly of the sort that jeopardize peaceful association and truthful politics, theorists and citizens should not imagine an end to such excesses in visions of understanding or justification-oriented communication, but should look instead to effective counter-rhetorics. Peaceful association and epistemically accountable political speech should be regarded as situated, rhetorical-political achievements against the aims of the militant and the deceptive. Hence, this dissertation recommends that, rather than opposing democracy to rhetorical politics, citizens and theorists alike should recognize democracy in the broad proliferation of an effective ability, among diversely motivated people and groups, to win a share of political power rhetorically.

The Rhetorical Pursuit of Political Advantage

The Rhetorical Pursuit of Political Advantage PDF Author: Scott Michael Welsh
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Oral communication
Languages : en
Pages : 668

Get Book Here

Book Description
This dissertation explores the relationship between rhetoric and democracy. More specifically, it examines the theoretical demeaning of the rhetorical pursuit of political advantage that pervades normative theories of public deliberation in democracy, including both liberal and discourse theories. The main argument of the dissertation is that such theories wrongly oppose the idea of authentically democratic speech to strategic, tactical, or rhetorical modes of address. In contrast with the aversion to rhetoric found in normative theories of public deliberation, particularly those variously inspired by John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas, I advance an argument for an essential and productive relationship between rhetoric and democracy as suggested by Kenneth Burke and Michel de Certeau. Since currently marginalized citizens must, by necessity, deploy hegemonic discourses strategically in pursuit of a measure of political power or representation, theories of public deliberation in democracy that deny the general democratic legitimacy of the rhetorical pursuit of political advantage ideologically undermine democratic challengers. Instead of encouraging citizens to seriously attend to, and value, the essential democratic struggle for political advantage, prominent theories of public deliberation in democracy denigrate it. While the rhetorical pursuit of political advantage is susceptible to anti-democratic excesses, particularly of the sort that jeopardize peaceful association and truthful politics, theorists and citizens should not imagine an end to such excesses in visions of understanding or justification-oriented communication, but should look instead to effective counter-rhetorics. Peaceful association and epistemically accountable political speech should be regarded as situated, rhetorical-political achievements against the aims of the militant and the deceptive. Hence, this dissertation recommends that, rather than opposing democracy to rhetorical politics, citizens and theorists alike should recognize democracy in the broad proliferation of an effective ability, among diversely motivated people and groups, to win a share of political power rhetorically.

The Pleasures and Advantages of Literary Pursuits Compared with Those which Arise from the Excitement of Political Life. A Prize Essay

The Pleasures and Advantages of Literary Pursuits Compared with Those which Arise from the Excitement of Political Life. A Prize Essay PDF Author: George MARSHALL (Rector of Milton.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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The pleasures and advantages of literary pursuits, compared with those which arise from the excitement of political life, a prize essay read in the Sheldonian theatre, Oxford

The pleasures and advantages of literary pursuits, compared with those which arise from the excitement of political life, a prize essay read in the Sheldonian theatre, Oxford PDF Author: George Marshall
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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The Pleasure and Advantages of Literary Pursuits, Compared with These which Arise from the Excitement of Political Life

The Pleasure and Advantages of Literary Pursuits, Compared with These which Arise from the Excitement of Political Life PDF Author: George Marshall (Rector of Milton, Berks.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Public Forgetting

Public Forgetting PDF Author: Bradford Vivian
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271075007
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Forgetting is usually juxtaposed with memory as its opposite in a negative way: it is seen as the loss of the ability to remember, or, ironically, as the inevitable process of distortion or dissolution that accompanies attempts to commemorate the past. The civic emphasis on the crucial importance of preserving lessons from the past to prevent us from repeating mistakes that led to violence and injustice, invoked most poignantly in the call of “Never again” from Holocaust survivors, tends to promote a view of forgetting as verging on sin or irresponsibility. In this book, Bradford Vivian hopes to put a much more positive spin on forgetting by elucidating its constitutive role in the formation and transformation of public memory. Using examples ranging from classical rhetoric to contemporary crises like 9/11, Public Forgetting demonstrates how, contrary to conventional wisdom, communities may adopt idioms of forgetting in order to create new and beneficial standards of public judgment concerning the lessons and responsibilities of their shared past.

The Rhetorical Surface of Democracy

The Rhetorical Surface of Democracy PDF Author: Scott Welsh
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739150642
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
Citizens, political theorists, and politicians alike insist that political or partisan motives get in the way of real democracy. Real democracy, we are convinced, is embodied by an ability to form collective judgments in the interest of the whole. The Rhetorical Surface of Democracy: How Deliberative Ideals Undermine Democratic Politics, by Scott Welsh, argues instead that it is our easy rejection of political motives, individual interests, and the rhetorical pursuit of power that poses the greatest danger to democracy. Our rejection of politics understood as a rhetorical contest for power is dangerous because democracy ultimately rests upon the perceived public legitimacy of public, political challenges to authority and the subsequent reconstitution of authority amid the impossibility of collective judgment. Hence, rather than searching for allegedly more authentic democracy, rooted in the pursuit of ever-illusive collective judgments, we must find ways to come to terms with the persistence of rhetorical, political contests for power as the essence of democracy itself. Welsh argues that the impossibility of any kind of public judgment is the fact that democracy must face. Given the impossibility of public judgment, rhetorical competitions for political power are not merely poor substitutes for an allegedly more authentic democratic practice, but constitute the essence of democracy itself. The Rhetorical Surface of Democracy is an iconoclastic investigation of the democratic process and public discourse.

Demagogue for President

Demagogue for President PDF Author: Jennifer Mercieca
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1623499070
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Winner, Bronze, 2020 Foreword Indies, Political and Social Sciences Winner, 2021 PROSE Award for Government & Politics "Deserves a place alongside George Orwell’s 'Politics and the English Language'. . . . one of the most important political books of this perilous summer."—The Washington Post "A must-read"—Salon "Highly recommended"—Jack Shafer, Politico Featured in "The Best New Books to Read This Summer" and "Lit Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2020"—Literary Hub Historic levels of polarization, a disaffected and frustrated electorate, and widespread distrust of government, the news media, and traditional political leadership set the stage in 2016 for an unexpected, unlikely, and unprecedented presidential contest. Donald Trump’s campaign speeches and other rhetoric seemed on the surface to be simplistic, repetitive, and disorganized to many. As Demagogue for President shows, Trump’s campaign strategy was anything but simple. Political communication expert Jennifer Mercieca shows how the Trump campaign expertly used the common rhetorical techniques of a demagogue, a word with two contradictory definitions—“a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power” or “a leader championing the cause of the common people in ancient times” (Merriam-Webster, 2019). These strategies, in conjunction with post-rhetorical public relations techniques, were meant to appeal to a segment of an already distrustful electorate. It was an effective tactic. Mercieca analyzes rhetorical strategies such as argument ad hominem, argument ad baculum, argument ad populum, reification, paralipsis, and more to reveal a campaign that was morally repugnant to some but to others a brilliant appeal to American exceptionalism. By all accounts, it fundamentally changed the discourse of the American public sphere.

US Presidents and Cold War Nuclear Diplomacy

US Presidents and Cold War Nuclear Diplomacy PDF Author: Aiden Warren
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030619540
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
This book will illustrate that despite the variations of nuclear tensions during the Cold War period—from nuclear inception, to mass proliferation, to arms control treaties and détente, through to an intensification and “reasonable” conclusion (the INF Treaty and START being case points)—the “lessons” over the last decade are quickly being unlearned. Given debates surrounding the emerging “new Cold War,” the deterioration of relations between Russia and the United States, and the concurrent challenges being made by key nuclear states in obfuscating arms control mechanisms, this book attempts to provide a much needed revisit into US presidential foreign policy during the Cold War. Across nine chapters, the monograph traces the United States’ nuclear diplomacy and Presidential strategic thought, transitioning across the early period of Cold War arms racing through to the era’s defining conclusion. It will reveal that notwithstanding the heightened periods when great power conflict seemed imminent, arms control fora and seminal agreements were able to be devised, implemented, and provided a needed base in bringing down the specter of a cataclysmic nuclear war, as well as improving bilateral relations. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and students of American foreign policy, diplomatic history, security studies and international relations.

America and the Cold War, 1941–1991

America and the Cold War, 1941–1991 PDF Author: Norman A. Graebner
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313385262
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 703

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Book Description
Three distinguished diplomatic historians offer an assessment of the Cold War in the realist tradition that focuses on balancing the objectives of foreign policy with the means of accomplishing them. America and the Cold War, 1941–1991: A Realist Interpretation is a sweeping historical account that focuses on the policy differences at the center of this conflict. In its pages, three preeminent authors offer an examination of contemporary criticism of the Cold War, documenting the views of observers who appreciated that many policies of the period were not only dangerous, but could not resolve the problems they contemplated. The study offers a comprehensive chronicle of U.S.-Soviet relations, broadly conceived, from World War II to the collapse of the Soviet Union. It places the origins of the Cold War as related to the contentious issues of World War II and stresses the failure of Washington to understand or seriously seek settlement of those issues. It points out how nuclear weaponry gradually assumed political stature and came to dominate high-level, Soviet-American diplomatic activity, at the same time discounting the notion that the Cold War was a global ideological confrontation for the future of civilization. A concluding chapter draws lessons from the Cold War decades, showing how they apply to dealing with nation-states and terrorist groups today.

The National Security : Its Theory and Practice, 1945-1960

The National Security : Its Theory and Practice, 1945-1960 PDF Author: Norman A. Graebner
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198021038
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
Based on a conference at West Point, this volume explores the national security policies developed by the Truman and Eisenhower administrations in response to the threat of Soviet expansionism. More pointed and analytic than any other book on the subject, it shows clearly that the makers of Cold War policy were motivated by fear. It also examines the nature of U.S. security policy and points to the growing gap between the ends and the means of global security policy--to protect Western democracy from the "Red Menace" by using a nuclear strategy with limited applications. The contributors, including David Alan Rosenberg, Lloyd C. Gardner, Martin J. Sherwin and Gary W. Reichard, explore such issues as how dependence on nuclear weapons became the central doctrine of American foreign policy, the bureaucratic and political context of U.S. security, Eisenhower's ongoing disputes with Army and Navy leaders over the security issue, the objections of Democrats to the evolving security strategy, and the limits of Cold War policy, particularly how the viewing of the Third World through a U.S.-Soviet prism impeded the U.S. from developing a truly global security policy. Written in an accessible, journalistic style, The National Security makes available a wealth of information on the Cold War period and offers insights into fears that dominate political thinking to this day.