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The legend of Eugene debs: Prophetic Ethos as radical argument
Abstract
Eugene Debs, widely acknowledged as one of America's foremost radical figures, spoke at a time when the agrarian “ethos of responsibility” was eroding under the pressures of industrialization. In response, Debs fostered a legend that was heavily ethical and called for a renewal of American virtue. Though his radicalism, viewed from the Graeco‐Roman tradition of Quintilian's “good man speaking well,” seems perversely calculated to ensure defeat and to alienate, a less unidimensional and more sympathetic view of Debs's relationship to his time and of his legacy is achieved by looking at him against the fudeo‐Christian tradition of Old Testament prophecy. Such a perspective at least partially reconciles our modern positive evaluation of Debs with his apparent rhetorical failings in his day.
... Through the effacement of the self, the prophet strives to present the uncolored vision of the divine." 7 What I would like to do in this essay is to turn my attention to what I call prophetic rhetoric's listening function. In other words, how does the prophet know what the prophet declares? ...
What I would like to do in this essay is to turn my attention to what I call prophetic rhetoric’s listening function. In other words, how does the prophet know what the prophet declares? How does the prophet know that God is calling the prophet to do the work of God? How does the prophet know what to say, when to say it, and how to say it? How does the prophet know when a rebirthing moment is taking place? How does
the prophet get this revelation and thereby become empowered to share this “new” vision of the deity with society?
I argue that, before the prophet speaks or offers a prophetic witness, the prophet must do work. All prophets must engage in what Elizabeth O’Connor calls the “inward journey.” For her, the inward journey is composed of three elements: the engagement with self, the engagement with God, and the engagement with the other. However, the inward journey can only start when we enter a space of deep silence, which leads to what I call prophetic listening. It is with this type of listening that the prophet begins to create ethos that ultimately leads to logos.
... A few cultural studies scholars have attended to issues of class and labor (see Aronowitz, 1989Aronowitz, , 1992Munt, 2000). And yes, there are a few rhetorical studies that mention class or the labor movement (Aune, 1994;Burke, 1984;Carter, 1980;Cloud, 1994Cloud, , 1999Darsey, 1988;Jensen, 1977;Jensen & Jensen, 1977;Knapp & McCroskey, 1968;Tonn, 1996). On the whole, however, emphasis in this literature remains on voice, identity, and cultural microstrategies in the workplace rather than on labor's agency in winning material improvements in the lives of workers. ...
Storytelling is a familiar media entertainment strategy and is becoming better understood as a device for informing employees about their organizational cultures. Using narrative analysis, participant observation, and historical analysis, this case study explores how one television producer used storytelling to entertain television viewers and maintain control within her production organization. The script, especially of one episode, functioned as a communication device that reflected the producer’s view of the organization’s dynamics, expressed the organization’s belief system, and served as an internal storyteller. Superimposing the story-as-an-internalcontrol device over the story-as-audience-entertainment device illuminated underlying issues about organizational relationships and power distribution.
... A few cultural studies scholars have attended to issues of class and labor (see Aronowitz, 1989Aronowitz, , 1992Munt, 2000). And yes, there are a few rhetorical studies that mention class or the labor movement (Aune, 1994;Burke, 1984;Carter, 1980;Cloud, 1994Cloud, , 1999Darsey, 1988;Jensen, 1977;Jensen & Jensen, 1977;Knapp & McCroskey, 1968;Tonn, 1996). On the whole, however, emphasis in this literature remains on voice, identity, and cultural microstrategies in the workplace rather than on labor's agency in winning material improvements in the lives of workers. ...
In their contributions to this forum, Nadesan, Cloud, and Weaver have critiqued and extended our argument for the benefits of collaboration between organizational communication and cultural studies. Originally (Carlone & Taylor, 1998), we argued that communication scholars should integrate the resources of these fields to fashion new ways of engaging the convergence of organization and culture in the post-industrial, hyper-capitalist new economy. In response, Nadesan has distinguished a variety of arguments concerning the nature and consequences of “post-Fordism,” Cloud has asserted the enduring relevance of materiality and class, and Weaver has called for public relations practitioners and scholars to reflect on the “worldly” affiliations of their work with the hegemonic interests of profit, efficiency, and progress. In this short article, we address these responses and advance our project through a case study of a particular object.
... A few cultural studies scholars have attended to issues of class and labor (see Aronowitz, 1989Aronowitz, , 1992Munt, 2000). And yes, there are a few rhetorical studies that mention class or the labor movement (Aune, 1994;Burke, 1984;Carter, 1980;Cloud, 1994Cloud, , 1999Darsey, 1988;Jensen, 1977;Jensen & Jensen, 1977;Knapp & McCroskey, 1968;Tonn, 1996). On the whole, however, emphasis in this literature remains on voice, identity, and cultural microstrategies in the workplace rather than on labor's agency in winning material improvements in the lives of workers. ...
... A few cultural studies scholars have attended to issues of class and labor (see Aronowitz, 1989Aronowitz, , 1992Munt, 2000). And yes, there are a few rhetorical studies that mention class or the labor movement (Aune, 1994;Burke, 1984;Carter, 1980;Cloud, 1994Cloud, , 1999Darsey, 1988;Jensen, 1977;Jensen & Jensen, 1977;Knapp & McCroskey, 1968;Tonn, 1996). On the whole, however, emphasis in this literature remains on voice, identity, and cultural microstrategies in the workplace rather than on labor's agency in winning material improvements in the lives of workers. ...
In this study, the author takes a discourse-analytic approach to study the research that two managers carried out in an educational institution to produce and legitimate knowledge that would be used for decision making in the institution. The author suggests that the various steps of any research and writing process can be understood as a system of genres, some written, some spoken, that must be produced in a particular relationship to each other for the final written report of the research to be accepted as a legitimate research report. The author focuses on one aspect of the research process, the production of data through the writing and reading of notes taken by the managers during interviews conducted as part of their research. The author shows that the writing and reading of these notes was a crucial step in the construction of the knowledge on which the decision making was based.
... Mention of the Hebrew prophets in rhetorical theory to date falls into three general topics: 1) the jeremiad (Johannesen 1986;Wander 1984, 342-347;Ritter 1980;Bercovitch 1978); 2) prophecy and apocalyptic discourse (O'Leary and McFarland 1989;Brummett 1988Brummett , 1984Mixon and Hopkins 1988;Goodnight 1986, 400-403;Reid 1983); and 3) prophetic ethos (K. Campbell 1989;Darsey 1988;Japp 1985;Ware and Linkugel 1982;Berens 1977). ...
This study in prophetic ethos reads the Book of Jeremiah as generative rhetoric—an inventive, multivocal response to the catastrophic disruption of a community and its integrated political and spiritual life. The disruption is expressed and redressed over time through an inventional agon that transforms the textual ethos of prophetic speech into an internally dialogic language of justification. Dramatis‐tic ratios are invoked to define key configurations in the text where shifts in the symbolic relations between agent, act, and audience reshape the ethos of the prophet and the destiny of the community. Bakhtin's apprehension of polyphony in the novel provides a model for the multivocal development and generative capacity of prophetic ethos in Jeremiah.
This paper broadens the limited area of scholarship on New Age spiritualism by providing and explanation for the suasive force of one of its main themes, the ‘Law of Attraction’. Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, is utilised as emblematic of the doctrine, where the individual is seen to engage in a dynamic similar to that of classical predictive prophecy, with the role of prophet being internalised. Three elements discussed are the positioning of the prophet, prophecy’s temporal ambiguity, and its linguistic tense. This paper suggests that the Law of Attraction re-imagines and employs the predictive prophetic structure and suggests that such a belief can act as a fetish.
This article examines the ways by which former Czech president Václav Havel and former Czech Prime Minister Václav Klaus approached their rhetorical roles in the postcommunist climate of a splintering Czechoslovakia. The main argument revolves around how Klaus and Havel divergently employed national memory to make historical arguments about the Czech past and how these symbols could be marshaled to navigate the uncertain waters of postsocialism. Ultimately, Klaus employs a rhetorical strategy of “rupture” with the Czech communist past, while Havel attempts a strategy of “repair.” The tensions between such rhetorical strategies evidence the ways in which Czech intellectuals-turned-public officials vied for the position of chief public historian and national storyteller for the Czech nation.
This essay focuses on the language of domestic radicalization as it has been invoked in recent debates regarding homeland security and the specter of homegrown Islamic terrorism. The language of radicalization is not new. However, beginning in 2004 and 2005 this language began to be appropriated into legislative and law enforcement discussions of domestic terrorism and national security. Using the rhetorical figure of polyptoton as a critical frame, this essay explores how the language of radicalization has evolved and how it has come to shape available arguments and define the legitimacy of participants (and non-participants) within recent congressional hearings and legislation.
A great deal of critical comment followed Solzhenitsyn's 1978 address “A World Split Apart.” We examine this speech as a jeremiad and suggest that even though the speech conforms to the touchstones of the genre, it may have been addressed to an audience unprepared to receive this type of message from this particular messenger.
Angelina Grimké's 1835 letter to William Lloyd Garrison announced her entrance into public life and the work of moral reform. Composed in a period of intense anti‐abolitionist activity, the text represents rhetorically a display of commitments put at risk. This essay conducts a close reading of the text to demonstrate how Grimké construes violence into a source for the refashioning of self and community into forces of change.
Though remarkably unsuccessful in unmasking Communist conspirators, Joe McCarthy left a powerful legacy as a great demagogue and witchhunter, a legacy that continues to haunt political discourse today. This essay seeks to explain the power of McCarthy's rhetoric and its apparent resistance to exorcism by historical fact through the literary genre of fantasy. McCarthy, in this view, could not be discredited or argued against because he took no positions. He presented his audience with a sustained moment of hesitation and wonder in which every claim on credulity was offset by a denial of its legitimacy. In the process of creating this fantastic world, a certain ethos was created, an ethos that ultimately overshadowed and conquered its creator.
The rhetorical transformation of Eugene V. Debs from political radical to liberal hero provides an opportunity to examine the relationship between the nature of virtue and the process of liberal historical judgment. In the case of this important American socialist, history has found virtue in a character who championed the cause of working people. The Debs legacy is an outgrowth of the developing American story of business‐labor reconciliation. Thus, this case demonstrates that historical ethos is not a judgment of individual traits but a product of the historical narrative's definition of virtue.
Thomas Dixon, Jr.'s novel, The Clansman (1905), typically is described as a boorish example of white racism. In this essay, I argue that the significance of The Clansman is a consequence of the novel's description of post‐Civil War Southern Reconstruction, where a dystopic social and political order was overthrown by the determined action of racially unified Anglo‐Saxons. The negation of this dystopia also anticipates Dixon's vision of Utopia, where Aryans North and South unite to protect their racial heritage. This study (a) reveals the limitations of extant generic guidelines for identifying Utopian discourse and (b) reconsiders the conventional categories (e.g., “radical,” “reactionary") frequently used to describe public discourse. The implications of this argument should be of particular interest to students of social movements.
The Million Man March in Washington, D.C. on 16 October 1995 generated a significant amount of public discourse. At the center of the conversation was the controversial character of the primary March organizer, Nation of Islam leader, Minister Louis Farrakhan. This essay examines the central rhetorical act of the Million Man March, Farrakhan's “lecture,” and argues that the Minister used this speech as an opportunity to deal with the rhetorical problems of his prior ethos by taking up the familiar persona of the prophet. This essay asserts that the prophetic role was a strategic choice for Farrakhan because it resonates with people in most of the major religious traditions in the United States, and because it allowed Farrakhan to occupy a position that, at the same time, is in the mainstream and on the margins of American civic discourse.
The rhetoric of Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, a paid organizer for the United Mine Workers of America, illustrates how a speaker can actively elicit vocal responses by listeners and acknowledge and integrate them so as to influence the content and structure of the speech. The resulting rhetorical performance contains a co‐constructed quality. Discourse analytic techniques reveal how Jones guided the co‐construction of the speech across multiple turns in order to accomplish her agitative goal within the performance event. Public rhetorical experiences that are participative can verify participative ideology such as labor unionism when passive audience members are transformed into performers.
Despite his affiliation with several racist organizations, David Duke enjoyed considerable success as a political candidate in Louisiana from 1989 through 1991. In this essay, I argue that David Duke adopted a rhetoric of conversion in his 1991 gubernatorial campaign which served the purpose of constructing a new ethos for Duke. A close reading of his 1991 gubernatorial campaign film reveals that Duke's explanation of his secular conversion to mainstream politics is tied integrally to his alleged religious conversion to evangelical Christianity. Duke's construction of a new ethos via witnessing has implications for claims concerning history as a rhetorical resource.
This essay addresses the question of whether and how it is possible to bring about major changes in the ways in which we order our lives in rationalized bureaucratic society. Genuine charisma-which Max Weber termed "the specifically creative revolutionary force in history"-is dependent upon social enchantment. In modern rationalized and disenchanted social systems charismatic revolution seems to be an impossibility. These correlative assertions are assessed through a reexamination of the work of Weber anda critical review of his subsequent interpreters, particularly with respect to the concept of" charisma" itself. Weber's own writings demonstrate that so-called charismatic figures in mass society are actually a part of the bureau-technic structure, which manufactures (in a thoroughly rational way)their apparent appeal. Weber's additional types of traditional and bureaucratic revolution- too often neglected in the literature-are discussed both in the context of his work and that of the current world situation.
Charisma is a term which in popular usage describes the personal appeal of an extraordinary individual. Derived from a Greek word meaning “divine gift”, the term is used generally to symbolize the inexplicable force of such a personality. The essential attributes of the concept of charisma have not been identified in anything like a systematic way, with the result that use of the term, even in learned discourse, is often extremely ambiguous. This paper, an analytic study, represents an attempt to identify the essential attributes of the term, with a view to making it more useful, particularly within the universe of rhetorical discourse.
An acknowledged landmark of American public address, Theodore Roosevelt's “The Man with the Muck‐Rake” has long resisted adequate interpretation, largely because historians and rhetoricians have not resolved the apparent anomaly between Roosevelt's “conservative” remarks on journalism and his “progressive” proposals for economic reform. Examining Roosevelt's rhetorical intentions resolves the anomaly, reveals the thematic unity of the address and explains its meaning as rhetorical action.
Typescript. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Indiana University, 1963. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 230-255). Microform: Ann Arbor, Mich. : University Microfilms, 1964. -- 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm.
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