[KB] Questions for discussion at my panel
wessr at oregonstate.edu
wessr at oregonstate.edu
Fri Jun 23 14:02:48 EDT 2017
I agree with Ed that Burke's "Destiny of Acceptance Frames" provides
the broad standpoint needed to consider current shifts.
I would formulate these shifts somewhat differently, however, mainly
more broadly.
Consider that in the 1700s and 1800s, democratic culture helped
capitalism defeat the aristocracy economically, politically, and
finally culturally. Remnants of the aristocracy remain (e.g., UK's
monarchy), but in the 1900s the defeat of the aristocracy was completed.
But in the 1900s, democratic culture started legalizing unions and
passing laws restraining capitalism. Democratic culture began to
become a problem rather than a solution for capitalist expansion.
Today, authoritarian culture may be more useful to capitalist
expansion than democratic culture (China?). Perhaps the rise is
quicker in the US than in Europe. Maybe, more hopefully, having seen
the rise in the US, Europe may be reacting against it.
Education, as Ed suggests, may be especially important insofar as
different levels of education may track different responses to
authoritarianism. Education does correlate with income, but when you
get to the top 1% you're dealing with a difference that makes a
difference ("dark money").
Such shifts take time to play out but Burke's acceptance/rejection
does provide a standpoint from which to track what is happening.
Bob
Quoting Edward C Appel <edwardcappel at frontier.com>:
> Burkophiles,
>
> At the risk of being reprimanded again for injecting current
> politics into our sacrosanct parlor discussion, allow me to respond
> to Carrol’s response to Herb’s conference panel question.
>
> Many factors account for Clinton’s “loss” to Trump in 2016. I put
> “loss” in quotation marks because, if the U.S. were actually a
> democracy, Clinton would have won by almost three million votes.
> Everything’s gerrymandered to beat the band, including our outdated
> Electoral College. You can read the chapter “Program” in CS as a
> paean to democracy as a discursive necessity.
>
> But let’s get to the most intriguingly proleptic Burkean commentary
> on 2016, “The Destiny of Acceptance Frames” in ATH. Trump’s
> irregular burlesque-cum-factionally tragic campaign discourse
> (that’s how I see it) went with, and signaled, the frame-breaking we
> surely must note in the altered voting patterns in rustbelt states
> like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. A must-read essay on
> this potentially tectonic shift appeared in yesterday’s NYTimes:
> “The End of the Left and the Right as We Knew Them,” by Thomas
> Edsall. The frame-breaking is occurring across the Western world,
> most notably in recent elections in the U.K. (June 8), France, the
> Netherlands, and Austria.
>
> Across the board, the new and most prominent demographic indicators
> of left vs. right are education and income: Those with college and
> advanced degrees go left; with high school or less, they go right.
> The same with income: Kensington in London, the richest voting
> district in the UK, went Labour on June 8 for the first time ever.
> The formerly class-based politics is being replaced by
> culture-based. Labor/social-democratic parties lost ground
> precipitously in all recent European elections, except in England.
> And there, it was enhanced Labour Party-voting in Conservative
> districts that inflated their vote total. Now, it’s “a more racially
> and zenophobic politics, on the one hand, and a politics
> capitalizing on increasing levels of education and open-mindedness
> in the electorate, on the other.”
>
> The upshot, as Edsall seems to see it, translated into Burkean
> terms: Don’t expect too much from the symbolic species. What is
> required of the left is “some thoughtful and humane co-optation in
> the form of deference to our limits and boundaries.”
>
> Reckoning by their pieties and allegiances, how much accelerating
> “diversity” and social marginalization can the working class,
> already beset by economic globalization, absorb?
>
> Ed
>
> --------------------------------------------
> On Wed, 6/21/17, Cox, Carrol <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
> Subject: Re: [KB] Questions for discussion at my panel
> To: "kb at kbjournal.org" <kb at kbjournal.org>
> Date: Wednesday, June 21, 2017, 9:23 PM
>
> The black voters of Philadelphia
> stayed home on election day, and that gave Pennsylvania
> & the election to Trump.
>
> Actually, the 2016 election was decided by what
> Obama did and (more importantly ) did not do in the first
> two years of his presidency.
>
> Carrol
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: KB [mailto:kb-bounces at kbjournal.org]
> On Behalf Of Edward C Appel
> Sent: Monday,
> June 05, 2017 10:05 AM
> To: Edward C Appel;
> HERBERT W. Simons
> Cc: gayle simons; kb at kbjournal.org;
> Cem Zeytinoglu
> Subject: Re: [KB] Questions
> for discussion at my panel
>
> Great questions, Herb! Thanks a bunch. Looking
> forward to our panel.
>
>
>
> Ed
> --------------------------------------------
> On Mon, 6/5/17, HERBERT W. Simons <hsimons at temple.edu>
> wrote:
>
> Subject: Questions
> for discussion at my panel
> To: "Edward
> C Appel" <edwardcappel at frontier.com>
> Cc: "Cem Zeytinoglu" <czeytinogl at po-box.esu.edu>,
> "David Blakesley" <dblakes at clemson.edu>,
> "gayle simons" <gaylesimons at yahoo.com>,
> kb at kbjournal.org,
> "David C. Williams" <dcwill at fau.edu>
> Date: Monday, June 5, 2017, 9:48 AM
>
> KB CONFERENCE Session on
> TRUMP Herb Simons
>
> 1.
> What does discourse
> about Trump in the media
> tell us about who
> “we” are? Who “they” are? i.e. our
>
> beliefs and values;
>
>
> 2.
> What roles are played by money and
> power: e.g.,
> in the GOP on issues like
> climate control?
>
>
> 3.
> Assess U,S. news media re Trump,
> including SMS,
> Cable, social media, radio.
> How did GOP achieve control? Was
> Edelman
> right on
> media?: a passing parade of
> symbols? Ritual elements?
> Theater? Dramatic
> in
> outline; empty of detail?
>
> 4.
>
> Investigative journalism: liberal? Unbalanced?
> Immature? Praiseworthy
>
> 5.
> Is there a deep
> state in the U.S.? A media elite?
> Intel
> CIA, academies?? FBI,infotainment?
> Role
> of old money?Do we amuse ourselves to death?
> (Postman)
>
>
> 6.
> RE explaining Trump what’s Rhet
> theory/crit’s
> distinctive
> contribution
>
> a.
> Mercieca on threats, appeals to pity? Ad
> hominem?
> Ad populum? Trish Roberts on
> demagoguery. Trump as cult
> leader
>
> b.
>
> Appel & others on burlesque, truthful
>
> hyperbole, ridicule, satire, role of political
> cartoons?
>
>
> c.
> Fishman on Trump’s
> boasts—e.g. I’m rich; I own
> them; they
> owe me.
>
> 7.
> What can (or does) Burkean theory/criticism
> contribute? E.g., Dramatism,Perspetive by
> incongruity, 4
> master tropes?
> Hitler’s “battle”, paradox,
> dialectic?
>
>
> 8.
> What’s admirable about Trump?
> What’s the secret
> of his allure? His
> power to persuade? His distinctive
>
> contribution? His
> successes with the white
> working class? With evangelicals?
> His
> tweets?
>
> 9.
> The investigations of Trump & CO’s
> alleged
> wrongdoing?
>
>
> 10.
> Impeachment debates; the obstruction of
> justice
> issue? Trump & Putin& other
> Russians; Trump &
> Flint.
>
>
> 11.
> Hacking issue
>
>
> 12.
> Subverting the Presidential election
>
>
> 13.
> How will it all turn out?
> --
>
> Herbert W. Simons,
>
> Ph.D.
> Emeritus Professor of
> Communication
> Dep't of Strategic
> Communication, Weiss Hall 215
> Temple
> University, Philadelphia 19122
> Home phone:
> 215 844 5969
> http://astro.temple.edu/~hsimons
> Academic Fellow, Center for Transformative
> Strategic
> Initiatives (CTSI)
>
>
>
>
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