[KB] general rhetorical question

Thu Apr 9 17:00:42 EDT 2020

Clarke, so far, so good, but I'd feel better if we weren't stuck with Biden. Too bad he has to campaign. I think he would have his best chance of winning if he didn't have to say a word between now and election day. Bob
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From: KB <kb-bounces at kbjournal.org> on behalf of James Klumpp <jklumpp at umd.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, April 7, 2020 7:16 PM
To: Clarke Rountree <rountrj at uah.edu>; kb at kbjournal.org <kb at kbjournal.org>
Subject: Re: [KB] general rhetorical question

Clarke,

I am not certain that I have ever written about this as a general problem, but I have been working on this problem for many years.  Take a look for example at:

James F. Klumpp.  “Burkean Social Hierarchy and the Ironic Investment of Martin Luther King.”  Kenneth Burke and the Twenty-first Century.  Ed. Bernard L. Brock.   Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999.  207-41.

At the heart of that is an exploration in dialectic based in KB's notions.  It is captured in something as basic as the notion of the corrupting force of purification.  As we follow the implications of a language strategy, the dialectic tells us we will play out its possibilities and then keep going beyond its "Malthusian limits."  Thus, irony.  King pursues a strategy with the purpose of creating economic equality for his people.  The system he assaults co-op-erates in transforming his people into consumers.  But pursuit of that purpose ironically denies them access to the full power of the economy.

I don't believe Burke wrote about this, it may be by extension.  But his dialectic makes the case that this is inevitable.  The seeds of a language strategy's failure are contained in its basic form.  It is in Hegel's principle of contradiction (as opposed to Aristotle's).  Did I address this as a general principle in the keynote at the East Stroudsburg conference?  I'd have to look at that again.

Jim Klumpp

On 4/7/2020 5:52 PM, Clarke Rountree wrote:
Dear Burkelers,

Here's a question for the quarantined and bored: I'm trying to see if anyone has written in general about the problem of competing rhetorical goals--times when a rhetor's seeking one goal can undermine a second goal. Did Burke ever write about that?

I thought about the literature on rhetorical genres that look at hybrid genres. A hybrid, by definition, seeks different rhetorical purposes. So, for example, Cheree Carlson discussed John Quincy Adams' forensic and deliberative goals in his Amistad address to the U.S. Supreme Court. But I don't recall her considering how those goals might have conflicted. (The tendency of such studies, I believe, is to say "This speech does THIS and THAT"--an additive perspective.

One problem with this issue is that it is so ubiquitous in rhetorical discourse that there may not be a specific essay that addresses it more generally. For example, say Trump wants to undermine Joe Biden's credibility, but also doesn't want to come across as a mudslinger--indeed perhaps even wants to develop a more positive political image. (Okay, he doesn't care about that, but suppose he did?) Easing up on the attack hurts one goal; bearing down hurts another.

Thoughts?

Clarke

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Dr. Clarke Rountree
Professor of Communication Arts
212D CTC
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville, AL  35899
256-824-6646
clarke.rountree at uah.edu<mailto:clarke.rountree at uah.edu>

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