<html><head></head><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:13px"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4277"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4278">Burkophiles,<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4279"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4277"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4280"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4281"> The
most problematic term for Burke, it seems, was “act,” the key term itself in
his dramatistic/pentadic theory. Language as “symbolic action,” not
disinterested description, narration, or analysis, was and remains central to
Burke’s philosophy. Symbolizers “act” on their environment, linguistically and
physically, and then listen or look for a response. (As Abraham Kaplan said,
it’s not always clear with Burke whether he’s talking about language per se,
Burke’s stated focus, or more tangible action as well, on the “reality out
there.”) There’s something of a dialogue going on between symbolizers and their
situation (Drew Seminary lecture). A matured “reflection” of reality may
emerge, over time, if the symbolic species pays studied attention to the
“recalcitrances” that can fashion that response, by way of adjustment. Those
“recalcitrances” can be social and “ethical,” as well as physical (<i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4282">P&C</i> 256). <o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4283"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4280"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4284"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4285"> “Act”
was most problematic for Burke because, in ultimately defining “act” or “action,”
articulating its lineaments in full, he had to reach beyond his other four
pentadic terms to clearly distinguish “action” from “motion,” the other pole in
Burke’s basic dialectic opposition (Crusius, <i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4286">Kenneth Burke and the Conversation ater Philosophy</i> 164). “Act” or
“action” could not be totally explained in terms of “agent,” or the kind or
type of person doing the acting; or “purpose,” the aim or goal of the action;
or “agency,” the means by which that desideratum might be achieved, via tools,
coagents, or steps or stages; or “scene,” the context to which the actor, via
action, would have to adjust strategically. “Act” or “action” had to be
explained in part, even if in very, very small part, in terms of itself.<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4287"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4284"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4288"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4289"> This
quandary becomes most acute, Burke suggested, when we try to explain God’s
“act” of Creation, whether merely “in principle,” or not. God, the theologians
tell us, didn’t have a context or scene, didn’t have or need agencies or means,
was not finite or in need, as the notion of an actor performing an action for
some purpose in an encircling environment of some kind would imply. Hence Burke
highlighted the accommodation the young William James concocted, God being the
context for His Own Act of Creation (<i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4290">GM</i>).
Hence, a “pure act,” one that does not require any outside constraint or
“taint” of finitude whatsoever, an “act” without motivation or influence
impinging on it from a beyond.<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4291"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4288"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4292"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4293"> Later
in <i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4294">GM</i>, Burke implied that James’
solution, and the “perfections” of historically orthodox Christian theology it
adumbrates, generates the embarrassments of “super-drama,”but we’ll let that
matter go for now.<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4295"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4292"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4296"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4297"> An
added complication to “act” as motivational source, however meager we may
construe that motivation, modern
psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, genetics, what have you, seem
to have stripped the notion of “free” act from the vocabulary of today’s
cognoscente (see the chapter “The Fear of Determinism” in Steven Pinker’s <i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4298">The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human
Nature</i>). Thus, the plaintive plea from Burke at the tail end of
“Terministic Screens” in <i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4299">LASA</i>: Even
if we’re not “free” in any traditional sense, we still have no other way of
relating to ourselves, except via the illusion of “free will,” if it be an
illusion. We can never treat members of the symbolic species the way we react
to nonsymbolic animals. What Burke calls in <i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4300">GM</i>
“scenic freedom,” conjured by language itself, can do in a pinch for the now
out-of-fashion boast, “I am the master
of my fate, the captain of my soul.”<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4301"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4296"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4302"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4303"> Bottom
line: For Burke, “act” as concept, pentadic term, controlling notion in
rhetorical appeal, partakes of the “purity” of God’s Creative Action, however
pale and attenuated that sliver of “freedom” from outside constraint may be. Burke
claims the “philosophic school” that best reflects and emphasizes the dramatic
actor’s freedom and autonomy from outside forces is “realism.”<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4304"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4302"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4305"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4306"> All
this is preliminary to the claim that it’s “act” as controlling term, and
“realism” as illustrative philosophy in general, not “idealism,” that informs
the notion of “conservatives often support[ing] the autonomy of individuals in
economic situations because they tell [not] agent-act narratives, where
individuals can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and succeed regardless
of any situations which they might find themselves in,” but rather act-agent or
act-scene narratives that so tell that tale. The critique in the current issue
of the <i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4307">KBJ</i> that so convincingly
claims that the campaign rhetoric of candidate Donald Trump illustrated an
agent-scene ratio (or, if you will, perhaps an agent-act correspondence, as
well) is a little short of the mark, Burke-wise, in the preliminary
critical-perspective section, as I interpret Burke, anyhow.<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4308"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4305"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4309"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4310"> But
what about the notion of a “free moral agent,” you may ask. Doesn’t that
complicate things? Who says people can’t pick out tools from the Burkean
toolbox and use them the way the way they want?<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4311"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4309"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4312"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4313"> Good
question. Maybe more later.<o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4314"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4312"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4315"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4316"><o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4317"> </o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4318"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4319"> Ed <o:p id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_4320"></o:p></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1535740396756_2551">
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