Jeremy Engels

On Acquiescence and Ends-Less War: An Inquiry into the New War Rhetoric

Our nation faces a number of grave problems today, but none is more dangerous to democracy than war. War saps resources, destroys bodies, and perverts public discussion. Of course, war is nothing new in the United States. Our nation is founded on the rhetoric of enemyship, and thus one hears distant roar of today’s violent rhetoric in the founding documents of the United States. What is new is the length and cost, both human and economic, of the various wars occurring under the openended umbrella of the ‘‘war on terror,’’ a conflict of perpetual exception with neither definite rhetorical boundaries nor a foreseeable end. The ongoing war in Afghanistan is the longest war in American history. Over 2,000 soldiers have died, and more than 68,000 have been wounded. The war has cost nearly

Uncivil Speech: Invective and the Rhetorics of Democracy in the Early Republic

1.2 trillion, according to the US Department of Defense. The UN estimates that nearly 13,000 civilians have died in Afghanistan. The US invaded Iraq in 2003 and removed most of its remaining troops in December 2011. Iraq Body Count estimates that between 110,000 and 120,000 civilians died during the US war in Iraq, though this might be a terrible underestimate by hundreds of thousands. The Wall Street Journal projects that the Iraq War will cost US taxpayers

Demophilia: A Discursive Counter to Demophobia in the Early Republic.

4 trillion, including the ever-accelerating health care costs for returning veterans. In sum, as The Christian Science monitor points out, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is greater than the cost of World War II. These wars, along with military action in Pakistan, Yemen, and Libya have US defense spending near all-time highs, doubling from 2001 to 2008: in 2011, 20 percent of the federal budget was spent on ‘‘defense’’ (

The Politics of Resentment and the Tyranny of the Minority: Rethinking Victimage for Resentful Times

718 billion). Turning away from the monetized discourses of neo-liberalism, we can already see that the human costs of war are of themselves unacceptable. Rhetorical critics must describe and ultimately demystify the discourses justifying war. We must do this not merely to exercise our critical chops but instead to instruct

“The Effort of Reason, and the Adventure of Beauty”: The Aesthetic Rhetoric of Randolph Bourne

Robert Owens “Declaration of Mental Independence,” declaimed on the Fourth of July, 1826, was one of the most ill-received speeches in the early Republic. The attendant controversy provides an opportunity to theorize invectives role in democratic culture. Invective was useful in the early Republic, and continues to be useful today, because it is both constitutive of national identity and a curative rhetoric for managing cultural anxiety. However, there are limits to what invective can achieve, and invectives place in democracy is consequently ambivalent. Rather than curing democratic anxiety, invective tends to perpetuate it, disrupting democracys emphasis on controlled conflict and pushing it ever closer to violence.

Disciplining Jefferson: The Man within the Breast and the Rhetorical Norms of Producing Order

The term “democracy” is ambivalent—in the history of the United States, it has played both god term and devil term, and inspired both sacrifice and trembling. Robert L. Ivie has mapped the discourse by which American policy elites have said “no” to democracy—the rhetoric of “demophobia.” This essay complements his analysis by mapping the discourse by which Americans began to say “yes” to democracy during President Thomas Jeffersons administration—the rhetoric of “demophilia.” Understood as a discursive formation, demophilia creates space for rhetoric and deliberation that is closed by demophobia. In the process, demophilia disciplines democracy by producing deliberative subjects properly attuned to civil speech.

Reading the Riot Act: Rhetoric, Psychology, and Counter-Revolutionary Discourse in Shays's Rebellion, 1786–1787

The victimage ritual is a familiar concept to rhetorical scholars. Victimage, as understood by Kenneth Burke and Robert L. Ivie, is a curative rhetoric aimed at easing the guilt associated with symbolic life. By putting Friedrich Nietzsches theory of the victimage ritual as enumerated in On the Genealogy of Morals in conversation with Burke and Ivie, this essay expands received wisdom by arguing that victimage in presidential rhetoric is often as much about prolonging resentment and guilt as it is at easing these emotions.

The Two Faces of Cincinnatus: A Rhetorical Theory of the State of Exception

We are still coming to terms with the legacy of Randolph Bourne. Although he died at the age of 32 just as the United States was cheerfully entering the First World War under the banner of “democracy,” the words he penned in an unfinished essay still resonate in the American social conscience: “War is the Health of the State.” This maxim, once thought the exclusive property of leftist radicals, now can be heard echoing from every political corner of the blogosphere as progressives and libertarians alike find cause to question the motives of governmental power. Yet despite his reappearance as a symbol, Bourne in many ways remains as forgotten as ever—perhaps even more so as his once provocative claim has been transformed into a talking point. This essay endeavors to recapture the voice of Bourne in all its complexity, seeking to place him at the forefront of the contemporary American intellectual tradition as one of its most piercing critics, most visionary poets, and most eloquent rhetors. Specifically, we show how Bournes critique of the “State” foresaw the rise of the technological society organized by ideological propaganda, how his vision of the Beloved Community anticipated our modern ideals of global transnationalism, and how his literary essays practiced a form of aesthetic rhetoric which employed dramatistic methods to bring about a new state of expanded social consciousness.

Deliberation in the Midst of Crisis

This essay analyzes Thomas Jeffersons letter to Maria Cosway of October 12, 1786, remembered today as the dialogue between Jeffersons head and heart. By offering a close reading of the rhetorical styles of the players in Jeffersons letter, and by reading the dialogue alongside Adam Smiths The Theory of Moral Sentiments, this essay argues that Jeffersons goal was to discipline his irrational, misbehaving heart. Jeffersons letter is interesting as a rhetorical artifact in itself, and deserves a close reading; yet this essay also argues that Jeffersons letter warrants consideration because it offers a detailed discussion of his political psychology and also, I argue, a window into his fantasies about how public affairs would be managed in the United States.

Peace Pact: The Lost World of the American Founding (review)

In 1786, backcountry Massachusetts farmers, fed up with government policies favoring aristocratic elites, marched on courts to bar the entry of judges and juries. Enacting a long-standing tradition known to colonists as a “Regulation,” the farmers’ movement became known as Shayss Rebellion. Erupting in the turbulent days following the War for Independence, yet predating the formation of the national Constitution, Shayss Rebellion was understood as a crucial post-war attempt to deploy state violence to manage popular dissent; thus, Shayss Rebellion produced deeply problematic yet lasting rhetorical conventions for justifying the compromised forms of republicanism that mark the early republic.