Robert L. Ivie

Images of savagery in American justifications for war

This paper identifies the essential characteristics of victimage rhetoric in American justifications for war. The Johnson administrations insistence on the aggression‐from‐the‐North thesis is the starting point for the analysis. Close inspection of the administrations efforts reveals that the enemy is portrayed as a savage, i.e., an aggressor, driven by irrational desires for conquest, who is seeking to subjugate others by force of arms. This image of the enemy is intensified by a contrasting image of the United States as a representative of civilization who is rational, tolerant of diversity, and pacific. Further investigation confirms that the contrasts of force vs. freedom, irrationality vs. rationality, and aggression vs. defense permeate the substance and style of the call‐to‐arms throughout American history. They provide the internal dynamic which integrates recurrent form into a genre of rhetorical discourse.

Metaphor and the rhetorical invention of cold war “idealists”

This paper presents a five‐step procedure for identifying metaphorical concepts guiding the rhetorical invention of three Cold War idealists”;: Henry Wallace, J. William Fulbright, and Helen Caldicott. The source of their collective failure to dispel threatening images of Soviet savagery is located in a recurrent system of metaphorical concepts (including MADNESS, PATHOLOGY, SICKNESS, AND FORCE) that promotes a reversal of the enemy‐image rather than its transcendence. By decivilizing Americas image, “idealists”; turn the victimage ritual inward upon a self‐righteous nation and provoke “realists”; to regress further into decivilizing images of the Soviet Union.

Presidential motives for war

The vocabulary of American Presidents is analyzed to locate the images, or vocabularies of motives, that they project in justification of war. Kenneth Burkes dramatism provides the methodological resources to chart and synthesize the language of Madison, Polk, McKinley, Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, and Johnson in selected war messages and to discover that their vocabulary establishes a rigid and truncated pattern of justification for war

American Exceptionalism in a Democratic Idiom: Transacting the Mythos of Change in the 2008 Presidential Campaign

The mythos of the 2008 presidential campaign rhetoric is examined for the potential it reveals to transform political culture from within, specifically to articulate a synergic relationship between American exceptionalism and democracy that depolarizes political discourse and promotes interdependency in the form of collaborative and complementary relations. Barack Obamas campaign mantra of change was ritually resisted and reinforced by the symbolic act of John McCains heroic last stand, which dramatized an attitudinal shift away from national chauvinism and toward a more democratic ethos. This shift was expressed by Obama in a prophetic discourse of restoration and renewal that would turn the myth of exceptionalism into a certification of democratic aspirations and democracy into a vehicle for pursuing the American dream.

Speaking “common sense”; about the Soviet threat: Reagan's rhetorical stance

This paper examines the symbolic resources employed by Ronald Reagan to characterize his anti‐Soviet policies and increased military expenditures as common‐sense adaptations to a real threat. The pattern of his rhetorical efforts is to establish a basic context of assumptions about Soviet conduct, using the metaphor of savagery and a set of decivilizing vehicles as primary resources. The resulting image is “literalized”; through an interplay of metaphor and evidence in which the trope calls attention to supportive information and discounts inconsistent data. A Presidential persona incarnates the peoples voice to lend a further note of rationality to the heroic call for a strong America. Attempts by critics to combat Reagans rhetoric are frustrated by the absence of a compelling substitute for his image of Soviet barbarism.

Savagery in democracy's empire

The language of savagery is indigenous to US political culture as the trope that legitimises war and empire. This article traces its recurrence and development throughout US history, from Americas 18th century revolution to the post-World War II American century and from Cold War to the present open-ended war on terror—a continuing quest for empire under the sign of civilisation and democracy. The three main dimensions of the image of savagery and multiple sets of decivilising vehicles are identified as an initial step towards language critique.

The metaphor of forge in Prowar discourse: The case of 1812

This paper identifies “force” as the master trope of prowar discourse. Attention is focused on its literalization through a process that involves the selection of decivilizing vehicles, the affirmation of threatening expectations, the suggestion of rational demonstrations, and the subversion of competing perspectives. Each of these operations is illustrated in the specific context of the War of 1812, while the discussion as a whole is directed at the general consideration of how prowar arguments are produced from metaphors of force.

Literalizing the metaphor of soviet savagery: President Truman's plain style

After examining Harry S. Trumans plain style to determine its role in literalizing the Cold War image of Soviet savagery, this essay concludes that Trumans blunt and straightforward manner of addressing the nation reinforced the connotations of a decivilizing metaphor and, thus, enhanced its capacity for constructing political reality.

Prologue to Democratic Dissent in America

Abstract This essay considers the problematic of dissent being rendered Oxymoronic with democracy in the United States under conditions of a weak democratic culture and an aggressive prosecution of the war on terror. It examines obstacles to democratic dissent in the U.S. and potential resources for rehabilitating it, sketching a preliminary map of the theoretical and cultural ground to be covered in a resistance to the further militarization of global politics. Suggesting that democracy is dissent, and democratic dissent is rhetorical critique, the essay argues that extant political culture might be rearticulated to dissent by language critiques that produce persuasive re-descriptions and symbolic merging.

Democratic Dissent and the Trick of Rhetorical Critique

As an exercise in consubstantial rivalry (a notion adapted from Kenneth Burke), democratic dissent operates tactically to turn the tables on the powerful in a given cultural field of political tension (a perspective drawn from Michel de Certeau). Dissent rearticulates political relationships by an ongoing act of rhetorical critique inside an established framework of understanding. The dissenter is a rhetorical trickster deploying metaphor as a principal heuristic of critique. The possibility of credible dissent relies on achieving a certain productive tension between affirming and disconcerting the political order—a double gesture of nonconforming solidarity—as can be illustrated in recent documentaries of dissent such as Uncovered: The War on Iraq.