Burke, Kenneth. Attitudes Toward
History (3rd Edition).
This notion of ambivalence gets us to our main thesis with regard to propagandistic (didactic) strategy. We hold that it must be employed as an essentially comic notion, containing two-way attributes lacking in polemical, one-way approaches to social necessity. It is neither wholly euphemistic, nor wholly debunking – hence it provides the charitable attitude towards people that is required for purposes of persuasion and co-operation, but at the same time maintains our shrewdness concerting the simplicities of “cashing in.” (166)
The comic frame of reference also opens up a whole new field for social criticism, since the overly materialistic coordinates of the polemical-debunking frame have unintentionally blinded us to the full operation of “alienating” processes. (p. 167)
The comic analysis of exploitation prompts us to be on the
lookout also for those subtler ways in which the private appropriation of the
public domain continues. It admonishes
us that social exigencies and “goodwill” are as real a vein to be tapped
as any oil deposit in
Against man as a citizen of heaven, thinkers opposed man in nature; and with the progress of efficiency in reasoning, we got simply to man in the jungle. A comic synthesis of these antithetical emphases would “transcend” them by stressing man in society. (p. 170)
In the motives we assign to actions of ourselves and our neighbors, there is implicit a program of socialization. In deciding why people do as they do, we get the cues that place us with relation to them. Hence, a vocabulary of motives is important for the forming of both private and public relationships. A comic frame of motives, as here conceived, would not only avoid the sentimental denial of materialistic factors in human acts. It would also avoid the cynical brutality that comes when such sensitivity is outraged, as it must be outraged by the acts of others or by the needs that practical exigencies place upon us. (p. 170)
And one is exposed indeed to the possibilities of being cheated shamelessly in this world, if he does not accumulate at least a minimum of spiritual resources that no man can take from him. (p. 170)
The comic frame, in making man the student of himself, makes it possible for him to “transcend” occasions when he has been tricked or cheated, since he can readily put such discouragements in his “assets” column, under the head of “experience.” Thus we “win” by subtly changing the rules of the game – and by a mere trick of bookkeeping, like the accountants for big utility corporations, we make “assets” out of “liabilities.” (p. 171)
In sum, the comic frame should enable people to be observers of themselves, while acting. Its ultimate would not be passiveness, but maximum consciousness. One would “transcend” himself by noting his own foibles. He would provide a rationale for locating the irrational and the nonrational. (p. 171)
The metaphorical migration of a term from some restricted field of action into the naming of acts in other fields is a kind of “perspective by incongruity” that we merely propose to make more “efficient “ by proposing a methodology for encouraging still further metaphorical migrations. And this efficiency, while open to distrust, is to be tested iin turn by tests of “ecological balance,” as we extend the orthodox range of a term by the perspective of a totality. (p. 173)
The comic frame of acceptance but carries to completion the translative act. It considers human life as a project in “composition,” where the poet works with the materials of social relationships. Composition, translation, also “revision,” hence offering maximum opportunity for the resources of criticism. (p. 173)
The comic frame might give a man an attitude that increased his spiritual wealth, by making even bad books and trivial remarks legitimate objects of study. It might mitigate somewhat the difficulties in engineering a shift to new symbols of authority, as required by the new social relationships that the revolutions of historic environment have made necessary. (p. 173)
It might provide important cues for the composition of one’s life, which demands accommodation to the structure of others’ lives. (pp. 173-174)
It could not, however, remove the ravages of boredom and inanition that go with the “alienations” of contemporary society. The necessities of earning a living may induce men actually to compete “of their own free will” to get the most incredible kinds of jobs, jobs that make them rot in the dark while the sun is shining, or warp their bodies and their minds by overlong sedentary regimentation and grotesque devotion to all the unadventurous tasks of filing and recording that our enormous superstructure, for manipulating the mere abstract symbols of exchange, has built up. (p. 174)
The comic frame, we submit, offers the best cues for the embodiment of this policy. For one thing, it warns against too great reliance upon the conveniences of moral indignation. Nothing organizes a counter-morality more efficiently than do the intellectuals who promiscuously “move in on” the resources of secular prayer open to the morally indignant. (p. 174)
The need of wages may induce men “voluntarily” to scramble for such “opportunities,” even plotting to elbow themselves into offices which, in earlier economies, would not have been performed at all except by slaves and criminals under compulsion. For alienations of this sort (the stifling of adventure that, as a by-product, has come with the accumulations of the venturesome) the comic frame could not, and should not, offer a recompense. Its value should only reside in helping to produce a state of affairs whereby these rigors may abate. (pp. 174-175)
In universal tragedy, the stylistically dignified scapegoat represents everyman. In his offence, he takes upon himself the guilt of all – and his punishment is mankind’s chastening. We identify ourselves with his weakness (we feel “pity”), but we dissociate ourselves from his punishment (we feel “terror). The dissociation, however, coexists with the association. We are onlookers, but not participants. (p. 188)
The “factional” scapegoat, on the other hand, is closer to the strategy of satire. We may see its subtler forms revealed in its lowest form, the psychology of war, where each camp “projects” its sadism upon the other camp. Each camp, in other words, takes out its vengefulness by attributing “atrocities” to the enemy alone. (p. 188)
The distinction throws some light upon the relationship between “practical action” and “tragic catharsis.” Since “universal” tragedy accuses all men in the lump and absolves them in the lump, it cancels to zero. There is no “unfinished business” still to be done beyond the confines of the ritual. The experience is complete and final. Hence, it calls for “contemplation.” (pp. 188-189)
The “factional” tragedy, on the other hand, attributes the evil, not to all men, but to some (the other faction). Hence, since one’s offence has been transferred to the shoulders of the other faction, the “cleansing” leaves one with a “program of action” beyond the ritual. That is, in some way he must act to weaken the other faction, the vessel charge with his own temptations. (p. 189)
Dictionary of Pivotal Terms (p. 216)
Alienation:
We use it to designate that state of affairs wherein a man no longer “owns” his world because, for one reason or another, it seems basically unreasonable. (p. 216)
Even many who still receive material benefits from the ailing structure likewise become aliens, in that they have lost their belief in the society’s reasonableness. (p. 216)
Causistic Stretching (p. 229)
By casuistic stretching, one introduces new principles while theoretically remaining faithful to old principles. (p. 229)
The devices for ostensibly retaining allegiance to an “original principle” by casuistic stretching eventually lead to demoralization, which can only be stopped by a new start. (p. 229)
A given order must, in stressing certain emphases, neglect others. A bureaucratic order approaches the stage of alienation in proportion as its “unintended by-products” become a stronger factor than the original purpose. The heightening percentage of alienation corresponds with an intensification of class struggle because, at the point where the accumulation of unintended by-products is becoming impressive and oppressive, there will be a class of people who have a very real “stake in” the retention of the ailing bureaucratization. From this you get a further alienation – as the dispossessed are robbed even of their spiritual possession, their “right” to be obedient to the reigning symbols of authority. (226)
Communion (p. 234)
“Communion” involves the interdependence of people through their common stake in both co-operative and symbolic networks. (p. 234)
The artist specializes in the manipulation of the symbolic structure. He tends generally to communicate by reaffirming the norms of the co-operative structure. (p. 234)
And when discrediting one of the norms, he usually does so by affirming another of the norms: he pits one of his society’s values against another of its values, so that even in an attitude of “rejection,” he is not wholly “outside” the values of his society. (p. 234)
In sum, we contend that “perspective by incongruity” makes for a dramatic vocabulary, with weighting and counter-weighting, in contrast with the liberal ideal of neutral naming in the characterization process. (p. 311)
Whereas the arousing and fulfilling of attitudes purely for love of the art can be specified as the mark of purely poetic gratification, rhetoric is the use of devices that arouse in the audience the attitudes that lead to corresponding responses in the practical realm, such as voting, purchasing, or being persuaded to favor some moral judgments or policies rather than others. (p. 414)
The horrors of Auschwitz derive from a few instructions given by authorities who never went near the place. An overwhelming amount of the damage done by our ingenious, spendthrift modern weaponry in Vietnman was made possibly by humble, orderly, obedient, peacefully behaving job-holders, who raise their families in quiet suburbs, and perhaps do not even spank their children. One bomb dropped, by the merest twitch of a finger, upon a target so far below as to be unseen, can, without the slightest physical effort, do more damage than could have been done by a whole raging horde of Genghis Khan’s invaders exerting themselves like crazy. In such dissociation which, given the current state of technological development, is all about us, there is a kind of built-in schizophrenia. Its disorders also foment guerrilla movements, and I suspect sheer aimless vandalism among puzzled, spirited youths whose energies would otherwise be unemployed. (p. 421)