Post-dialectics and fascistic argumentation in the global climate change debate

Abstract

Argumentation is in the midst of a crisis that imperils deliberative rhetoric from working how it should when good arguments matter most. Rising trends of verbal aggression, hostility, and control in political contexts, which violate most argumentative norms but garner populistic adherence, are not only troubling for argumentation but also for the sustainability of life itself when it comes to the issue of global climate change. We argue that desires to control ideas and attitudes toward the environment demonstrate what we call fascistic argument—a form of argumentation that regales the domination of materialities, discourses, and bodies through nationalistic structures of feeling. Fascistic argument is one of many possible implications of a post-dialectical turn in argumentation, a perspective which understands argument as a constellation of assemblages, affects, and forces rather than a process of testing and contesting good reasons. We explore the rise of fascistic argument as an effect of the failure of reason to compel policy. This failure generates a contagion of affects and desires that control the argumentative process and infect dialectic debates aimed at achieving consensus.