The rhetoric of the left

Abstract

Of all the bruising confrontations between the capitalist and communist power blocks perhaps none was so staggering as the Cuban missile crisis. Most Americans patriotically rallied around our determined young president in this great moment of crisis, but there were other Americans who spoke with a different voice then who presumed to disagree with the dominant opinion. These were the voices from the left, now the old left. Their rhetorical response is my subject. By concentrating on several specimens written from a leftist perspective in response to a single event, I create a framework for analyzing the discourse of an ideology to demonstrate the influence of that ideology on and argument, together with the usefulnesses of an analytic method. Antecedent to this analysis are particular considerations about style, argument and method which lead to other considerations peculiar to the relation of political discourse to the world. Because the event focused opinion strongly, and time gives perspective, I have chosen written and oral reactions to the Cuban missile crisis. In addition to selections of written from three leftist newspapers, the National Guardian, The Weekly People, and The Catholic Worker, I have included speech samples on the same topic from Dean Rusk, then Secretary of State, as a contrast to the rhetoric of the left. To analyze this discourse I use Walker Gibson's style machine as he calls it developed to account for distinctions...in the voices addressing (115), distinctions which he breaks down into tough, sweet and stuffy talkers. Gibson's machine, consisting of sixteen grammatical-rhetorical qualities, is appended (A). Other available descriptions or classifications of or argument are Huntington Brown's deliberative, expository and prophetic, Edwin Black's exhortation and argument, and Aristotle's topics. Brown and Black analyze thought methodology with some consideration of style. The neo-Aristotelians, on the other hand, consider and thought combined into argumentative methods. I follow the classical topics in considering rhetorical argument (Rhetoric chs. 22, 23, 24; Corbett 94-132). My particular assumptions are that belief influences style, that while prose styles can be typed individual differences remain, that includes varieties of diction, syntax, and argument Further, I seek an attitude towards language, an attitude, however, influenced not by cultural or individual psychology, but by political belief. Because political writers argue, their arguments common to all rhetoric can also be typed. Argument creates patterns which shapes. For Gibson is a matter of sheer individual will, a desire for a particular kind of self-definition no matter what the circumstances (24). Political belief can condition will. For both Marie H. Nichols (75), and Edwin Black (Persona) reveals distinctive political personalities. In selecting a usable analytical methodology I had either to invent my own, or use an existing one. I chose Gibson's because we share similar concerns. I want to know what kind of voice speaks. What does the use of that voice imply? How do I determine trust? I also want to know the attitude of that voice towards subject and audience. If Gibson can help to answer these questions, then I accept his work saving the necessity of inventing yet another method, concentrating instead on the results produced. In general, stylistics seems more of a discourse on method than on results. Although we want to know what ails us, naming is not enough. To know that Dorothy Day talks tough does not suffice. We know there are other names than tough, sweet or stuffy. The point is not just to label, but to penetrate into the thought behind the voice aided by a given point of view. Gibson describes his work as primitive. Primitive, yet legitimate because applied he yields insight His method reveals attitude just as psychiatric categories, which might also be called primitive, reveal motive. If the arguments which pattern are traditional and discernible, their correlations with are not as clear. The advertiser, for example, speaks sweetly with recognizably dubious argument. Those political voices purring and storming at us must also be judged by how they argue so their trustworthiness can be determined. We can uncover falsehood by showing how a statement varies from reality--plain lying. We can discover understanding of mental illness by probing the discordance the aberrant mind creates