Identifying with Burke

Every time that Burke is cited in the work I read, or mentioned in class, I tend to create this image of him as the father of New Rhetoric. That image was tested today, as I read his work for the first time in my career. The assigned reading was the first chapter of his book A Rhetoric of Motives. In “The Range of Rhetoric” he uses several examples from literature, historical political accounts and academic disciplines to explain how rhetoric can be a part of a broad range of aspects in our lives. Because of the importance of his theory, I might get carried away here, trying to understand it in relation to a recent event titled “Messages of Sisterhood” in which feminist scholars, artists, and activists explored their perceptions of the concept of sisterhood in light of their experiences. But before I make those connections, a closer look at Burke’s work is necessary.

Ultimately, he establishes that rhetoric “is rooted in an essential function of language itself, a function that is wholly realistic, and is continually born anew; the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols” (Burke 43).  Before providing this grounding definition, however, Burke qualifies rhetoric as transformative in positive ways by stipulating that “the identifications of love are also characteristic of rhetorical expression” (20). With this statement he is urging us to consider the possibility of rhetoric beyond its potential to provoke the negative effects that have been associated with the concept historically, although he does make sure to note that we must still keep these in view. Another important point that he raises is the nature of the audience, which I explored in a recent blog post. Burke’s conception of audience still warrants attention, given the fact that most of the authors that characterize the concept of audience were inspired by Burke’s theory of identification.

It would be useful to focus on some of the terms Burke uses to elaborate his theory to get a better sense of his considerations:

• Essence:
  • Beginnings: “the essence of mankind in terms of … an originating natural ground” (13)
  • Endings: “essence of a thing can be defined narratively in terms of its fulfillment or fruition … a history’s end is a formal way of proclaiming its essence or nature” (13)
• Identification: “transformation involves the ideas and imagery of identification” (20).
  • Identity: “the ‘first’ to which all other terms could be reduced and from which they could then be derived or generated, as from common spirit … the thing’s uniqueness as an entity in itself and by itself, a demarcated unit having its own particular structure” (21)
  • Substance: “an act; and a way of life is an acting-together” (21)
  • Consubstantial: “in acting together, m en have common sensations, concepts, images, ideas, attitudes that make them consubstantial” (21) “the resources of identification whereby a sense of consubstantiality is symbolically established between beings of unequal status may extend far into the realm of the idealistic” (46)
  • Division: “Identification is affirmed in earnestness precisely because there is division. Identification is compensatory to division” (22) “put identification and division ambiguously together, so that you cannot know for certain just where one ends and the other begins and you have the characteristic invitation to rhetoric” (25) “Since identification implies division, we found rhetoric involving us in matters of socialization and faction” (45)

In developing his theory of identification, Burke made some important points about the role of rhetoric in social and political processes, like how “we are clearly in the region of rhetoric when considering the identifications whereby a specialized activity makes one a participant in some social or economic class” (27-28). The participants at the panel discussion about “Messages of Sisterhood” at La Casita Cultural Center this past Friday March 1st were all specialized in different fields (academia, art, labor movements) but were still able to focus on the common goal of social activism. Thus, “the individual can identify himself [sic] with the character of a surrounding situation, translating one into terms of the other; hence a shift to a grander order, the shift from thoughts of one’s own individual end to thoughts of a universal end” (Burke 16). Still, the concept of ‘universal ends’ can prove to be problematic, and this was emphasized by all three of the presenters by pointing out the difficulties that the groups they worked with faced in terms of defining the goals they were to pursue and how to approach these. These are, in fact, rhetorical decisions.

In her presentation, Maria, a Syracuse based, Puerto Rican social activist described some of the ways that she had collaborated with unions that focused on immigrant worker rights. In a particular protest in Florida, she found herself working with a group of Haitian and Dominican workers. Because of the groups’ language differences, she saw the protest as a problematic situation, until one of the workers decided to use a drum to start chanting “solidarity,” which in Spanish is “solidaridad,” its French equivalent being “solidarité.” The similarity of the words and the appeal of the drumbeat united these two groups in the common goal of protest. Burke poses that “a speaker persuades an audience by the use of stylistic identifications; his act of persuasion may be for the purpose of causing the audience to identify itself with the speaker’s interests; and the speaker draws on identification of interests to establish rapport between himself and his audience” (46). The story that Maria told as part of the panel discussion is a great example of how stylistic choices are relevant in the relationship between speaker and audience, as well as the particularities of the individuals and their context. It is also an instance in which Burke’s theory of identification can be usefully applied, considering the terms I provided above.

After the event was over I was able to talk to Maria and asked her if there were any other instances that she could recall in which there was some kind of unity of different communities that don’t share the same language. She went on to tell me about how a group of Guatemalan workers were approached by Spanish speaking labor union representatives and weren’t successful because of the different dialects that they spoke, and how she decided to do a cookout which did eventually bring them together. This situation has made me reflect upon the uses of cultural practices for social activism, and motivated me to explore further in Puerto Rican cultures specifically.