Empathy and Abjection after Burke (1): On the Rise and Fall of “Listening-Rhetorics,” 1936–2023
James S. Baumlin | Missouri State University
Publication: Volume 5 Issue 4
Abstract | What is it that leads rhetoric to succeed, or fail, as an instrument of persuasion? What is it in human psychology that makes individuals susceptible, or resistant, to rhetorical appeals? What are the moments and movements in recent history that have led theorists to revise their understanding of rhetoric in its aims and techniques? These questions underlie the two-part survey that follows.
It was in 1950—at mid-20th century—that Kenneth Burke published his Rhetoric of Motives, whose agonistic model of discourse rested in a group psychology of identification bound to a social anthropology of scapegoating. Through subsequent decades, Western rhetorical theory has stayed in touch with Burkean concepts; methods as diverse as Rogerian argument, Corderian expressivism, and Booth’s “listening-rhetoric” took Burke’s identification as a precursor and starting point. Though their vocabularies diverged, each shared an audience psychology grounded in “empathetic understanding” (Rogers), seeking common ground between opposing factions and the possibility of mutual assent (Booth). For the authors surveyed here wrote in times of war—from World War II and the Cold War to Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and the post-9/11 “war on terror.” And each wrote in times of social-political unrest, with protests—often violent—raging across U.S. city streets and college campuses. Their collective aim was salutary: to reduce conflict, induce cooperation, and increase social cohesion.
And yet, with each version of this “new” rhetoric, a criticism arises. Whereas a rhetoric of empathy seeks to overcome divisiveness, the Burkean model remains agonistic at its core: identification entails division, and vice versa. So, even as the “new” rhetoric evolved, an alternative was being articulated in fields of feminism, postcolonialism, and cultural studies generally: Theirs became a rhetoric, not of identification, but of cultural/bodily difference. Representing what was largely unassimilable in the voice of the subaltern “Other,” their critique of the rhetorics of “empathetic understanding” made these latter seem naïve.
This present survey—Part one of a double essay—ends roughly in the first decade of the 21st century, when rhetorical theory evolved yet further in its understanding of audience psychology, turning from Freudian and Rogerian models to material-behaviorist models grounded in neuroscience.
Key words | Audience Psychology, Cognitive Theory, Cultural Difference, (Burkean) Division, Embodiment, Empathy, Ethos, (Burkean) Identification, “Listening-Rhetoric,” Narrative, “New” Rhetoric, Scapegoating, Understanding, Rogerian Argument, Wayne C. Booth, Kenneth Burke, I.A. Richards, Carl Rogers
James S. Baumlin (jbaumlin@missouristate.edu) is Distinguished Professor of English at Missouri State University, USA, where he teaches coursework in early-modern English literature (Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton), critical theories, and the history of rhetoric, having published extensively in these fields. He has also widely published in rhetorical theory and composition pedagogy. His current research focuses on the history of Western ethos from antiquity to the present day.
MLA Citation for this Article:
Baumlin, James S. “Empathy and Abjection after Burke (1): On the Rise and Fall of “Listening-Rhetorics,” 1936–2023.” Language, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies, vol. 5, no. 4, 10 Nov. 2023, pp. 2.37–2.54, http://ellids.com/archives/2023/11/5.4-Baumlin-1.pdf