ENGL/COMM/WRDS: The Rhetoric of Fear » January 17th: Scapegoats & Conspiracies

January 17th: Scapegoats & Conspiracies

Plan for the Day

We’re going to continue the semester preview and get into our readings and other fun stuff. I know we have a few things to cover from last week, so let’s start there.

  • Slovic, Paul. “Perception of Risk”
  • Withey, Michael. Mastering Logical Fallacies
  • Red Hot Chili Peppers. “Otherside” {Video and Lyrics}
  • Antonello da Messina. Vergine Annunciata

Then, we’ll get into tonight’s scapegoating readings and try to figure out how to deal with nihilism…we’ll see.

Scapegoating, Ideology, Video Games

In this chapter, the author explains that scapegoating video games not only follows a pattern of blaming children’s materials for being bad but also follows a not uniquely American practice of fearing the Other. Some big takeaways from the reading specific to this class are below:

Need to Blame

  • p. 57: “…the rhetoric against certain children’s entertainment has often been for protecting children.”
  • p. 57: “American culture has a history of conjuring false reasons for apparent social problems (both real and imagined).”
  • p. 58: “Related to human desire to have problems solved is that humans have a difficult time with meaninglessness; things have to happen for a reason.”
  • p. 58: “Focusing on an evil-regardless of whether or not there is any truth to the situation-puts a face or a name to something causing problems.”
  • p. 65: “…we find ourselves thinking in binaries we just defend as pure instead of thinking of spectrums, gradients, or circles that lend themselves better to dialectical exchange.”
  • p. 68: “Doubt and uncertainty are not anxieties Americans want to feel.”

Limits of Empiricism

  • p. 59: “Using a cultural studies lens means looking at texts as products influenced by prevailing cultural ideology.”
  • p. 59: Surveys aren’t enough–“Rarely will people claim they indulge in misogynist media because they identify as mis­ogynists.”
  • p. 60: “Members of a culture do not always locate or acknowledge the relativism of cultural myth because cultural values are absolute to them.”
  • p. 61: polysemic: words have multiple meanings.

Manufactured Evil

  • p. 61: [From Barker & Jane]–“…’language is a tool for doing things in the world and not a mirror that reflects objects.'”
  • p. 63: “Getting rid of that evil rallies members, allowing them a chance to fellowship with others as they mutually condemn manufactured evil.”
  • p. 66: “Sometimes even a fantasy text is enough to scare established authorities who fear the text threatens their version of reality.”
  • p. 66: “…show[ing] constituents they are working to find the solution.”

Scapegoating

  • p. 64: “Rhetorically, people use scapegoats to reify evil, blaming an easy target that is innocent or, perhaps, not fully to blame for a social ill.”
  • p. 68: “Politicians and cultural crusaders need to rally supporters, so they play on hopes and fears to prove they are doing something. The need to place blame is a way to subconsciously take control over a problem that is too difficult for quick, easy solutions.”
  • p. 69: “The scapegoat is easy to point to and chase, directing attention to a concrete, yet innocent, group.”

Cafeteriarization

  • p. 64: “In postmodern life, the lasting ideologies allow cafeteriarization.”
  • p. 64: “…maintain[ing] Orwellian doublethink, which is holding two contradictory ideas at the same time.”

The Anti-Semitism of Henry Ford, the United States, and the World

Besides learning that Henry Ford inspired Hitler, what connections can you draw between the anti-immigration sentiment of the 1920s and Nazi propaganda against Jews. We will be covering some of this when we read Passmore’s Fascism: A Very Short Introduction, so this will be a start into the pervasiveness of anti-Semitism in Western ideology.

PBS. “Ford’s Anti-Semitism.” American Experience.

At this point, I’m more interested in us noticing the difference between this article and the next one. Consider the rhetorical strategies.

  • para 1: “Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic views echoed the fears and assumptions of many Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.”
  • para 3: “…distributed half a million copies to his vast network of dealerships and subscribers.”
    • “As one of the most famous men in America, Henry Ford legitimized ideas that otherwise may have been given little authority.”
  • para 7: “There were many places…in which ‘the Jew’ serves as, at that point of time, almost both a theological and a kind of racialized symbol of forces that people considered to be nefarious.”
    • Rhetorically, the author uses quotation marks to identify that she refers to the stereotypes associated with the group.
  • para 10: “[The Dearborn Independent] was Henry Ford’s newspaper, and pretty much anything Henry Ford did was news.”
    • Think about the power of celebrity entrepreneurs of today.
  • para 11: “Henry Ford’s ability to gain a national audience with his words made him a very dangerous person.”
  • para 20: “Hitler was very aware of Henry Ford, of Henry Ford’s writings, and praised them.”

The Henry Ford. “Henry Ford and Anti-Semitism: A Complex Story.”

  • para 1: “As with most famous people, Henry Ford was complex and had traits and took actions that were laudatory as well as troublesome.”
    • Offering balance makes one seem fair minded.
  • para 1: “Between 1920 and 1922 a series of articles denounced all things Jewish. While officially apologizing for the articles in 1927, Ford’s anti-Jewish sentiments ran deep. Seen within the context of the times, they demonstrate the sharp realities and tensions that emerge in societies undergoing profound cultural, economic and political change.”
    • Let’s break this passage down:
      1) Statements and phrases that apologize.
      2) …that deflect.
      3) …that hold Ford to account.
  • para 3: “to counter the attacks that had been launched against him for the five-dollar day, his pacifist activities, and his 1918 run for the U. S. Senate, which he believed his opponent, Senator Truman H. Newberry, had stolen from him.”
  • para 5: Who else could be to blame…
    • “Ford’s personal secretary…[Ernest] Liebold’s anti-Semitic views are well documented.”
    • “William Cameron…editor of the Independent, was an enthusiastic supporter of the publication of the anti-Semitic diatribes.”
  • para 6: But Ford is to blame–they do own it, and I’m not the arbiter of whether or not this is an appropriate apology, but, as a rhetorician, I have a goal to identify the mode(s) of persuasion, or what appears to be motivating the passage’s meaning.
    • “However, Ford’s own attitudes towards Jews were the major reason for the publication of “The International Jew.” His anti-Semitic beliefs formed along several strands from his upbringing, attitudes, and personal beliefs.”
  • But then it’s back to he’s a product of his time…
    • “A common stereotype…”
    • “the stereotype noted above may have convinced him…”
    • Appeal to tradition (See also Withey, p. 80)–“Lastly, Ford’s growing cultural conservatism, anti-urbanism, and nostalgia for the rural past…”
  • para 9: Although forced to apologize…
    • Conclusion: “Although this seemingly ended a sad chapter in Henry Ford’s life, the episode tarnished his reputation and it has never been completely forgotten.

While I am impressed The Henry Ford discusses Ford’s anti-Semitism, the lesson here is on communication and how to mitigate the impact of a person’s less-than-desirable traits. Who’s not mentioned in this article? Don’t forget to check the article’s sources.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

This article isn’t about Henry Ford, but it makes clear he “published a series of articles based in part on the Protocols” and compiled them into “The International Jew…[which] was translated into at least 16 languages.” Both Hitler and Goebbels “praised Ford and The International Jew” (“Origin of the Lie,” para. 4).

This isn’t the only instance of ideology (and associated texts) from the United States being imported to the Nazi regime. The Scientific Racism of the 19th century, most notably the pseudo-science of phrenology, eventually led to the eugenics movement. Steven A. Farber claims, “What is often not appreciated is that Nazi efforts were bolstered by the published works of the American eugenics movement as the intellectual underpinnings for its social policies” (para. 13). Edwin Black’s War against the Weak makes a similar claim.

Next Class

We’ll catch up on whatever we didn’t get to today, but make sure you do your Weekly Discussion Post #2 before Thursday, 1/19 at 11:00 pm. Michael J. Wreen’s “A Bolt of Fear” (10 pages) and Richard Conniff’s “In the Name of the Law” (1 page) are on Canvas. You’ll also have the first third of the easy-to-read Mastering Logical Fallacies.

Works Cited

Farber, Stephen A. “U.S. Scientists’ Role in the Eugenics Movement (1907–1939): : A Contemporary Biologist’s Perspective. Zebrafish, vol. 5, no. 4, 2008, pp. 243–245. doi: 10.1089/zeb.2008.0576