The necessity of inspiration and the crisis of modern political communication PDF
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THE NECESSITY OF INSPIRATION AND THE CRISIS OF MODERN POLITICAL COMMUNICATION by ALEXANDRA ELIZABETH HOERL A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School – New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Political Science written under the direction of Gordon J. Schochet and approved by ______________________________ ______________________________ ______________________________ ______________________________ New Brunswick, NJ October, 2008 UMI Number: 3349888 Copyright 2008 by Hoerl, Alexandra Elizabeth All rights reserved INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. ______________________________________________________________ UMI Microform 3349888 Copyright 2009 by ProQuest LLC All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. _______________________________________________________________ ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 © 2008 Alexandra Elizabeth Hoerl All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Necessity of Inspiration and the Crisis of Modern Political Communication by ALEXANDRA ELIZABETH HOERL Dissertation Director: Gordon J. Schochet My dissertation seeks to fully recover one of the most important elements of republicanism—and yet an element of republicanism that is overlooked in most of the literature—persuasive political rhetoric (“rhetoric-as-movere”) in order to improve political communication and participation in the United States. Through rhetoric-as- movere is not without its problems, I argue that it has two major advantages over the type of political communication necessitated by strict deliberative democracy, a type of political communication that I suggest is rooted in “rhetoric-as-docere,” a tradition that developed alongside the rise of scientific empiricism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: it is better at drawing out action from novice citizens because it does a better job than deliberative democracy of dealing with the barriers to political entry, and it is more inclusive. Rhetoric-as-movere allows an orator to explicitly make use of all the persuasive tools at his or her disposal. While it is true that these tools are at times contrary to “rationality,” throughout history they have always been the first recourse of leaders and movements truly concerned with popular participation. I demonstrate this affinity between rhetoric-as-movere and popular participation through an historical ii survey of movements ranging from 14th century English peasant revolts to 20th century American civil rights movements. I also analyze the development of the rhetoric-as- docere tradition in thinkers like Hobbes, Smith and Hume. I conclude that the rhetoric- as-docere tradition, which includes contemporary deliberative democracy, is predicated upon a suspicion of popular action that renders it insufficient as a model of political communication. Finally, I create a multi-level model of political communication that incorporates rhetoric-as-movere and the republican ethos of civic education as well as certain aspects of deliberative democratic theory and rhetoric-as-docere. Most importantly, I contribute a curriculum of rhetorical education that rehabilitates persuasion and teaches students about the three classical proofs of logos, pathos and ethos as well as modern empirical proofs. Both of the model of political communication and the educational curriculum are crucial for the necessary and proper recovery of rhetoric-as-movere and the improvement of political participation in the United States. iii DEDICATION To the Machiavellians, the Man-Harem and Margot iv Acknowledgments I always knew these would be interesting for me to sit down and write—as though they will be read! Of course, I must begin with those who set me up to succeed in graduate school—my parents, Fred and Karen Hoerl, and my sister, Jessica Hoerl. I am also grateful to the many professors at the University of North Carolina who took an interest in me and my work. Chief among these is Gerald Unks, my undergraduate thesis advisor and a constant source of inspiration. James J. Gallagher and David Dill, who also sat on my thesis committee, are also due my thanks. Mary-Ruth Coleman and Daniel Gitterman both showed me great kindness. I am grateful to the Department of Political Science and the Graduate School at Rutgers University for supporting me with conference travel grants, a Graduate Excellence Fellowship, a TA-ship, and a Bevier Dissertation Fellowship. Being able to tutor for the Rutgers University Writing Program under Heather Robertson and Karen Kalteissen, and being able to grade for generous faculty like William Field and Irwin Gertzog helped ease the financial burden of graduate school. I thank the Department of Political Science at the University of Vermont and my colleagues Emma Cohen de Lara, Greg Gause, Pat Neal, Monicka Patterson-Tutschka, Walter Roberts and Bob Taylor for useful comments and a supportive environment in which to finish this work. A number of people outside of Rutgers and UVM were a great help and support to me. I am grateful to the Folger Institute for providing financial support and access to their collection. John Guillory and the members of the Institute’s Spring 2004 seminar on rhetoric helped improve the third and fourth chapters of this work. Jane Mansbridge’s comments and Kirstie McClure’s questions during a 2005 APSA panel on rhetoric were v also incredibly helpful. A number of Rutgers Ph.D.s—especially Richard Boyd, Patrick Deneen, Wendy Gunther-Canada, Bernie Tamas and Mark Yellin—have been looking out for me since day one. My friends at Indiana University, Jeff Isaac and Aurelian Craiutu, have always been there to provide advice and an outside perspective. I, like every other graduate student fortunate enough to know him, was profoundly touched and influenced by the late Wilson Carey McWilliams. He respected and encouraged all my research interests, particularly those connected to politics and literature. Furthermore, while he was interim Undergraduate Director, he allowed me great freedom in teaching my own courses. One day, I will teach the rather unusual “Glory” seminar that he was about to approve before he passed. I also promised him that I would write an article on “Politics and Literature as a Subfield,” and no matter how long it takes, I will keep my promise. I was very lucky to receive a tremendous amount of support from the professors in my first minor field of American politics. Dan Tichenor and Beth Leech were particularly supportive of my sometimes odd combinations of American politics research and political theory—which are central to this project and will remain central to my research in the future. Dan is an extraordinarily generous man and a model for anyone who wants to be an academic and a good human being, and Beth is one of my models for being a woman in the academy. I also received a tremendous amount of support from the professors in my second minor field of classical and medieval language and literature, Larry Scanlon and Marlene Ciklamini. The greatest debt I owe is to my dissertation committee. Sarolta A. Takacs was patient with me not only as I brushed up on my Latin, but also during her term of service vi as outside reader on this dissertation. Her extremely generous commentary improved many things in this dissertation—but especially the second chapter—a hundred fold. Dennis Bathory provided a careful eye for my dissertation and a number of important comments on the early chapters and overall frame of the project. It took Steve Bronner a couple of years, but he finally impressed upon me the importance of actual politics in political theory and of being a public intellectual, and his comments on the later chapters on this work were invaluable. My entire direction as a political theorist changed when I took Gordon Schochet's course on the British Tradition. While no one else really seemed to take much joy in anti-Catholic pamphlets, I found great delight in their vivacity, if not their content. My interest in the nature of the pamphlet exchanges of seventeenth century England blossomed into an interest in rhetoric’s broader history, and from that came this dissertation. Gordon provided unwavering support and faith, an encyclopedic knowledge of the literature, and wonderful etymological commentary. Through watching him teach and do research I have become a funnier, more humane professor and scholar. He announced his retirement soon after my defense: Rutgers will be poorer for it. Any errors or other infelicities that remain in this work are my own. As my luck would have it, I attended Rutgers at the same time as a lot of other excellent and entertaining people, and without them, I'd probably still be stuck in a Hickman Hall elevator. From outside my department, good friends like Joshua Beall, Marian Chen, Jie Chen, Benedicte Lebehot, Jennifer Miller, Susan Nakley, Tuna Sare, and Peter Sorrell made me laugh, and God knows I needed to! So many of my fellow Political Science graduate students reached out to me: Din Ambar, Dave Andersen, Susan vii Billmaier, Eric Boehme, Helen Delfeld, Brian Graf, Nicole Hablenko, John Harris, Hannah Holden, Stacey Hunt, Anil Jacob, Kristy King, Geoff Kurtz, Amy Linch, Adam Liszkiewicz, Jay Millikan, Benjamin Peters, Emily Renaud, Mike Rossi, Nichole Shippen, Meredith Staples and Kevin Worrall. I am grateful to be the recipient of their generous friendship. I would be remiss if I did not mention the undergraduates who were first my excellent and engaging students and then some of my dearest friends. I can't list names; this is dragging on too long as it is, but I have to recognize Democratic Theory '05, Machiavelli '07, all the sections of Nature of Politics I TAed in Fall '04, and yes, especially Machiavelli ’06. You guys are peerless. Now we get down to it. There are six people I met at Rutgers who matter to me more than just about anything in the world: Joseph Dwyer, Elric Kline, James Mastrangelo, Brian Stipelman, and the two most dear, my right hand and my left hand, Aaron Keck and Margot Morgan. Without these six people, I would be nothing. There are no words to express my debt, my gratitude or my love. viii
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