Occasionally you will encounter a writer who seems to get a great exaltation out of proving with an air of great relentlessness that some philosophic term or other has been used to cover a variety of meanings, and who would smash and abolish this idol. As a general rule when a term is singled out for such harsh treatment if you look closer you will find that it happens to be associated with some cultural or political trend from which the writer would disassociate himself... (GM xvii)The writer, "purged and strengthened" by this attack is just as ambiguous as the ambiguity he is attacking. Apparently we even use terms as scapegoats. Then we probably also use theories as scapegoats.
Compare The Symbol-making animal to The symbol using person
S (pensively): In some ways they will be dismal, in
some ways they will have a feeling for the grandeur of
form. But when these Word-People are gone, won't
the life of words be gone?
TL: Unfortunately, yes.
S: Then, what of us, the two voices in this dialogue?
When words go, won't we too, be gone?
TL: Unfortunately, yes.
S: Then of this there will be nothing?
TL:Yes...Nothing...but it's more complica--
(R of R 315).
I will now audition feminists as scapegoats. Cixous's theory of ecriture feminine in "Laugh of the Medusa" is often reduced in just these terms. Even though I can't take the time here for a "scholarly' look at the critics, they are out there, purging themselves, and in effect, attempting to purge criticism of this (only one of many) feminist perspective. I have done so myself. After all, it was difficult to conceive of writing the feminine body when it seemed that Cixous was advocating an "essentialist" position from which my voice has been excluded as I don't see myself as essentially female, but essentially human. Once I heard the many different voices of women "inscribing" themselves into the language (as mixed a metaphor as that may be), I could better understand the motive for Cixous' rhetorical stance. Cixous uses the metaphor of the body in a similar way that Burke uses the metaphor of the body, as in the pentad.
I'm not going to get into the many different theories of feminism here, but while I'm on the subject, I would like to discuss what one feminist is saying about Burke. Celeste Michelle Condit offers what Foss, Foss, and Trapp refer to in Contemporary Perspectives on Literature, as a revisionist reading:
In this a reformulation of rhetorical constructs from a feminist perspective, scholars seek to discover if existing rhetorical notions were developed with a consideration of woman's perceptions and experiences and to revise those that were not (285). In her article "Post Burke: Transcending the Sub-stance of Dramatism," Condit does not want to eliminate a Burkean notion of substance; she wants to expand the notion to include a feminist perspective. She does so "appositionally" rather than "oppositionally." This distinction between opposition and apposition is a feature of Burke's theory noted by Ross Winterowd in Composition/Rhetoric: a Synthesis included in A Bibulous Interlude.Condit seeks to extend the notion of substance through apposition, or re-seeing, itself a metaphorical paradigm:
To construct a post-Burkeanism, then, we might maintain Burke's directional substance, while adjusting as needs be the familial substance to our own geometrical context" (272).She speaks of the shifting of societal concerns, what I would call the situational context, and seeks to modify three contexts in particular: gender, culture and class.
In this instance, I focus only on Condit's discussion of gender. Condit cites Burke's definition of "man" as a rhetorical notion which needs to be reformulated to include not only woman but humans. She cites Burke's definition of man as inadequate from a feminist perspective:
Man is
the symbol-using (symbol-making, symbol-mis-using) animal
inventor of the negative (or moralized by the negative)
separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making
goaded by the spirit of hierarchy (or moved by the sense of order)
and rotten with perfection (LASA 16).
She presents an "oppositional view" (also inadequate) saying, "Thus, the essentialist
or radical feminist would be forced to project this definition of Man's woman:
The symbol receiving (hearing, passive) animal
inventor of nothing (moralized by priests and saints)
submerged in her natural condition by instrument's of man's
making
goaded at the bottom of hierarchy (moved to a sense of
orderliness [housecleaning])
and rooted by perfection.
And, in a "move towards post-feminism" Condit suggests the following "appositional"
view as an extension of the Burkean metaphor:
People are
players with symbols
inventors of the negative and the possibility of morality
grown from their natural conditions by tools of their collective making
trapped between hierarchy and equality (moved constantly to re-order)
neither rotten nor perfect, but now and again lunging down both paths. (274-75).
Herone Liddell (agent) from "AnaestheticRevelations." checks into the hospital (scene) so doctors (co-agents) can repair a hernia (act) (for the purpose of curing a physical problem (counter-agent). What is Liddell's situational response? Negative. Liddell's wish to respond with a "no" to surgery (the timing is off), reveals that he is no longer the hero/agent in this particular scene. Here the act of "belief" in medical procedures is dialectically opposed to Liddell's control over the situation. His actions as wordman get him into trouble with the agents of medicine (and co-agents such as The-Gigantic-One and Less-Gigantic-One) who use the agency of Quietus to subdue or stifle the agency of language of the now- villainous counter-agent, Liddell's inquisitive wordman.
By viewing Liddell as both agent and then counter-agent of the same hospital scene, one can see where the Liddell's negative response to "quietus" becomes the underlying motive or "revelation" of the piece. This shift of the ratios illuminates Liddell's basic distrust of institutions which purport to hold quietus (death) in abeyance, but use quietus (loss of language, power over the situation), to bring about metaphorical death of the wordman.
The Human Barnyard