Engels Essay II and III, Wills and Steuter The Solder as Hunter: Pursuit, Prey, and Display in the War on Terror
Engels: Essay II
Aristotle wrote of three rhetorical forms: deliberative, epideictic, and forensic. Each form has a role in democracy. Deliberative is important for creating a forum to discuss topics. Epideictic rhetoric is meant to assign praise and blame. The third and final form, forensic, assigns guilt and innocence. Engels recognizes how Aristotle’s three forms of rhetoric are used in American culture to create victimhood. Engels believes victimhood is good for democracy; however, victimhood can turn into victimage which is used to levy one’s feeling of failure onto another. Victimage is less about placing blame or guilt in order to be constructive and instead is used in a manner to enact revenge or scapegoat. Therefore, Engels believes that victimage is at the origin for rhetorical resentment, “The politics of resentment works to capture popular resentment and direct it away from structures of oppression and towards are neighbors and fellow citizens” (Engels, 73).
https://theperfectresponse.pages.tcnj.edu/tag/redemption-through-victimage/
The above link does a good job of summarizing and understanding Burke’s theory of scapegoating in everyday rhetoric. From blaming your classmates to blaming the president we all use scapegoating to create victimage for ourselves. Some scapegoating has turned into internet memes such as “Thanks Obama” which is used today to blame anything that has gone wrong in your life. Obama more than likely is not the cause of your problem, but even in a non-serious form, you are still placing the blame on someone unfairly.
Engels focuses on the Nixon administration use of political resentment because of its long lasting effect in redefining victimage using resentment. American democracy has always been a game of determining which groups are going to win or lose in a situation. The more a group loses the less they will trust the system and they will turn to other means such as violence through rioting to get their message across. The sad truth in American democracy is that there will never truly be oneness as someone will always fall into victimhood. Through the silent majority movement, Nixon capitalized on a growing fear and feeling of loss that many white suburban and working Americans felt during the civil rights era. He did not use overtly racist rhetoric; however, he did use rhetorical resentment and specifically victimage by placing rioting minorities and protesting college students under the same umbrella. Thereby capitalizing on the fear and resentment of the “silent majority”. Nixon largest move use of victimage was claiming that the democratic party has acted as sympathizers to minorities and therefore is too weak to be running the government. He talked about how the republican party was strong like those in the silent majority and would bring “Law and Order” back into American society. The article linked below can give a greater insight into Nixon’s use of “Law and Order” and how Trump has adopted the phrase.
After becoming president Nixon titled those who protested and opposed him as the tyrannical minority and one that will continue to be ignored. By dubbing them the tyrannical minority he made it seem as though the silent majority was the victims and transitively he was a victim due to his status as the leader of the silent majority.
The above article explains the methods in which Trump has caused divides between his supporters and other groups. He used victimage rhetoric of resentment to pit the American people against Washington and Mexico. By allowing for his supporters to be seen as the Victims Trump has like Nixon placed himself as the leader of the victims movement to take back America. By doing this he is following in Nixon’s footsteps by alienating protestors and all those that oppose him as a tyrannical minority. He has never used the verbiage tyrannical minority; however, he has called his supporters the “Forgotten Americans” and sees his opposition as being not credible. Trump like Nixon is able to use victimage and the rhetoric of resentment to create divides in American society that benefit his goals and at the same time work in a manner to silence his opposition.
Engels: Essay III
Engels begins Essay III by recalling the Bush administration’s rhetoric of resentment which forced citizens to feel as if you either were with Bush or with the terrorist. However, after Bush’s second term republican nominee John McCain was incapable of using the same kind of rhetoric. Therefore, the duty of using resentment rhetoric was passed onto Sarah Palin. In her campaign speeches, her rhetoric consisted of attacking Obama’s love for America and going as far as saying “Obama is not one of us” (Engels, 107). At many of her campaign rallies, violent chants could be heard. Even after the election was over Palin continued to accept the role as a “true American” candidate and often paired her patriotism with symbols of violence such as placing crosshairs over democratic congressional districts. One of those districts was Gabrielle Giffords district in Arizona and subsequently was where Giffords was shot along with other citizens while giving a speech. Some blame was placed on Palin for her violent rhetoric which she denied and instead stated that criminals commit crimes and it is time to stop placing blame on society. Whether or not she should be at fault it is certain that Palin has taken up similar anger, hate, and violent rhetoric to that of the Tea Party. Palin often quoted Reagan when determining that it is not society’s fault and we should stop asking ourselves to change a law every time a criminal breaks it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0nnOtLYm_4
The above link is the video response posted by Palin concerning the Tuscon shooting. Palin calls for an end to labeling her as blood libel for the incident. This clip was posted to her facebook page.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs75zKxJxVY
The above video is of Senator Gabrielle Giffords around 6 months prior to the Tuscon shooting discussing Palin’s violent rhetoric in the aftermath of her Tucson office being broken into. This clip is from MSNBC.
At the same time when Palin’s rhetoric was constantly nation news two other movements arose: the Tea Party Movement and the Occupy Wall street movement. Both set out to use those worse affected by the Great Recession to express the need to have change within the government and economic sector. The movements seem to be fighting to remove big money from politics; however, ultimately the movements fall short and are consumed by the Neoliberalism that is omnipresent in American society. As Engels puts it Neoliberalism has killed the American dream by distracting Americans attention away from changing the government and towards protecting the American dream from immigrants. Engels believes neoliberalism is founded on Nietzsche theory that Resentment is ingrained in the person and through rhetoric, it is expressed. Resentment usually never followed by action in Nietzsche’s eyes; however, political resentment via neoliberals like Palin may have crossed the bounds from purely rhetorical to the material.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot
The above article gives a general background on Neoliberalism in America and how it has paved the way to Trump’s presidency.
Engels finishes Essay III by critiquing Palin’s call of James Madison as her founding father affiliate. Engels believes that having to call upon James Madison instead of choosing Jefferson or Thomas Paine because of their stern separation of church and state is a sign of her misunderstanding and weakness. Madison was as close to anti-democracy as any of the founders and often spoke of how citizens were slaves to the government. Engels also speaks of how he is not purposely solely attacking Palin. He claims he has no problem with the person but has many problems with the words in which she is using.
The Soldier as a hunter:
Following 9/11 the soldier needed to be renamed through political discourse. During the Gulf War the soldier was seen as a cyber warrior; however, Gulf War veterans do not like the name because it makes them feel like video game characters being controlled by the government. Originally Bush called American soldiers crusaders whose quest was the war on terror. However, when this become unacceptable the Bush administration began calling soldiers hunters. By being called hunters most civilians are able to connect with the soldiers as someone in total control hunting a helpless prey. Soldiers began to take trophy pictures of those they killed, the “prey” were tied up and sometimes placed on the hood of cars. Some soldiers are ashamed of the trophy pictures, but others saw it as the only thing that makes them proud. The trophy pictures demonstrate absolute power and in turn, completes the hunt. There has been some backlash of trophy pictures due to the Abu Ghraib pictures which depicted American soldiers standing over dead or tortured prisoners. However, the outrage did not last. The Afghanistan and Iraq Wars mark the first time soldiers have the technology to take pictures whenever and wherever. This led to an increase in the trophy pictures being posted online. The increase of trophy photos led to the creation of websites that posted the photos no matter how gruesome. This constant flow of war imagery became known as War Porn.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/10/torture-at-abu-ghraib
For more on the Abu Ghraib incidents read the article from the New Yorker linked above.
The soldier as the hunter goes beyond the Bush administration. The soldier as a hunter of prey has been used by military officials for decades and even some marine trainers are known to be big game hunters. The rhetoric used by these individuals and Bush continues the ideology that the soldier is a hunter and that the enemy is the prey. Bush even calls to “smoke them out” when referring to the terrorist in hiding. However, the ideology that soldiers are hunters goes beyond the normal hunter-prey relationship. Normally in hunting you do not kill the mother or the children. However, in war, the soldiers see it as advantageous to kill the mother or children to stop the source of the prey. It is more than just the enemy terrorist that are seen as prey it is, in fact, all those in Iraq or Afghanistan. Wills and Steuter even call upon a song created by soldiers that dehumanize the enemy no matter the age or gender.
The soldier as a hunter ideology has been successfully ingrained in American society. After reading Wills and Steuter’s article I became aware of the extent of which our military dehumanizes the enemy. I recognize that I have been hearing the soldier as a hunter rhetoric for many years now, but I never realized the effect it was having in our armed forces. I now know that I did not realize our soldiers would take trophy pictures and bits of brain as reassurance that they are the victor. I have seen the pictures on the news and never really thought twice about the dead terrorist (or now citizen) being tied up and placed strategically for the photo. It seems barbaric to take this photos; however, it is war and it seems that these acts may have always been occurring just with today’s technologies it is possible to capture the moment more often. Today any citizen or soldier around the world has the capability to take out a smart phone and take a video or picture to reveal the truth behind how barbaric war has remained.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/21/afghanistan-trophy-photos-us-soldier
The above link depicts an incident where an Afghanistan citizen was killed in what appears to be for game.
Works Cited
Wills, Deborah, and Erin Steuter. “The Soldier as Hunter: Pursuit, Prey and Display in the War on Terror: 1.” Journal of War & Culture Studies, vol. 2, no. 2, 2009, pp. 195doi:10.1386/jwcs.2.2.195_1.
Engels, Jeremy. The politics of resentment: a genealogy. University Park (Pa.): The Pennsylvania State U Press, 2015. Print.