Category Archives: Rhetorical Mastery

The Durability of Scapegoating

Problem Practices, Rhetorical Mastery, , ,

[We have a President who is shameless in shifting the blame for our national woes to everyone but himself. This is a human habit we all have from time to time.  But rarely has a national leader so consistently sought the rhetorical cover of some other group’s malfeasance.  Here’s one theory for it.] 

The master-critic Kenneth Burke was a great observer of our communication routines, and never more so than when he described the “scapegoat principle.”  For most of us working to understand why we say the things we do, this familiar rhetorical form is a frequent reminder of the psychological benefits of transferring guilt to others.

Burke noted that groups or individuals face two options when a decision or action didn’t turn out as well as they wished.  If we screwed up, we can accept responsibility and note with regret that our efforts failed to work out.  He called this the “mortification” option, as in “I thought I could fix the bad feeling between Bill and Fred, but I think I just made it worse.  I’m not very good at playing the role of mediator.”  But doing this, of course, carries no obvious rewards, and requires a certain degree of grace and humility.

So we usually opt for the second choice: we scapegoat the problem to others.  It’s easier to blame Bill or Fred because doing so is an act of personal redemption.  In this form our words are all too familiar: “Things are not going very well in my life right now and it’s her fault.”  Like a fast-acting pill, the shifting of unwanted effects to others lifts us from the burdens of self-examination. In Burke’s language, we have “cast out” the problem.  Perhaps this is why we have parents, pets, uncles, Republicans, socialists, college professors, Iranians, labor unions, members of Congress and in-laws.  We can feel better when we believe that others are worse.

Most forms of scapegoating have a familiar ring:

  • “They have created the mess we’re in.”
  • “My life is not going well; I blame the Democrats.”
  • “True, I flunked the course.  But I had a lousy teacher.”
  • “We’d be a good organization if only we had different leadership.”
  • “The problem with America is that it has too many illegal immigrants.”

Tribes have always used sacrifices to purge the group of its problems. The usual victim was a four-legged animal that would be sacrificed to cleanse away problems usually caused by other humans. In the 21st Century we are less likely to round up a hapless critter for this ritual “casting out” of guilt. Instead, we usually pick a plausible member of our own species and simply attribute our problems to them. Think of internet trolls and their venom.  Anonymous comments online represent a perpetual Lourdes of guilt transference.

It would be nice if we could chalk up this human habit as but a small foible in the species. But the consequences of blaming others can’t be so easily dismissed. It’s worth remembering that Hitler’s murderous purge of supposed “non-Aryans” from German society—first with words and later with death camps–was fresh in Burke’s mind when he summarized the scapegoating principle.

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No Sports, No Problem

Rhetorical Mastery, , , , , , ,

If there is a deep structure to television and other media platforms, it’s the long reach of the story form. It’s the foundational structure for almost everything we know.

It is obvious to everyone that the pandemic has sidelined almost all sport activity that would have been eagerly reported in our news and video media. Americans others around the world have a thirst for constant coverage.  In addition, competitive events are a major driver of revenue for professional leagues, as well as broadcast and cable television outlets. When the chances that teams would meet normally began to vanish, the sense of doom was apparent for the thousands of players, merchandisers, leagues and sports journalists.  And, of course, there are millions of fans everywhere who are mourning over the possible loss of whole seasons.

But the assumption of disaster is not completely justified. True, there is obviously far less play-by-play of everything from soccer to baseball.  Live (but not archival) coverage is mostly limited to golf or Korean baseball. But most sports reporting is not just about what is happening on the field.

Sports journalism is actually organized around narratives of competition, with a standard subset of reliable storylines: games from the record books to recall, players moving up or down, off-season trades made for strategic or financial reasons, narratives of personal triumph over hardship, reports of the wounded pride of those who have been benched, or news of clubhouse rivalries that have gone public.  And there can always be noisy discussions about which city, college or high school gets rightful bragging rights for its teams.  When all else fails, virtually any unbridled hubris from a sports superstar is good for a few thousand words or an hour of sports talk. These kinds of themes  are what continue to occupy news sites and mass media talkers, who would no more think of giving up their time slots than turning in their press passes.

Sports enthusiasts and lovers of romance novels share more than you might think.

I say all of this as someone who rarely pays attention to sports coverage.  But its so ubiquitous it is hard to miss.  Among others, The New York Times has hardly noticed that no one is playing anything. And then there is the recent biography of Robert Iger (The Ride of a Lifetime, 2019), former CEO of Disney-ABC.  He reminds his readers that the greatest sports producer in television history structured every event around the idea of an unfolding tale of triumph against long odds. Roone Arledge at ABC set the mold for television with Wide World of Sports, where a younger Iger worked as a lieutenant.  There would be no relying on just the action of the athletes to report.  There was always more drama in a Jamaican bobsled team, the humble backstory of a figure skater, or fog that has shut down an olympic event. Later in his career Arledge would easily move into new realms, like a spectacular Frank Sinatra special in Madison Square Garden, or managing ABC’s growing News Division.

The real point is that sport is but one narrow category of narrative, and narrative always outlasts its subjects. Sports enthusiasts and lovers of other narrative forms–romance novels, for example–share more than you might think. The standard tropes remain key to understanding both.  Villains are to be identified, their victims pitied, and heroes need to show up to save the day. There are usually fools as well, but it’s usually enough that the just are. Throughout a story, character remains dominant and defines what will happen at a certain plot point.  And, of course, these roles can change.  New events always pose a risk to a hero’s stature.  And villains are made to be reformed.

So if there is a ‘deep structure’ to sports portrayed on television or elsewhere, it is surely the durability of the story form. It’s the structure of almost everything we know. Those old afternoon “soaps” on ABC and it’s Monday Night Football have more in common than we might think.