Tag Archives: synecdoches

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Casting a Rhetorical Net Too Broadly

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Against our will, nouns are sometimes chosen to speak for us.

It is old news now that Donald Trump imposed himself on FIFA to get the soccer federation to lift a red card suspension of American player Folarin Balogun. The top scorer was set to sit out a semi-final round match against Belgium. Of course, as we know, FIFA reinstated him after an appeal by Trump, with justifiable criticism of the decision worldwide. A Belgian analyst spoke for many when he noted that this was yet “another example of a rogue, unconstrained America.”  And there was apparent joy everywhere except here when the American men lost the game.

Fair enough, perhaps, but one can’t help but notice the rhetorical trap the presence of Donald Trump has incited again when his questionable leadership is used to stand in for “America,” “the United States,” or other similar collective nouns. In short, Trump is a rhetorical synecdoche, the linguistic sleight of hand where one is allowed to stand for many.

We all rely on this device as a way to simplify events and individuals, placing a population or a larger portion of one under the umbrella of a summary judgment.

But to our European and world friends, I would caution that they ponder the distortion built into this device. Trump’s awful conduct and judgment isn’t mine, nor any of my friends, nor representative of most of those in my town or state. Poll numbers clearly indicate that Trump has the allegiance of perhaps only a third of the American population. And, true, his position gives him the right to speak for us, but only partially, and on certain official matters.

Simplistic reduction is a necessary way to organize our thoughts about the world. We feel safe noting that “Italians love to cook,” or “Scandinavian men are taciturn,” or “Canadians are always nice.” But I have known mean Canadians, talkative Swedes, and Italians who are indifferent eaters. Every broad conclusion where one is intended to stand for many has huge limitations. I rue the judgment of British journalists that “America is no longer a reliable friend.” That hurts because most of us have not done anything to shake our faith and affection for our British cousins. The statist approach to world news may make it easy to toss around glib conclusions. But that only works when a synecdoche is used as a blind to conceal many exceptions that those with time constraints don’t want to explain.

Keep this odd word in mind. It is a good check on thinking that is in the midst of making unjustified leaps.

The Worst

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A daily sampling of the worst that humans can do is not good for us. 

If I told you there is a media outlet anxious to report the very worst examples of inhuman conduct, you’d probably be thankful to stay clear of that source.  Who needs a daily reminder of the most vile acts persons can perpetrate on each other?  There are surely better ways to sustain our sanity and hope.

But of course what I’m describing is a simple operating assumption for legitimate and mostly well-intended news organizations.  News is the unusual: events that are not only out of the ordinary, but sometimes sadly brutal or cruel. We readily know the kinds of emotional and physical violence that violate the most elemental norms of human decency.  It’s also obvious that only the weakest society would turn its back on entrenched problems that it must resolve.  But there are limits to what we can process on a daily basis.

I was reminded of all of this on the first day of June when National Public Radio and many other outlets reported on a hangman’s noose left by a visitor in an exhibition space at the Museum of African American History in Washington. It was an ugly act perpetrated by an anonymous thug and, as on any given day, it was the kind of dark non-sequitur that made our hearts sink a little lower.  Racist instances like these are frequent enough to remind us of America’s original sin of racial intolerance.  It rarely recedes from the nation’s collective consciousness.  There can be no doubt that we need reminders that we still have a long way to go.

But here’s the thing. Something odd happens with humans when given a single horrific example of almost anything.  Something inside wants us to search for its place in a larger and perhaps growing trend.  We have a natural compulsion to generalize upward, turning any event into what rhetoricians call a synecdoche, where a single case stands for all cases. By definition a synecdoche is a representative case.

The defense is simple enough; we sometimes need to take a vacation from the journalism of atrocities.

Few thoughtful Americans could believe that racism across the culture has mostly subsided.   On the other hand, we can give too much publicity to a sick act by an individual who must cover their deviance with anonymity.  With these kinds of daily reports of aberrant single-agent behaviors we have to decide how big of a marker we will allow them to be.

To be sure, synecdoches often help us make sense of the world.  Bull Connor’s dogs used against civil right marchers in Birmingham are a perfect condensation of what the movement was up against in 1963.  And another contemporary case of a police shooting of an unarmed African American man is another.  Each instance stands as reminder of a serious and embedded problem.  But different cases can also be false markers.  If a one-off hostile act is allowed to stand as a representative case it can have the effect of making us all the victims rather than beneficiaries of synecdoches, extinguishing our interest in valid and significant trends.

And so in the interest of our mental health we should heed a common reminder about accepting a daily dose of news featuring the latest and the worst.  One defense is simple enough; we sometimes need to take a vacation from the journalism of atrocities.