Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T08:07:27.943Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Problem of Liberal Rhetoric

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

John Zvesper
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Everyone knows that the art of political rhetoric has declined drastically in the modern world. Observers of the decline often measure and deplore it, but few pause to reflect that one of the reasons for the decline may be the acceptance of certain liberal principles which entail limits to the scope and power of political speech. Even such a clear-sighted observer of the interplay of language and politics as George Orwell argued that the simplification and purification of language went hand in hand with the liberalization of politics. Orwell was not mistaken when he coupled perverted speech with totalitarian politics. But it is dangerous to assume that excellent political speech is at home in liberal regimes, or that liberal speech can be as psychologically satisfactory as illiberal speech. Orwell recognized this point when he noticed in his review of Hitler's Mein Kampf that the liberal “hedonistic attitude to life” fails to satisfy some of the irrepressible longings of the human soul, and leaves room for the kind of appeal made by Hitler. There is an inherent weakness in liberal rhetoric which cuts it off from some of the sources of political conviction and community.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , October 1982 , pp. 546 - 558
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, ed. Orwell, A. and Angus, I., 4 vols. (London, 1968), II: 29, cf. II: p. 168Google Scholar: “The energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions — racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war — which liberal intellectuals mechanically write off as anachronisms, and which they have usually destroyed so completely in themselves as to have lost all power of action.”

2 Politics 1281a 14–28; 1301a 25–1301b 4; 1307a 6–27; 1309b 16–1310a 36.

3 Politics 1288b 39–1289a 8.

4 Rhetoric 1346b–1357a.

5 Leviathan, chap. 21.

6 The title of De Cive, Part I.

7 De Cive, Epistle Dedicatory.

8 De Cive, Preface.

9 Danford, John W., Wittgenstein and Political Philosophy (Chicago, 1978), p. 193.Google Scholar

10 De Cive, chap. 1, § 2, n. (This is one of the annotations Hobbes thought necessary to add to defend his doctrines against “commonsense” objections: De Cive, Preface, end.)

11 De Cive, chap. 12; Leviathan, chap. 29.

12 The despotism must be enlightened, too: Hobbes balances his elevation of sovereignty by advising sovereigns that “the end of Obedience is Protection” (Leviathan, chap. 21). The conclusions Hobbes draws from his liberal premises are less illiberal than it may appear.

13 Rhetoric 1355a, 1357a.

14 De Cive, chap. 10, § 11; chap. 12, § 12.

15 Leviathan, Review and Conclusion, beginning.

16 Leviathan, chap. 19.

17 Leviathan, chap. 30.

18 Leviathan, chap. 13. “I comprehend in this word fear, a certain foresight of future evil.” (De Cive, chap. 1, § 2, n.)

19 Introduction to Thucydides' History, The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, ed. Molesworth, W., 11 vols. (London, 1839–1845), VIII: xvi.Google Scholar

20 Whelan, Frederick G., “Language and Its Abuses in Hobbes' Political Philosophy,” American Political Science Review, 75 (1981), 59–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mansfield, Harvey C. Jr., “Hobbes and the Science of Indirect Government,” American Political Science Review, 65 (1971), 97–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Discourses, I, chap. 10; Cantor, Paul A., Shakespeare's Rome: Republic and Empire (Ithaca, New York, 1976), pp. 137 ff.Google Scholar

22 De Cive, chap. 1, § 7.

23 Will, George F., The Pursuit of Happiness, and Other Sobering Thoughts (New York, 1979), pp. 7–11.Google Scholar

24 Essay Concerning Human Understanding, III, x, § 34; Second Treatise, § 34, § 94.

25 Emile (Paris: 1964), IV, p. 398.Google Scholar

26 “On Liberty,” chap. 3.

27 Aristotle Rhetoriz 1355a.

28 E.g., Mansfield, Harvey C. Jr., “Liberal Democracy as a Mixed Regime,” The Spirit of Liberalism (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), p. 9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 “Consolidation,” 5 December 1791, The Writings of James Madison, ed. Hunt, G., 9 vols. (New York, 1900–1910), VI: 67–69.Google Scholar

30 Jaffa, , Crisis of the House Divided (University of Washington Press, 1973), p. 270.Google Scholar

31 Democracy in America, II.i.2.

32 Jaffa, Crisis of the House Divided, p. 227f.; chap. 14; p. 417 n. 1; cf. Aristotle, Politics 1280b 29–40.

33 Mansfield, Spirit of Liberalism, p. 23f.

34 Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, ed. Rosenman, S. I., 13 vols. (New York, 1938–1950), V: 338–339Google Scholar; “Acceptance of Third Nomination,” Nothing to Fear: The Selected Addresses of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1932–1945, ed. Zevin, B.D. (London, 1947), p. 220.Google Scholar