The National Public Space
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The National Public Space
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To overcome the tensions of the era, there needed to be a strong national identity. To build national identity off the rhetoric of the post-revolutionary period through a celebration of nationhood.
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The public space available for this rhetoric occured in three arenas:
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The Partisan Arena. Politics is marked by a highly partisan
press. Campaigns were horrifically nasty and negative. All parties had
presses that printed scurrilous charges against the political opposition.
This was a forensic discourse.
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The Argumentative Arena. The Senate of the United States was
in at its greatest. The Senate was designed as an aristocratic balance
to the democratic house. It developed a highly formal debating mode. The
style was polite; the opposite of the partisan arena. This was a deliberative
discourse.
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The Epideictic Arena. Great speakers highlighted ceremonial
occasions. These celebrations became opportunities to weave national fabric.
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Authority in national public sphere was concentrated in orators. The great orators were trained in oratory and in the classics to become leaders. They felt a role as moral teachers and addressed the multitude as moral superiors.
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Role of ordinary citizens was to listen for hours . A passive role. To learn from the orator. And the speeches lasted for hours.
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The Silver Orators
Three Orators dominated the United States Senate
- Henry Clay of Kentucky. 1777-1852. The Great Compromiser. Represented the West. Although he represented the West, and often did so by allying with North to defeat the South and vice versa, he ultimately became the force seeking to reconcile the North and South.
These three represented the balance of power of the time
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The Argumentative Arena: The Senate
The Senate, conceived as the aristocratic protector of moral authority, became
the arena of the orator
The rhetoric was shaped by three motivational forms:
- Errand of progress authorized active government. <Progress>
emerged as an ideograph that would allow involvement of government in development
and expansion.
- Errand of Moral inheritance. The founding fathers were elevated
to near-deities and debate revolved around that heritage and how to preserve
it. This rhetoric provided a conservative force to counter the expansionism
of <progress>. Yet, moral superiority was also available to justify
the purifying of American life.
- Rhetoric of Compromise. Disputes became <factions> to
be reconciled by coalition. The errand of <Union> primary.
The Great Debates had a distinctive style
- The uncompromising venom of moral superiority was stylized into:
- the polite, high style of address
- rhetoric of compromise in the Senate
- Detailed support for ideas. Tradition and history were particularly
important strategies for proof.
- Debate was overlaid by the pragmatism of threat to the Union.
Ultimately the Senate fails as a public space
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Provides no expression for local public life
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Participation to ordinary citizens was only as a spectator in the gallery watching the show. A good show, the best in Washington. But a show nonetheless.
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The Epideictic Arena: The Civic Celebration
The Epideictic developed from the problem of creating a nation
- The tension between individualism and community required a new rhetoric
Public civic celebrations were the heart of the Epideictic
- Shared the motivational structure of the argumentative, but without the element of compromise. The uncompromising venom of the partisan arena was stylized into a rhetoric of glorious errand in the epideictic. The errands of the argumentative arena's motivational structure -- the errands of progress, moral inheritance, and union -- did this rhetorical work.
- The role of the public was to listen
A distinctive style marked the Epideictic: The Sentimental Style
- Materially spacious. A feeling of a great land and unlimited
vision. Transform the material into vastness. American romanticism.
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Sentimentally definitive. The rhetoric was specific all the
way to the proper emotional reaction. Thus, it provided little audience
involvement, only audience performance. Emotion was directed into unity.
- To listening was added the deadening of involvement. No room for dissent. Emotion is directed toward unity. This characteristic made the sentimental style distinctive. The rhetoric of the argumentative arena also used material spaciousness within the errand of progress, and used sentimintal definitiveness within the errands of moral inhereitance and union, but they turned the emotion into argumentative conflict. In the epideictic it was turned toward the deadening of public involvement.
This style became a counterpoint to partisanship
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The National Public Sphere was ultimately non-participatory
- The Partisan was strident and closed; it had no influence.
- The Senate was open to participation only if you were a Senator/Orator; others were spectators
- The Epideictic was so specified that it was mass communication instead of public communication
- So, public life required other venues.
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