Angeline Irene Olliff
Dr. Wexler
English 654
The Antisocial Society: Rhetorical Strategies for Casualizing Humanity
Ten years ago, Marc Bousquet sought to expose the increasing casualization of labor in the United States
At first glance, the distinction between the two bases of casualization seems stark: where “casual” generally refers to “something occurring by chance,” “casualty,” is most often used to describe military deaths and political and social losses—occurrences which generally happen for a reason as the consequence of someone else’s efforts rather than by chance, fortune, or accident. However, “casualty” has an archaic connection to “chance” and “fortune” which links it to “casual” and describes something unfortunate and unintended. The example sentence provided by Merriam-Webster conflates this original definition with the newer one: “the ex-senator was a casualty of the last election.” Here, the rhetorical use of casualty takes some of the sting out of the loss; as casualty denotes both loss and chance, the result must have been due to a mere turn of the wheel or happenstance, not fierce competition or fine-tuned political strategizing. Such language provides a benign connotation to the consequences of not-so-benign intentions and actions.
More than describing labor relations, then, casualization describes the strategic rhetorical omission, smoothing over or euphemizing which serves to dissemble the consequences of deleterious social or economic policies or business practices. Just as the capitalist economic system continues to produce temporary and flexible workers while killing off full-time, secure ones, and does so under the ironically benign term, “casualizing,” as if it is all an unfortunate accident, so, too, does the capitalist (anti)social rhetoric encourage a superficial and tenuous humanity. Indeed, through the strategic rhetorical manipulation and deadening of mass sentiment, American political and business figures foster an antisocial mentality that stops individuals from relating to each other and uniting in their common interest. By espousing temporarily gratifying, yet impotent solutions aimed at particular swaths of the population (i.e. “let’s create more coal jobs”), by turning the “middle class” against everyone else by demonizing either the rich or the poor (take your pick), and by avoiding the overall trajectory of a cannibalistic and self-destructive economic system, politicians and business “leaders” aim to divide and conquer. As the public willingly imbibes the rhetoric of division and strategic omission, they shore themselves up against prescribed foes, scrambling for an edge, a way to beat “them,” those other people; what results is a society that is anti-social, a society in which the very thing that connects us all, our humanness—our weaknesses, our strengths, our need for connection—is devalued, minimized, even destroyed. In every sense of the word, what is being “casualized” is humanity.
Over the past year alone, this de-humanizing through the rhetoric of disconnection, division, and difference has permeated nearly every aspect of American culture. It inundates popular media from multiple angles. For instance, in a recent Op-Ed piece for the Wall Street Journal, “The Business Plan for American Revival,” Mr. Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs attempts to propose a broad solution to today’s economic crisis. He suggests that “the Obama administration and large segments of the business community [must] forge a more productive relationship,” and that this will “do wonders for the economy.” He goes on to say, “We in the business community have a responsibility to contribute to a better understanding of the urgency of averting a crippling and self-inflicted recession [and] we also need to talk about the significant opportunities that result from forward-looking change” (A17). On first read, it is difficult to argue with his seemingly benevolent position of looking out for the general interest. The economy is important; forward-looking change sounds great; we all need to work together; but, as seems to be the norm in political-economic rhetoric, there is a wealth of information waiting to be mined from the implications of the information he leaves out.
Here, it is necessary to read between the lines, to look at what is said and what is not said, and to reflect on why this might be. Any effective rhetorical appeal entails “three elements that every author must consider: audience (the people who are being addressed), constraints (the limits upon what the speaker can say), and exigence” (26-7). Even a cursory inspection of these three elements for Blankfein exposes his effective casualization of empathy, understanding, and brotherhood. In terms of audience, as he writes for the Wall Street Journal, his audience is mostly educated, middle- to upper-class conservative men, but this is not evident in his rhetoric. Rather, he uses broad and inclusive terms, such as “we in the business community,” “American[s],” and the “public.” Nowhere in Blankfein’s solicitation of “sensible immigration reform,” “spending cuts, [and] entitlement reform,” or “restor[ing] confidence in public finance,” does he mention what that would look like for the millions of people it is supposedly intended to help, and that is because he is not writing to or for them. Immigration reform is limited to “mak[ing] it easier for talented people to live and work in the U.S.
Blankfein’s references to “spending cuts” and “entitlement reform” function in much the same way. Rather than delineate exactly what these would look like for the people who will be most affected, he simply encourages a “comprehensive and balanced solution.” Such vague language allows his audience to identify themselves as solution-oriented (very humane), while patently and conveniently avoiding the ineluctable human suffering such “solutions” entail (not so humane). This, then, sheds some light on Blankfein’s exigence. As a businessman, he is no doubt interested in his own interests—namely, to encourage governmental policy decisions that will benefit his business. As such, he must appeal to his audience’s sense of self-interest so they will identify with his position. However, it is socially and politically inexpedient to blatantly promote one’s own interests, and his audience would likely reject any proposition that did so in fear of potential social repercussions. Instead, Blankfein must appeal to his audience’s self-interest circuitously by first appealing to their humanity, and then, by casualizing it. He achieves this by purporting that his plan will “revive” the American economy. Such a trope implicates him as an emergency room doctor valiantly saving lives. For the audience, it is far easier and more gratifying to identify with a life-saving doctor than a pragmatic businessman. His position’s implicit divisiveness and abandonment of large swaths of the American population becomes acceptable under the guise of uniting in a common (read his) economic interest. Whatever suffering ensues can then be viewed as an unfortunate casualty of a worthy effort by concerned citizens, rather than the consequence of human targeting.
In Rebel Cities, David Harvey gives voice to what’s between the lines of Blankfein’s position: that “the economy of wealth-accumulation piggy-backs violently on the economy of dispossession” (25). Here, he gives the lie to the “trickle-down effect” upon which Blankfein’s economic model rests. In a 2009 radio interview for WNYC, New York Public Radio, Harvey explains that there is a difference between the “trickle-down” effect in terms of wealth versus quality of life, the latter of which Blankfein patently ignores. Harvey
This is all markedly absent from Blankfein’s “plan.” Yes, Mr. Blankfein is a businessman first and foremost, so it makes sense for him to stick to an assessment of how government can get out of the way of business in order to facilitate economic growth. But Mr. Blankfein does not outright say that this is the best thing for business, for his business; instead, he says that business leaders “want to see progress and contribute to it” and that “we are all ready to roll up our sleeves and work with the Obama administration and Congress to help fulfill America’s enduring promise.” There is no mention of social and economic inequality, and therefore, there is no invitation for discussion. Rather, he obliquely links a very particular and limited kind of economic growth to the fulfillment of an American “promise.” Silenced, devalued, effectively dehumanized through the rhetoric of casualization, are the millions of people to whom that promise will never be kept.
From a business perspective, Blankfein’s rhetoric of casualization relies on implicit division at the same time that it purports to unify his audience in a singular “American” ambition. Central to his position is the difference between the implied and actual identity of his audience. By avoiding specific reference to the diverse economic and social situations of the actual American public, Blankfein implicitly directs his argument at a very specific population. His language, being vaguely inclusive, fosters a sense of unity in them while further separating them from the ignored. But implicit division is not the only strategy for rhetorical casualization. Some positions rely on far more overtly divisive tactics, while still, through convenient omissions, avoid the pervasive and deep-rooted causes of social discontent.
Such is the case with the political rhetoric overtly directed at “the middle class” during Barack Obama and Mitt Romney’s second Presidential debate. The dominant theme during both campaigns was “jobs”—who can “create” them, who destroys them—with little or no attention paid to what kind of jobs and no acknowledgement that unemployment has become structural rather than cyclical.[1] Further, nearly the entire debate was directed at the homogenized entity of the “middle class” and the need to “create jobs” for them. First, by focusing on the middle class, both men effectively divide their audience. In his tax proposal, for instance, Mr. Obama makes no effort hide the division he seeks: “In addition to some tough spending cuts, we’ve also got to ask the wealthy to do a little bit more.” He goes on to explain, “The only reason it’s not happening is because Governor Romney’s allies in congress have held the 98 percent hostage because they want tax breaks for the top two percent.” Unlike Blankfein’s strategy of feigning American unity at the expense of the majority of the population, Mr. Obama’s strategy explicitly (and statistically) divides the population in order to unite his audience against a common enemy. It is methodical divisions such as this which allow both men to casualize human relations by reducing common suffering to either “the policies of [the Obama] administration” (Romney) or the “top-down economics” of cutting taxes for “the top one percent” (Obama).
The rhetoric does not stop there, though. Indeed, by first overtly dividing the population, both politicians can target individual segments while avoiding the entrenched systemic causes of the current acute economic and social crises. Thomas A. Hirschl discusses one such cause that affects the entire American population: the “qualitative transformation” of capitalism due to rapid technological innovation (162). Despite the growing social unrest due to structural unemployment, Hirschl explains, “there has been little consideration of whether bourgeois property relations may or may not be disrupted by technological progress” (158). Instead of looking at the indelible social and economic consequences of these changes, Obama and Romney establish the middle class and joblessness as the primary issue. With this, Romney and Obama are free pursue stop-gap measures aimed solely at the middle class to the effect of abandoning any idea of remedying the consequences of the qualitative transformation Hirschl describes.
The first question posed to the candidates in this particular debate does not specifically refer to technology, so it is seems justifiable that it goes unmentioned. But neither does it mention the word “jobs” (what the college student actually asks is how he will be able to sufficiently support himself after he graduates). Whether explicitly asked or not, though, in addressing this quality of life question, both candidates avoid what Guglielmo Carchedi so succinctly describes as a crisis of capitalist social relations: namely that, with technological innovation, comes an “increase in productivity [that] goes hand in hand with unemployment,” and thus, “the development of productive forces is the ultimate cause of crises” (Carchedi 83). Rather than delve into this unattractive reality, both candidates immediately respond to the question with effusive references to jobs—four for Mr. Romney and seven for Mr. Obama. The moderator encourages this direction by following up with, “What about those long-term unemployed who need a job right now?” Here, the candidates continue to sidestep a social and economic discussion of quality of life and reasonable self-sufficiency, of the purpose of education and the direction of the country, and become immersed in the realm of stop-gap measures and band-aids. Mr. Obama speaks of “good-paying jobs” in the “private sector” and manufacturing jobs in the automobile industry, and Mr. Romney says, “I want you to be able to get a job.” This rhetoric of avoidance does not explore the systemic expansion of labor-saving technologies and their consequences in a capitalist society—specifically, that technologies initially increase capitalist accumulation at the expense of laborers’ decreased purchasing power, which then results in less profits and an increased drive toward labor-saving technology. This, in turn, results in fewer jobs, and the spiral continues (Carchedi 75). Without identifying this pervasive and accelerating cycle of capitalist (self)destruction, both candidates effectively avoid proposing the radical economic and social changes necessary to interrupt this cycle, and thus, neither candidate can propose an adequate approach.
Further, only when pressed on foreign outsourcing and competition with China China
This is where the rhetoric of casualization really soars. By framing joblessness as an unfortunate consequence of not investing in the right kind jobs (Obama) or as the result of foreign attacks upon our technologies (Romney), both men divert their audience’s attention away from their entrapment in a system doomed to fail them all. Worse yet, this sort of language obstructs empathy in the same breath that it increases competition and antipathy. In “Automation and Alienation,” Ramin Ramtin how this occurs: “The insecurity of capitalist conditions of labor has always acted as a powerful means of social control—but only because and as long as there is at least some hope of future employment” (247). In emphasizing the creation of jobs without addressing the long-term and systemic reasons for unemployment, these politicians encourage that increasingly unfounded hope for future employment, further pitting people against one another. Rather than offering system-wide, socially-conscious solutions, this rhetoric perpetuates the very social and economic polarization so complicit in the populace’s increasing malaise.
More than exposing the underpinnings of a spiraling and self-destructive “advanced” capitalism, it is imperative to expose the language used to keep the majority of the population in the dark, to placate rather than inform; it is imperative to critique the rhetoric of casualization. Without identifying potential and likely reasons behind the political and economic information that is disseminated through popular media, its larger impact cannot be adequately assessed. This is not to say that all words are intended to be disingenuous or manipulative, but rather, that all language is meant to mean something, and some meaning extends beyond the simple logic of the words which convey it. In accepting strategic omissions without question, in halting at catchy talking points, and in buying into the rhetoric of “me” or “us” versus “them,” our diverse and dynamic population is being handled into submission and wrought by division. This casualized humanity—characterized by disconnection, competition, lack of empathy, and open hostility—is entirely necessary to sustain the current capitalist economic system in the face of rapid technological and cultural changes. By uncovering how this rhetorical strategy shapes identities and relationships, distorting public sentiment, it might then be possible to reclaim language in encouraging humanity rather than suppressing it.
Works Cited
Blankfein, Lloyd. “The Business Plan for American Revival.” Opinion-Editorial. Wall Street
Journal 14 November 2012 : A17. Print.
Carchedi, Guglielmo. “High-Tech Hype: Promises and Realities of Technology in the Twenty-
First Century.” Davis
---“Casual.” Merriam-Webster.com.
---“Casualty.” Merriam-Webster.com.
Harvey, David. Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. London
Verso, 2012. Print.
---. “David Harvey Interviewed on New York New York
March 2009. http://davidharvey.org/2009/03/david-harvey-interviewed-on-new-york-public-radio/ Web. 5 December 2012 .
Hirschl, Thomas. “Structural Unemployment and the Qualitative Transformation of Capitalism.”
Merriam-Webster.com. Encyclopedia Britannica. 2012. Web. 24 November 2012 .
Ramtin, Ramin. “A Note on Automation and Alienation.” Davis
“Second Presidential Debate Full Transcript.” ABC News. WABC, Los Angeles
2012. Television. Transcript. abcnews.go.com. Web.
[1] Hirschl’s discussion of structural unemployment, pg. 160-1, provided background for this independent assessment.
