Burke writes that " We refer to the utterance as “portraiture,” as the “self-expression” of an agent, as an act characteristic of the poet’s “personality” whether or not he so wills it." (41) Later, he notes that poetic symbolism requires a different kind of understanding. In reading his discussion of portraiture and the use of symbols I started thinking more broadly about symbols. I had been thinking about symbols in the terms of words and man as the symbol using animal but I'd neglected to think about the more concrete definition of symbol: A written character or mark used to represent something; a letter, figure, or sign conventionally standing for some object, process, etc. (OED, 2d edition, 1989). I think that the pivotal point in this definition is the word "conventionally" as it implies the shared social meaning the Burke discusses later when he writes that "the 'weighting' of words arises from extra-poetic situations in the social order" (41).

Burke's consideration of the effects of the computer in Towards Helhaven is interesting because it is chronologically positioned at the very beginning of the personal computer's presence in the market. Indeed, most of Burke's references to the computer have to do with government owned punch-card machines. His discussion of the 'cult of new needs' is predictive of, for example, the explosion of consumer technologies that have followed the personalization of the computer. Indeed, having a cell phone, digital camera, ipod, and pda is hardly unusual or excessive. Burke's consideration of planned obsolescence is helpful here in the case certainly of the cell phone which as to be replaced at least every two years. (In the alternative, I was at my grandmother's this weekend and noticed that she has had the same rotary dial phone in her living room since the early 80s). The invasion of technology into our lives has certainly occurred, but not entirely in the way in which he predicted.

The first professor of comparative philology at Oxford, editor of the series Sacred Books of the East, and translator of its first volume The Upanishads, F. Max Müller (1823-1900) stands out as one of the major contributors to the field of comparative religion and Orientalism. His work and scholarly agenda shaped not only the Vedic tradition and the Victorian understanding of the sacred East, but the translations in his series are still in print and continue to be used. Complete in fifty volumes, SBOTHE is a critical edition that provides translations of the sacred texts of six traditions: Brahaminism, Taoism, Janism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Islam.

NEGATIVE

a. Consisting in, characterized by, or expressing the absence rather than the presence of distinguishing features; devoid of or lacking distinctly positive attributes.
b. Of an attitude, opinion, response, etc.: critical, unfavorable, carping; hostile, destructive, antagonistic. Also of a person: having such an attitude, response, etc.

--OED, 2d ed, 1989

“The Rhetoric must lead us through the Scramble, the Wrangle of the Market Place, the flurries and flare-ups of the Human Barnyard, the Give and Take, the wavering line of pressure and counter-pressure, the Logomachy, the onus of ownership, the War of Nerves, the War.” (RM23)

The section of Rhetoric of Motives in which the above passages occurs is the clearest explanation of a rhetorical program of study that I have yet read in Burke. Aptly titled ‘The Range of Rhetoric’, this section indicates that we can find rhetoric in the many varieties of social conflict he names in this sentence. The study of rhetoric, in this way, is not confined topically or by genre but rather exists pervasively. In this passage Burke identifies Rhetoric (with a capital R) as our guide. This seems to place rhetoric at the centre of cultural critique.

In Burke’s discussion of the four master tropes, he identifies the ways in which their functions overlap. Central in this discussion of the four tropes is the idea of transformation: Burke not only proposes new terminology for the tropes but identifies ways in which the tropes transform “reality “in their use of terminology. To the extent that one’s chosen terminology can always be construed as a strategic choice, the rhetorical dimensions of the tropes begin to emerge.

In concluding, Burke writes that “what goes forth as A returns as non-A” and identifies within this transformation the “strategic moment of reversal” (517). This description reminded me of his molten mass metaphor: is this strategic moment of reversal what happens when congealed crusts return to the molten mass and are reconstituted as a new crust?

Burke’s metaphor of “central molteness” is described in the introduction to Grammar of Motives. It describes Dramatistic inquiry as a study that privileges ambiguity over definition ( xix). His later discussion of Spinoza is helpful here in expanding upon how the image of central molteness applies to rhetorical inquiry.

Burke on Freud

Burke compares Stekel’s dictionary of symbols use in dream analysis and Freud’s free-association technique. And although he admits the “lure” of the efficient model for dream analysis that Stekel’s work provides, he criticizes it for being an essentializing “short cut” that restricts an analyst’s range of speculation and understanding. He endorses with greater enthusiasm Freud’s free-association style which he characterizes as being more deductive than inductive. I am curious about Burke’s discussion of these two modes of dream analysis with regard to his definition of the bureaucratization of the imaginative in Attitudes toward History.

In Attitudes Towards History, Burke discusses Legality and states that:""the court" draws on the same psychological sanctions as "the church," when individual judges are felt to act in their corporate identity alone. (291)

What does Burke mean here by using the word "felt" to describe the understanding of judges actions as being consonant or dissonant with their corporate identities? It seems to highlight the interpretive process of, not only the judiciary, but the perception of the judiciary. This made me think about the rampant use of the term "activist judge" to describe the opinion of a judge the author does not agree with. I read last month a blog about a Romney ad (transcript and link below) about the "activist judge" in Iowa ruling on gay marriage. A few pentads, perhaps to think about it:

(Pentad of Romney's Ad)

1. Act: The Romney Campaign blames an 'activist judge' for promoting same-sex marriage

I was interested to see that in his concluding discussion, Logie argues that “Burke is anticipating the terms of the Continental critique of authorship inaugurated by Roland Barthes and epitomized by Michel Foucalt at the end of the 1960s.” Indeed, I had been thinking throughout his article about the challenge to authorial privilege and Foucault’s contention that the human as a “Subject” is disappearing.