I'll have the Barnyard Scramble
With a side of I wish I understood clearly what Burke is talking about in this passage. From my previous experiences with Burke, however, I can assume some things. I think he used the idea of the Human Barnyard in a book we've read previously (was it Permanence and Change? They're all starting to run together!). If I'm not mistaken, the metaphor has something to do with competing interests and the requirement of identification for cooperation. Each of these metaphors (Give and Take, the wavering line of pressure and counterpressure, the Logomachy, the onus of ownership, the Wars of Nerves, the War) suggest a kind of cacophonic clashing of interests. Logomachy suggests a battle of words, the War of Nerves a kind of hanging on to ones interests in the face of opposition. But I like "the Scramble" best as a metaphor for what happens when the rubber meets the road (or when human life makes rhetoric necessary and society begins).
I think Burke is asking us to revisit agonism with these metaphors; in a move that hearkens back to Aristotle, he is reasserting the material and the social as the primary call for rhetoric. As he mentioned in the Grammar, Burke feels the need to rescue rhetoric from its reputation.
Oops, I don't know where the
Oops, I don't know where the rest of my commentary went for this blog. To finish my thought, Burke, like Aristotle, seems to want to rescue rhetoric from its own reputation, this time from among post Enlightenment positivists. Like Aristotle too, Burke seems to envision a profoundly useful, conflict-resolving, cooperative vision for rhetoric. However, I think these metaphors make clear that Burke is not dodging the need for or existence of struggle rooted in materialism (scramble). Instead, he asserts struggle as the foundational exigence upon which the Rhetoric is built.
Dee, I enjoyed reading your
Dee,
I enjoyed reading your blog. I noticed, too, that Burke is trying to bring rhetoric towards social studies. I am not sure that this is the influence of Marxism on Burke, but especially his discussion of identification, his naming the locus of discourse as "Barnyard," the idea of the market ("give and take" RM 23), etc., seem to point to this. I am not trying to suggest that Burke is trying to inscribe rhetoric to the larger umbrella of sociology.