Various Rhetorical Analyses

Although I’ve been studying rhetoric for several years now, it still comes as a shock sometimes when I realize just how much I still allow language to influence and structure my thinking. It’s been well-established that rhetoric essentially shapes the fabric of our reality. This week’s readings include several rhetorical analyses by various authors that reinforce this idea. By positing language that influences our collective experiences, those with powerful voices shape our reality through the words they use to describe it. Tools of rhetoric, like metaphor and metonymy, give rise and power to hegemonies that construct our lives. This idea is demonstrated by Duerringer in his article “Class Structure and the Movement of Capital: The Rhetoric of Supply Side Economics.”

Duerringer highlights the power of two metaphors, class as vertical strata and money as liquid, that, when combined, form a powerful metaphor that influences public thinking in favor of supply-side economics – a policy with a bad track records and worse implications for those in poverty. Through the mapping of class to vertical space and the conceptualizing of wealth as liquid, this conceptual metaphor necessarily applies the laws of physics to ideas that have no actual physicality. Of course, money isn’t gravitationally pulled down through class strata by verticality alone. The universal acceptance of these metaphors, however, make the argument for trickle-down economics appear logical and natural, feeding into the continuation of tax cuts for the ultra wealthy. They also make alternate views and counterarguments appears less intuitive. At this point, metaphors like these strengthen myths that keep real economic mobility out of the grasp of the average American.

I appreciated Duerringer’s offers of substitutions for the prevailing trickle-down wealth metaphor. He provides metaphors like capitalist-as-hostage-taker, money-as-food- and patron-as-job-creator to nullify the influence of the hegemonic grasp of the current narrative of wealth. While money-as-liquid and other frequently-used metaphors strengthen the position of the rich and seemingly pull the wool over the eyes of the poor, these alternative metaphors cast a more negative light on the seemingly benevolent job-creators at the top of the upper class.

There are likely many other metaphors that obscure the dire realities of socio-economic realities in our country and the world at large. Problems arise when these metaphors become so engrained into our perspectives, we fail to see alternate ways in which to engage with reality. In the Duerringer piece, this means current prevailing wealth narratives center those in poverty at fault for their own poor state, rather than those at the top of the class strata. I can see this potentially coming into play in metaphors that reinforce racial or gendered stereotypes. When metaphors like these come to influence the hegemonies that govern society, it becomes ever more important to craft language that subverts those notions. This also shows that we must give more heed to marginalized voices that often question and rebel against this hegemony.