Engaging the Right's Rhetoric of Dissent": New Directions for "Political Criticism""

Abstract

This dissertation examines the various rhetorical strategies through which thinkers on the political Right present themselves not as defenders of the status quo, but rather, as rebels; that is, as spokespersons of a counter-narrative, offered in opposition to the established dominant wisdom. In this manner, thinkers on the Right adopt what I call a “rhetoric of dissent,” presenting themselves as the “genuine” representatives of a marginalized position, and as such, as the allies of victims, and the enemies of the “elite.” The chief concern of this project is to consider the implications of this rhetoric of dissent for what, following Terry Eagleton, I call “political criticism.” Political criticism examines how, in Frank Lentricchia’s terms, “the expressive mechanisms of culture” build consensus for and against certain political positions. Accordingly, this project argues that scholars invested in political criticism must take this rhetoric of dissent seriously, for it has substantial effects on contemporary culture and political discourse. Furthermore, this project questions the underlying theoretical framework that ought to inform political criticism. Scholars in the discipline have become accustomed to viewing “truth” as something that is necessarily inaccessible, remaining content instead to limit themselves to the confines of “discourse.” Moreover, various thinkers have equated such a theoretical orientation, that Stanley Fish broadly characterizes as “anti-foundationalism,” with the critique of oppressive political projects, for it ostensibly undermines the claims to objectivity and universalism on which such oppressive projects depend. The rhetoric of dissent, which seeks to confound our understanding of protagonist and antagonist, I argue, reveals the limitation of such anti-foundationalist approaches. As an alternative, I suggest that political criticism may instead take its cue from the traditions of left-Hegelian dialectical thought that retain some of the important insight of antifoundationalism, while also successfully evading the latter’s pitfalls. In this manner, my project takes the rhetoric of the Right as its point of departure and begins to envision new directions for political criticism.