Burke and Hitler (and little bit of Locke) on Symbols and Symbolic Action

Burke's argument that Mein Kampf is a symbolic act is backed up by an abundance of symbols made within the text itself. In fact, the book is almost entirely based in symbols. Based on the Bedford Glossary definition of a symbol as "something that stands for or suggests something larger and more complex," and Burke's definition for symbolic action (which can be found in his 1966 work titled Language as Symbolic Action) as systems of communication that rely on symbols, it is undeniable that Mein Kampf is a symbolic act. I have explored many of the symbols Burke found within the book to back up this claim.

Hitler saw a geo-political importance in having a physical center for his movement. He chose Munich. Munich thus served as a symbol for his movement at large. He insisted that having a geographical center for a movement "...can at length give a movement that force which is rooted in the inner unity and the recognition of a hand that represents this unity." (192-193). This is the first of many symbols Burke points out in Mein Kampf. The geographical region as a center of a movement, like Mecca is for the Muslim religion, is a very commonly utilized type of symbol in politics.

Burke insists that if a movement requires, as Hitler thought, a symbolic geographical center, then it must also require a symbolic enemy. Hitler thought the same. Hitler insisted that a good leader can make all of their enemies seem like the same one symbolic enemy in order to unify their followers against that one enemy and gain unity. Having too many enemies creates doubts in the minds of followers, but one enemy does not. Therefore, all enemies must be represented by a single symbol (193). "A number of essentially different enemies must always be regarded as one in such a way that in the opinion of the masses of one's adherents, the war is being waged against one enemy alone. This strengthens the belief in one's own cause and increases one's bitterness against the attacker," Hitler claimed (193-194). Hitler chose the Jew as his movement's symbolic enemy.  Jews were probably an easy choice for the movement's scapegoat since they were already scapegoats throughout much of history (e.g. being blamed for the Black Plague). The Jew as the symbolic enemy is referred to by Burke as Hitler's "devil-function" which reminded me of Foucault's "author function." Like the author function, the devil function is constructed socio-politically/socio-culturally and tacks a whole lot of different ideas and preconceived notions onto the name of one person, or in the case of the Jews, one group of people. By choosing the Jews as a scapegoat, Hitler's followers were able to project their internal inadequacies onto the Jews who, as the enemy, became symbolic of everything they hate and everything they find evil or bad (203).

Burke also picks up on the sexual symbolism found throughout Hitler's book. He feminizes the masses and insists they desire to be led by a dominating male, thus symbolizing his relationship to the masses he controls with a stereotypical patriarchal relationship. In this symbol, the Jew becomes a rival male who wants to take control of the masses. Hitler equates the masses choosing the Jew to choosing a bad sexual partner that will give them sexually transmitted diseases. This is an obscure and strange symbol, but a symbol none the less (195).

Hitler took the parliament as the basic symbol of all that he would move away from. The parliament was very scattered with different ideas and biases. Burke himself compared it to a woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder (200). Hitler did not want to see many conflicting voices under his regime, he wanted to see one voice made by a lot of totally unified people with the same ideas, goals, and biases. Parliament became an example, or symbol, of what not to be.

The primary symbols that Hitler's book boils down to are Aryans as a symbol for "constructive" and for love with Jews as a symbol for "destructive" and for "hate," (204). These same symbols are stressed throughout the entirety of the book and Hitler's explanations make it very clear that he knew what he was doing from a political standpoint by using the Jews as a symbol. The book almost makes it seem as if he does not actually care about Jews one way or another; he is just using them as a symbol in order to unify his people because symbols are so powerful that they can make a whole mass of people think and act in ways they never otherwise would have.

Mein Kampf serves as a prime example of Burke's stressing of the importance of symbols and communication at large as symbolic action. Burke was not the only rhetorician to suggest such an importance in symbols. Locke defined words as symbols for ideas, suggesting all languages are composed entirely of symbols. The power of the symbol is an extremely important and pervasive idea throughout  the history of rhetoric as well as written and spoken language. 

-Kayla Goldstein