After reading Bakhtin’s “Discourse in the Novel” and Burke’s “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s ‘Battle’”, I came to the conclusion that Bakhtin’s philosophy of language is highly relatable to Burke’s thoughts on “Battle” when the metaphor of a novel is used to examine Hitler’s philosophy.
In “Discourse in the Novel,” Bakhtin states that "the novel can be defined as a diversity of social speech types and a diversity of individual voices, artistically organized." (Bakhtin 262). Not only is this statement relatable to the artistically organized speeches that Hitler gave, I can also see how it can be relatable to Hitler's philosophy. Considering Hitler's philosophy as a novel itself, Bakhtin's quote is indeed applicable.
As explained by Burke in an excerpt from “Battle” on page 197, Hitler's anti-Semitism rises (albeit spontaneously) from the acts of individual people (Jews) - their diverse individual voices and diverse social speech types - that led to him to classify the Jews as an artistically organized whole that was the ultimate enemy. In this excerpt, Hitler uses generalizing words like "they" and "them" to classify the individuals into one organized whole. This is what Hitler's philosophy is based off of - "always concentrating [the attention of a people] on a single enemy" and not allowing the masses to "find themselves confronted with too many enemies" (Burke 193).
On a slightly different, although not completely unrelated, note, I would like to bring in some ideas that we discussed in the Agent/cy unit. If we can look at Hitler’s philosophy as a novel, then we can look at Hitler as a novelist, as a writer. In the past few weeks, we read that the writer’s audience is a fiction that the writer creates. I would argue that Hitler certainly created his audience. Through persuasion and stylistic techniques, Hitler was able to create a group of people that were convinced that what they were doing was right and good. More specifically, Hitler created his audience by selecting a place where the audience could unify and where his ideas could materialize (Burke 192). Then he created a single enemy for his audience (Burke 193). Once he was able to get a grip on his mass audience and he had “essentialized his enemy” (Burke 194), proof became automatic and evidence was no longer needed. Hitler built an audience that trusted him.
In conclusion, viewing Hitler’s philosophy as a novel allows us both to understand his rhetoric through what I would call a Bakhtin lens and to understand another way in which the writer creates his or her audience.
Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your thoughts on Burke but particularly connecting it back to our unit on Agent/cy. Hitler is indeed a writer who did create his audience. Hitler was able to create a group of people in a distinct place, Munich, to comprise a center for unity. Hitler created a fictionalized arena of the "hero" and "villain". Burke explains the audience as feminine, vulnerable and desire a dominating mane to command and win them over in orally (Burke, 195) I also see this idk of representing Hitler as a novelist on page 196 when Burke questions whether or not Hitler's selection of the Jew was intentional.
Hitler successfully created his audience because he was, in fact, able to control them. Your quote from page 192 from Burke, is the ideal example; an audience becomes unified and his idea could materialize in one specific place.
I agree that Hitler's rhetoric can be looked at as a text. We can also analyze his actual text, Mein Kampf. You begin to touch on the idea that Hitler's words have the transformative and performative power to influence "verbal-ideological life" (Bahktin 290). This is undoubtedly true. As Bakhtin points out, words and language are generational, perpetuating and representing transforming ideologies. With his words, Hitler seems to manipulate the ideologies of his people to create a new anti-Semitic ideology with which he powers his nation and his quest.
ReplyDeleteI think you also begin tot ouch on the idea that his the contextual power that Bakhtin associates with the novel. The novel allows for the demonstration of social diversity among different speech types, in turn allowing for the novel to be experienced by multiple readers and reader-types. In class we discussed Charles Dickens novels in reference to this idea. In many of his novels, Dickens addressed the conflict between classes, voicing characters from either side. By doing so, he effectively represents and makes more accessible different speech types. We could say something similar for Hitler.
I think that it is very interesting that you bring up the question of how audience is created in reference to Hitler. You argue that Hitler probably created his audience. While I agree with this and think it is an interesting view, there is no doubt that the construction of audience went both ways. It is clear that Hitler wrote for an audience who would receive his message and conform. He knew that the German people were in need of an explanation and solution for their hard economic times, so he gave them one. He wrote for that specific audience In turn, the audience had to have constructed itself. The people embodied the role that Hitler wanted them to. The believed and they trusted and they followed. What is fascinating is that they did not just do this for the duration of the text, as is often the case (as explained by Ong). Instead, the German people embody the role that Hitler designates for them for decades. His words had the transformative power to unite a people against another people permanently. The power and reach of his rhetoric was that enormous.
This is interesting because I have always simply viewed the novel as a fictional narrative. This view seems to be incorrect I confess. I did not think of Hitler's work as a novel until reading your post, and it is an interesting lens of examination.
ReplyDeleteHitler did in fact "artistically organize" "diverse social speech types" (Bakhtin); we can see how his construction formed from various concepts that already exist within in language. He played on these associations, reconstructing them to manipulate his audience. For example, he unified his audience under the concept of a mecca. He made this mecca tangible (his manipulation of a preexisting concept) (Burke). He also used the concept of finding a common ground through a common enemy (Burke). Hitler's rhetoric can absolutely be seen as an artistic organization, truly a re-organization of these concepts, to target his audience. I touched on this in my post, but i enjoy your incorporation of audience, as I did not think of this.
Interestingly, I see a cross-over between Hitler's fictionalized audience and actual audience (from what I read in your post). He did create an audience, but I would argue that he meshed the idea of fictional and actual audience by manipulation. Through manipulation, he swayed his actual audience to become his chosen creation (which is why his rhetoric is powerful and dangerous).