So yeah, I went ahead and read the "Rhetoric of Hitler's Battle" and decided to post on it because one thing in particular struck me and made me remember one of our previous readings. Let's see where it goes, shall we?
There was one particular section that stood out very starkly to me, and that was when Burke said that "The sexual symbolism that runs through Hitler's book, lying in wait to draw upon the responses of contemporary sexual values, is easily characterized" and then goes on to say that Hitler shows the confused and dispersed Germany as a sort of castrated male. The dictator apparently also mentions that the German people as a mass are "feminine" and "as such, they desire to be lead by a dominating male" (195). When I read this line, my mind immediately when back to Wellings' Ecoporn piece and how it too discussed the dual sexualizing and feminization of the environment and nature, which is rather similar to classifying the public masses of a country in such a way. I mean, we have the masses of Aryan Germany, the naive and untouched woman-like virigin masses that are under threat from the "seduction" of the "rival male" the the strong leading man, the Jews. We have the big strong man-leader rescuing the lady-masses from being tainted by the scapegoat Jewish people and systematically breaking "her" in by introducing his own strong leadership. Like ecoporn, the dictator in this situation feminizes the masses to make Germany look untainted and untouched, but still in danger, whilst ignoring all of the damage that he himself is doing to the scapegoat (the supposed rival) just like ecopornographers do not show all of the "hidden impact".
I just found it very fascinating that the parallels lined up and made so much sense, in different ways of course. It makes me wonder what the value is in rhetoric that sexualizes and feminizes what the rhetor wishes to gain control over, or how such a way of speaking and referring to things such as nature or the public has lasted so long, the fact that patriarchy is the dominant social reign aside. What do you guys think of the odd parallel? Does this rhetoric serve like purposes to gaining control of a people as it does gaining control of people's views of the environment? Who is exploited? What might the "hidden impact" be, either in the specific Hilter situation or just politics in general?
I thought it was interesting, so I decided just to throw it out there. All references came from page 195.
2 comments:
I also thought this was particularly interesting but rather than comparing it to the Ecoporn piece, I was able to draw parallels on this section to the idea written by Gilbert and Gubar's "Infection in the Sentence." Gilbert and Gubar writes of how the woman author is contained within a small box in which they are defined as either the sweet, dumb Snow White or the cruel Witch. The idea that the public is feminine and the orator is male shows how gender is used to describe power roles within societies and governments such as Hitlerism. The idea that the public/audience is the female waiting to be led shows the confines within which the female has been put in throughout almost all of history. Does the women have a different from the male? Even as Freud talks of this topic, it seems that Burke is in agreement with this idea. This reference towards Freud expresses that this analogy of the audience to females is fascinating because the issue of gender cannot be escaped. The parallels in which this draws between Gilbert and Gubar has fascinated me because all of the writing pieces that are assigned in this class share a certain theme and I am still figuring out what it is. Hopefully by the end of the class or even before that, i'll realize what it is. All in all, this was a great post and a great finding. Thank you.
I was struck by the gendered metaphor also, I can see it as having been an extremely persuasive tool. And I like the Gilbert and Gubar reference as well, I definitely see the parallels there and thanks guys for pointing them out. I wonder though, how was the German population (mainly the overly confident males), okay with being the typified female, preyed on by the masculine Jew? I don't know that I would've taken that lying down! Although, I guess if I were losing out economically speaking because of them, I would be okay with being painted the martyr. What I really wanted to say though, was I think it's pretty ironic how the Jew was seen as the masculine "rapist," when in reality, the Nazis ended up basically raping them...their homes, their possessions, and probably even literal rape as well. It's not a pleasant thought at all, but the "Jew as the rapist" analogy made me kinda mad considering the facts. I guess Hitler's "religious" approach took after all, him being the most self-righteous of them all.
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