Pro-war rhetoric

Pro-war rhetoric is any type of literature or media that tries to gain support for war efforts. How one person conveys a message in this literature or media is as equally important as the message itself especially during times of crisis in a country.

Rhetoric is the art of influencing the thought and conduct of an audience. Specifically, wartime rhetoric can be divided into two genres such as anti-war and pro-war rhetoric.

The two main analytical approaches to pro-war rhetoric were founded by Ronald Reid and Robert Ivie. Ronald Reid was a Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst). Robert Ivie is a Professor of Rhetoric and Public Communication and Culture at Indiana University (Bloomington).

Rhetorical Framework of Ronald Reid

Ron Reid’s analytical framework focuses on the pro-war rhetoric directed primarily towards the “home front”(Reid 259). He presents basic appeals used to persuade audiences and help better understand pro-war rhetoric. His appeals originated from his analysis of New England rhetoric during the French War, after realizing that there was a lack of classification for such appeals used in many sources of war propaganda. The four appeals include: (1) Territorial; (2) Ethnocentric; (3) Maintaining Optimism; and, (4) War aims.

Territorial Appeals

The first appeal is directed towards the audience’s “sense of territoriality” (Reid 260). The idea expressed is that humans will designate space or area as “‘theirs,’ that they will fight when ‘their’ territory is invaded” (Reid 264). Territorial appeals can be divided into two categories: physical and metaphysical. Physical appeals apply to messages conveying that any tangible property of the victimized country is threatened. Metaphysical appeals apply to the attack on the beliefs and values, such as freedom and peace, of the victimized country. The overall goal is to persuade the intended audience that the war is defensive (Reid 280).

Ethnocentric Appeals

The second appeal addresses ethnocentrism, in that humans likely assume their own culture to be superior to others. Ethnocentrism should be evoked to a “high level of emotional intensity” in attempt to complete two goals: hate the “inferior alien” and depict threats to cultural values (Reid 267).

In order to evoke hatred in the superior culture, the battle of “barbarism vs. gallantry” is presented by the communication of brutality and atrocity stories (Reid 267). In order to depict cultural threats, strong and intense language is used in the atrocity stories. For example, such words as “freedom” and “liberty” describe the superior culture, while “lust” and “slavery” describe the inferior culture (Reid 270). The overall goal is to illustrate the "Us vs. Them" concept, where "Us" implies angelic characteristics and "Them" implies demonic traits.

Maintaining Optimism

The third appeal directs attention to the positive images of war and the hope and possibility of victory. Often, religion is used to demonstrate optimism by stating that God, or a higher spiritual power, promises victory to the country (Reid 282).

War Aims

The fourth appeal demonstrates the country’s definition of victory and reason for being involved in the war. Reid points out that many countries enter the war without constituting aims but with the support of the nation. However, when used, war aims generally reflect “ a desire for security and, in the case of victorious parties, an enlarged view of what security requires” (Reid 284).

Rhetorical Framework of Robert Ivie

Robert Ivie’s analytical framework adopts Kenneth Burke’s idea of victimage rhetoric, claiming that “a people strongly committed to the ideal of peace, but simultaneously faced with the reality of war, must believe that the fault for any such disruption of their ideal lies with others” (Ivie 279). Ivie understands that fighting a just war in the act of self-defense exonerates a nation from accepting responsibility for it, thus, making it easier to establish the enemy’s culpability and justify reasons for engaging in war. This is done by portraying images of savagery contrasted with images of victimization. Ivie says these patterns of binary opposition “permeate the substance and style of the call-to-arms throughout American history” in the form of three main topoi: force vs. freedom, irrationality vs. rationality, and aggression vs. defense (Ivie 279).

Force vs. Freedom

In this context, the enemy is rendered as savage, by means of exposing their stubborn commitment to violence and demand for ideological uniformity. The enemy is depicted as an aggressor, responsible for initiating all hostilities while contrasted with a victimized country, who adopts positive connotations of a nation willing to negotiate, reason, and/or compromise. Ivie claims that, to establish this binary contrast, rhetors use particularly graphic language in speaking of the enemy’s conduct, and “sanitized” language to describe the actions of the victimized country. This leads to the notion of “us vs. them”. However, Ivie says that “besides the contrast between commitment to violence and willingness to negotiate” there exists an element of ideological uniformity in the enemy, which helps to shape the force vs. freedom topos (Ivie 285). This characteristic concludes that the enemy “would force all others to conform to their will and/or ideology”, symbolizing “the perfect enemy of freedom” (Ivie 288). This binary opposition becomes even more distinct when rhetors develop the struggle between irrational and rational.

Irrational vs. Rational

This topos holds that the enemy is portrayed as irrational, responding “more to animalistic drives than principles of law” (Ivie 288). The enemy has an unenlightened intellect, not based on reason. This dimension of the enemy’s culpability, along with its commitment to war, further produce images of the enemy as a bully, “who’s irrational drives must be satiated even at the expense of international law” (Ivie 290). Ivie claims the victimized country uses this appeal in their call-to-arms, contrasting it with an image of itself as a law-abiding, reason-dwelling, well-intentioned nation. Ivie asserts that rhetors will use this argument to prove that when an enemy such as this threatens the well-being, peace, and justice of the world that, even for a nation committed to neutrality and peace, war may be “the instrument of a rational people forced to enlighten an irrational assailant” (Ivie 289). The concept of the enemy as an assailant or aggressor, and the victim as a defender is further exploited in the topos aggression vs. defense.

Aggression vs. Defense

Ivie claims that rhetors use aggression vs. defense to distinguish and justify the differences in the conduce of the enemy and the victimized nation. “While the savage has acted against order, the victim has been forced to respond in its defense” (Ivie 290). Ivie describes the actions as either “voluntary” and “initial” or “involuntary” and “defensive” (Ivie 290). It is important to highlight these qualities in order to further assert blame on the enemy, thereby proving the innocence of the victim. Because the enemy initiates hostilities, the victim is compelled to react in self-defense, thus the purpose of this topos is to further prove the enemy’s culpability and justify reasons for the victimized nation to engage in action.

Examples of pro-war rhetoric

* [http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0900144.htmlWoodrow Wilson's War Message] Wilson's April 2nd, 1917 Speech advising Congress to declare war on Germany
* [http://www.pearlharbor.org/speech-fdr-infamy-1941.asp Day of Infamy] Franklin D. Roosevelt's Address to Congress after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 8th, 1941
* [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitler_declares_war.html German Declaration of War on the United States] Adolf Hitler's December 11th, 1941 Reichstag Speech
* [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/tonkinsp.htm Gulf of Tonkin Incident] Lyndon B. Johnson's August 5th, 1964 Message to Congress

References

*Brock, Bernard L., ed. "Kenneth Burke and the 21st Century". Albany: State University of New York P, 1999.
*Ivie, Robert L. "Images of Savagery in American Justifications for War," "Communication Monographs" 47 (1980): 279-294.
*Ivie, Robert L. "The Rhetoric of Bush's "War" on Evil." "KB Journal" 1 (2004). 2 Feb. 2007 .
*Medhurst, Martin J., Robert L. Ivie, Philip Wander, and Robert L. Scott. "Cold War Rhetoric: Strategy, Metaphor, and Ideology". Greenwood Press: New York 1990.
*Reid, Ronald F. "New England Rhetoric And the French War, 1754-1760: A Case Study In the Rhetoric of War," "Communication Monographs" 43 (1976): 259-286.
*Snowball, David. "Celebrating the Life of Ronald Forrest Reid." H-Net Discussion Network. 16 Aug. 2002. 9 Feb. 2007 .

External links

* [http://www.indiana.edu/%7Eivieweb/iviebio.htm Robert Ivie's Homepage]
* [http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_9480.shtml Current White House Use of Pro-war Rhetoric]
* [http://www.apsanet.org/~polcomm/news/2003/terrorism/papers/Kelley%20and%20Martinez.pdf War Rhetoric and Deliberation in the Aftermath of the September 11th Terrorist Attacks]