The uses of rhetoric

This essay provides a general introduction to the special number on Jacob L. Talmon (1916–1980). The essay sketches the outlines of Talmon's intellectual biography, beginning with his study of the origins of totalitarian democracy, moving through his analysis of nationalism and political messianism, and ending with his study of the ideological clash of the 20th century. The essay raises the question of whether Talmon should be seen as a thinker wishing to defend existing traditions (i.e. a “priest”), or as a radical anti-authoritarian skeptic (i.e. a “jester”). Moreover, being both an anti-nationalist liberal, and a zionist at the same time, Talmon, the essay shows, was aware of the fact his own stance was problematic and at times even paradoxical. The last section of the essay presents the seven essays, which are included in the special issue.     

The rhetoric of consensus

Bob Hawke has used the notion of consensus in three distinct ways. The term was first employed as a polemic to discredit the Fraser government and establish Hawke's claim to the ALP leadership. It then became shorthand for the political program Hawke put forward during the 1983 election campaign. Finally — and perhaps most ambitiously — it sought a new philosophical twist for Australian politics. By 1985, however, the concept lacked credibility and was quietly abandoned as polemic, program or government philosophy. The rhetoric of consensus, for all its success, was short‐lived in its usefulness.     

The Rohingya crisis

Myanmar's recent ethnic cleansing of its Rohingya people, in which more than 600,000 people have been forced into Bangladesh, has shocked the world. This guest editorial considers some potential root causes driving the violence, principally the combination of economic precarity felt by average Burmese people, affective and participatory deficits within Burma's current democratic experience, ethno‐nationalist mobilizations, and Islamophobia. These factors are combining to produce the Rohingya not only as foreign ‐ not a part of the fabric of the Myanmar nation ‐ but as a threat to that nation worthy of expulsion.     

The Atlantic crisis of confidence

As the ultimate enforcer of such international rules and order as can be said to exist, the United States will often find itself in tension with those rules, and at times may be to stand outside them altogether. Yet for this sort of dispensation to have any international acceptance whatsoever depends on a high level of international confidence that American power will be exercised prudently, wisely and benevolently. Such confidence is precisely what the Bush administration has squandered, a loss that is far more damaging and vital than abstract arguments about force and legitimacy, or contending visions of international order. Confidence will not be restored by continued ideological argument. Rather, the transatlantic alliance needs to concentrate pragmatically on the key issues of international security: fighting terrorism, controlling WMD proliferation, and strategically selective state-building. If this focused cooperation can survive further probable setbacks in Iraq, then there is hope for reversing a deepening transatlantic alienation.     

试论戴震的语法修辞成就

戴震是乾嘉时期最著名的考据学家,在中国语言文字学史上有着重要的地位。学术界对其音韵学说和反程朱理学思想讨论较多,但对他的语法修辞观则因材料分散,注意者很少。实际上,戴氏关于汉语语法修辞方面的观点与实践,在语法学和修辞学发展史上都具有一定影响。     

Soviet official critiques of the resource scarcity prediction by limits to growth report: the case of Evgenii Fedorov’s ecological crisis rhetoric

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on official Soviet attitudes towards ‘ecological crisis’ and the rhetoric developed to address it. It analyses in particular the discussions in the Soviet Union that followed the publication of the Club of Rome report Limits to Growth (1972). It contributes to the better understanding of the debate around resource scarcity in a framework of so-called ‘ecological crisis’ as it was conceptualized in the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. It is based on the analysis of writings by the Soviet geophysicist Evgenii Fedorov (1910–81) who was among the few Soviet members of the Club of Rome and thus had direct access to contemporary Western scholarship. The paper explores how such rhetoric accepted and reconceptualized the notion of crisis for use in both domestic and international environmental politics and the associated advancement of technology as the most effective remedy against resource scarcity. Fedorov largely built his ideas on Soviet Marxism and Vladimir Vernadsky’s concepts, which preceded the current notion of the Anthropocene. In addition, his experience in nuclear projects and weather modification research –– both more or less successful technocratic projects – gave him some kind of assurance of the power of technology. The paper also provides some comparison of the views of the problem from the other side of the Iron Curtain through a discussion of the thoughts of the left-wing American environmentalist Barry Commoner (1917–2012), which had been popularized for the Soviet public by Fedorov.     

Trapped in mirror-images: The rhetoric of maps in Israel/Palestine

The map of Israel/Palestine has long been used by both Israelis and Palestinians, from their unequal power positions, as a celebrated national symbol. It is virtually the same map, depicting a sliver-shaped land between River Jordan and the Mediterranean, two overlapping homelands in one territory. Thus, a single geo-body appears to contain two antagonistic and asymmetrical nations, locked in a bitter struggle. The article interprets the uncanny mirror-maps of Israel/Palestine by drawing on recent work in critical cartography. One approach has read maps as rhetorical claims for power and over territory; indeed, the mirror-maps of Israel/Palestine are often read as indications of maximalist territorial ambitions and hidden wishes to “wipe the other off the map”. However, this article suggests an alternative, de-territorialised reading of political maps as “empty signifiers” of multiple meanings. Following analysis of maps as objects of performance, whose meaning depends on users and contexts, the article emphasises the ritualistic sacralisation of the Israel/Palestine map. Embedded within discourses of memory and history, maps are tools of narrating the nation, often in diasporic contexts, carrying with them vast emotional significance to both peoples. These issues were largely left unaddressed by the territorial paradigm which has dominated scholarship and political negotiations. Moving the discussion of geography beyond narrow territorial claims towards an appreciation of the richness and heterogeneity of space is crucial, yet faces formidable challenges both politically and conceptually.     

The crisis of cultural leadership in Britain

This article describes the circumstances surrounding the creation of a new training scheme for cultural leaders in the United Kingdom: the Clore Leadership Programme. The programme is a response to the contemporary crisis in cultural leadership in the United Kingdom, which is explained in terms of low morale produced by government underfunding, low pay, loss of status, ill‐defined career paths and over‐regulation. The ensuing crisis of cultural authority is compounded by reluctance to address issues of leadership training, which is poorly provided for in Britain. A typology of leadership is proposed: transactional, transformational and relational. The transformational, or “heroic”, leader may be of less value in the future than the relational leader who works with and through others. The appropriateness of the business school model of leadership training to the cultural sector is questioned where the crisis of leadership points to the emergence of new forms of leadership embracing non‐market driven values.     

The second North Korean nuclear crisis

In 2002 the inclusion of North Korea by the Bush administration within the 'axis of evil' portended a break from the Clinton policy of engagement. Despite the apparent inconsistencies of this categorisation, North Korea's undoubted possession of some weapons of mass destruction capability seemed to make it a possible target for US containment if not preemption. However, Pyongyang's chief motive in such weapons development might actually be to guarantee regime survival. The revelation that North Korea had been developing a covert uranium enrichment program led US policymakers in the Bush administration to contemplate a policy of quarantine and containment. The wider policy community is divided on the question of whether Pyongyang was seeking a new bargain with the US, or whether this program was intended to produce a deterrent from possible US attack. These alternatives prescribe, respectively, a new negotiating approach or a strategy designed to dissuade. But the actual policy choice hinges on the outcome in Iraq.     

The West's moral and political crisis

The West is in the grip of a moral panic with unforeseeable political consequences. After four decades of neoliberalism, cracks are beginning to appear in the form of nationalist challenges from the right and a youthful insurrection from the left, both frequently described as ‘populist’ by establishment figures. The Faustian compact made with finance capital by the traditional parties of the centre‐left in the 1990s now leaves them on the verge of extinction. The underlying conditions for this disarray are a massive demographic shift at the global level which will see Asians and Africans with over four‐fifths of the world's population in 2100. This editorial briefly reviews the Cold War and the transformations that have occurred since. A world revolution after 1945 was overthrown by a counter‐revolution in 1979–1980 which is itself under threat now. The American Empire is sustained by mercantilism, militarism, the world currency, intellectual property and the Internet economy. Free markets are just an ideological fig leaf for this. The editorial concludes with a review of recent political events in the US, France and Britain: Trump's presidency, Macron's improbable rise and Corbyn's surge in May's snap election. In Britain's case, the terrorist attacks, hung parliament and Grenfell Tower fire constitute a perfect storm that could sink the British political right.