Light or Fire? Frederick Douglass and the Orator's Dilemma

Most scholarship on political rhetoric views it as an exercise in changing the minds of an audience. However, we see numerous examples of political speech aimed at those who already agree with the speaker, to motivate them to act on judgments they have already made. This kind of discourse is often d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAmerican journal of political science Vol. 68; no. 2; pp. 631 - 643
Main Author Hawley, Michael C.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.04.2024
Subjects
Meat
Persuasion
Polarization
Rhetoric
Sermons
Speech
Speeches
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Summary:Most scholarship on political rhetoric views it as an exercise in changing the minds of an audience. However, we see numerous examples of political speech aimed at those who already agree with the speaker, to motivate them to act on judgments they have already made. This kind of discourse is often dismissed as pandering, or the “red meat” rabble‐rousing that contributes to polarization. I draw upon Frederick Douglass to render a more complete account of this speech, which I term “hortatory rhetoric.” Douglass draws upon the prophetic tradition of Black Christian preaching to develop an alternative for when persuasion has reached its limit. This kind of speech raises a set of normative difficulties that differ from those raised by the rhetoric of persuasion, which Douglass helps us to think through. He provides a framework for understanding when it might be permissible or even desirable to abandon persuasion for exhortation.
Bibliography:The author would like to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers at AJPS for their helpful comments and feedback. This paper was also presented at the History of Political Thought Colloquium. Comments from Jacob Little, Jihyun Jeong, Elliot Mamet, Wanning Seah, Ivy Flessen, Jeffrey Church, and Michael Gillespie were especially valuable.
ISSN:0092-5853
1540-5907
DOI:10.1111/ajps.12737