Looking at and Looking Through: Icons as Mythical Sight

Abstract

The icon occupies an important place in theological and philosophical discourse, especially within Christian traditions. This paper argues that the theological notion of iconicity offers unique insight into rhetorical constructions of the ineffable. Central to such a task is the imbrication of icons in mythology, indeed their absolute dependence on them. By locating the “secular” mythological icon in a non-religious speech given by David Foster Wallace, this analysis posits both the indissolubility of myths and icons as well as their rhetorical utility in understanding forms of representation.

Keywords:

• Baptism
• Christianity
• icon
• Myth
• representation
• salvation

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Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. A close comparison of Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality and Burke’s Rhetoric of Religion makes it doubtful that Burke was not drawing from Nietzsche’s work, though Burke does not cite him and was quite familiar with his texts. Nevertheless, Burke does codify and clarify many of Nietzsche’s insights into Christian conceptual influence on language and he explicitly frames such terms for rhetorical analysis.

2. These terms are also referred to as corruption, justification, sanctification, and glorification in more technical theology (God’s Plan of Salvation, 2008, pp. 2531–2532).

3. Although Wallace thinks of self-guilt as the solution to other-guilt, of mortification/bad conscience as the remedy for victimage/ressentiment, it is highly questionable that these are truly separable and are in fact directly related for Burke and Nietzsche as shared modes of guilt distribution often reinforcing each other (Deleuze, 1983, p. 21 & 128). Whether Wallace escapes from idolatrous secularity into iconic mythology is therefore suspect, as he may indeed simply forward the idol of the self over and against the idol of the other.

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Notes on contributors

Blake Faulkner

Blake Faulkner is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Rhetoric & Public Address and Director of Debate at Hillsdale College. He received a Master of Arts in Religion from Cincinnati Christian University in 2015, and a Ph.D. in Communication from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2021.