Neoliberal Style, the American Re-Generation, and Ecological Jeremiad in Thomas Friedman's “Code Green”

Abstract

Emerging popular literature trumpeting the prospects for Manifest Destiny through a greener capitalism illustrates the re-emergence of American myth to explain chaotic times and uphold America's exceptional character. Today, this character is dominated ideologically by the rhetorical repertoire of neoliberal economics. In this essay, the author dissects neoliberal rhetorical style as articulated through national myth and ecological jeremiad in bestselling author Thomas Friedman's (2008) “Code Green” thesis. In Code Green, an American strategy for confronting the convergence of global warming, new economic competition abroad, and population growth, the author traces a mythic “evolution” in ecological jeremiad toward a sustainable free market frontier. Crafting a muscular yet ostensibly non-political rhetoric of individualist sacrifice and reward, Friedman refigures the dark side of Western-led globalization's past.

Keywords:

• Jeremiad
• Realist Style
• American Myth
• Neoliberal Rhetoric
• Globalization
• Popular Environmental Literature
• Rhetoric of Economics

Notes

1. On the force propelling the protagonist to action, Rosteck and Frentz (2009) explain, “every hero must hear some call, something so powerful that she or he is jarred out of everyday complacency and leaves home to begin an arduous mythic journey” (p. 6).

2. Jewett and Lawrence propose these qualities of monomyth within a more detailed and specifically American reconfiguration of Campbell's model, which is informed by diverse cultural traditions. The American qualities that I have listed here hold in Code Green, but others suggested by Jewett and Lawrence clearly do not. Most notably, the monomythic cycle explicated resonates more with Campbell's classical monomyth than with Jewett and Lawrence's suggestion that in American monomyth a loner hero typically comes to the community from outside and then recedes into obscurity upon restoring prosperity. Interestingly, this observation is consistent with how Rosteck and Frentz (2009) understand monomyth in An Inconvenient Truth, though Code Green's mythic form strongly represents some of the American-specific qualities that the film does not.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Norie R. Singer

Ross Singer, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Speech Communication at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale