The tragi‐comic rhetorical “dance” of marginalized groups: The case of Mennonites in the great war

Abstract

This study examines the rhetorical tensions faced by one marginalized group, American Mennonites, as they attempted to preserve their paradoxical identities as pacific and patriot during the Great War. Specifically, it argues that in order to maintain their fragile sect/church duality as a people “in the world, but not of it,” Mennonites adopted two pair of bifurcated rhetorical strategies: integration/differentiation and deviance/respectability that helped them dance between the tragi‐comic orientations of their faith principles. This study contributes to scholarship that examines how marginalized voices confront the power elite and questions traditional approaches to how we study the rhetoric of collectivities.