Post-dialectics and fascistic argumentation in the global climate change debate

Abstract

Argumentation is in the midst of a crisis that imperils deliberative rhetoric from working how it should when good arguments matter most. Rising trends of verbal aggression, hostility, and control in political contexts, which violate most argumentative norms but garner populistic adherence, are not only troubling for argumentation but also for the sustainability of life itself when it comes to the issue of global climate change. We argue that desires to control ideas and attitudes toward the environment demonstrate what we call fascistic argument—a form of argumentation that regales the domination of materialities, discourses, and bodies through nationalistic structures of feeling. Fascistic argument is one of many possible implications of a post-dialectical turn in argumentation, a perspective which understands argument as a constellation of assemblages, affects, and forces rather than a process of testing and contesting good reasons. We explore the rise of fascistic argument as an effect of the failure of reason to compel policy. This failure generates a contagion of affects and desires that control the argumentative process and infect dialectic debates aimed at achieving consensus.

Keywords:

• Assemblage criticism
• Donald Trump
• fascistic argument
• global climate change
• post-dialectics

Acknowledgements

A previous version of this article was presented at the ninth quadrennial International Society for the Study of Argumentation (ISSA) Conference in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The authors are thankful to all of those attended that presentation, especially Emma Bloomfield, who also reviewed an earlier version of this essay. The authors would also like to thank both of the anonymous reviewers and the journal editor for providing valuable feedback for improving this paper during the review process.

Notes

1 While there is emerging public criticism of the unfortunate rise in what some have termed American fascism (e.g. Albright 2018; Hassan 2019), we pursue an alternative line of flight by exploring fascistic argumentation as a form of argumentation practice that functions by activating micropolitical desires for domination of the other and repression of the self.

2 Even Google is confused with the Trump Administration’s censorship practices, for each time one author clicked “search,” without any changes to the search criteria, Google produced a different number of total hits (e.g. 2,280, 2,540, 2,410, 2,460).

3 Searches of “climate change” on whitehouse.gov reveal similar trends (198 hits since January 20, 2017 and 9,140 all time). Most stark was “global warming” with only eight hits since 2017 (68 all time). Of those eight, every hit was skeptical about, defensive toward, or outright dismissive towards the term, “global warming.” And for those pages that appeared before 2017 (both search terms), another reservation appears at the top of the page: “This is historical material “frozen in time.” The website is no longer updated and links to external websites and some internal pages may not work” (e.g. Duffy and Fried 2012).

4 Deliberative democracy has potentially created the fascistic impulses that have befallen society. According to Evans and Reid (2013), the West has changed the form of fascism under the name of liberal democracy since the end of World War II. This is especially true considering the continued force of racial terrorism, gendered inequality, and discriminations of class, gender, sexuality, and more throughout the United States. Reasonable discourse can be just another term for domination, justified.

5 We are influenced by, and speak in solidarity with, those who have called for the resistive capacities of “black joy” (e.g. Lu and Steele 2019), including the Black Lives Matter movement. We also recognize young leaders such as Greta Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate who have shown possibilities in rhetorics of shame.