Abolitionists and the Eloquence of Abuse: Revisiting Status and Rhetoric in Social Movements

Abstract

Current discussions of contentious performances profitably draw upon a revival of theories of culture, emotion, and performance. Yet status theory and status claims-making continue to be neglected in the mix because of their received associations with classical tension theory and unpopular functionalist models of collective behavior. Because most social movement participants are outsiders to the ‘halls of power,’ their dependence upon the rhetoric of status in cultivating moral influence is much more fundamental than previously acknowledged, although this relation is hinted at in Tilly's notion of contentious performances. Efforts to recover status theory navigate between two major mistakes in past theories of collective behavior: the voluntaristic overemphasis of affective manipulation by charismatic leaders, and the deterministic conflation of status with large reified social structures. The concept of reception fields is proposed to refer to the relational, fluid, social–psychological status dynamics between movement leaders and audiences during contentious performances, in which distinction and rhetoric are mutually constitutive. The article situates eloquence or the emotional energy of protest rhetoric in the dramaturgical performance of status dynamics within the immediate reception field. The utility of this approach to status rhetoric is illustrated with respect to American antislavery abolitionism.

Keywords:

• Status
• contentious performances
• rhetorical criticism
• affect
• charisma
• movement audiences

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Peter Simonson, Brian Hamilton, Wade Smith, Sarah Lake, Janet Jacobs, Isaac Reed, Amy Wilkins, and the Working Group in Historical Social Science at the University of Colorado-Boulder for their feedback and general support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. Weber (1946, 1999); whereas authority or legitimate domination is a ‘status grant’ to power-holders (Kemper, 2011).

^2. Castoriadis (1987) proposes a similar connection between social imaginaries and creative resistance as social struggle over the institutionalization of cultural imaginaries.

^3. Frame analysis is currently the predominant way of addressing this question. I compare and contrast framing approaches with rhetorical theory below.

^4. The Interaction Ritual theory of Collins (2001, 2004) posits that charisma, emotional energy and moral authority emerge from the social ingredients of a ritual process, e.g. copresence, mood, and mutual awareness of shared attention. Collins tends to focus more on the internal ritualistic elements such as rhythmic entrainment than on status claims-making as a source of emotional energy. For an extended critique of Collins on this point as well as a presentation of a status-power oriented sociology of emotion, see Kemper (2011). My approach, however, deviates from both Collins and Kemper by proposing to embed the highly emotional processes of status claims-making within cultural imaginaries (including the logic of status beliefs) and rhetorical performances of them.

^5. ‘Eloquence of abuse’ was a phrase pulled from Coleridge's Specimens of Table Talk. In a memoir, Robert C. Winthrop seems the first to have used it to describe the speaking styles of Charles Sumner, Phillips and others. Historian Irving Bartlett (1961) re-uses the phrase paradigmatically in book titles and chapter headings. Bartlett gives us a sense of the severity of Phillips's rhetoric: he introduces Phillips as

the most eloquent man of his time, the golden-voiced orator who made the abuse of popular heroes his stock in trade and got away with it. He could publicly label Lincoln a ‘slave-hound,’ Edward Everett a ‘whining spaniel’ and Senator Robert C. Winthrop a ‘bastard,’ with the matter-of-fact finality of a man reading from the Scriptures or calling out the time. (Bartlett, 1961, p. 1, emphasis mine)

^6. Drawing upon a methodology more common in the sociology of emotion (Scheff, 1997), my rhetorical analysis will explicate the emotional, relational ‘inner worlds’ of protest rhetoric through a part/whole analysis of verbatim transcripts, in this case, of how Phillips delivered his antislavery message on stage. Scheff elaborates upon his part/whole methodology as follows: ‘Using transcripts or verbatim texts as data, one interprets the meaning of the smallest parts (words and gestures) of expressions within the ever greater wholes within which they occur’ (1997, p. 16). By ‘inner world’ Scheff is referring to the intentions, motives, beliefs and feelings animating the production of discursive expressions. Inheriting the tradition of dramaturgical analysis from Goffman, Scheff convincingly finds that the microanalysis of human expressions discloses a relational ‘deference-emotion system’ present in almost all human interactions (Scheff, 1988).

^7. Applause is similarly the object of investigation in Heritage and Greatbatch's seminal 1986 article (Generating Applause). Analyzing political speeches by British parliamentarians, the article offers a sophisticated inquiry into conditions of the production of applause lines, but its main concern is the emotional effects of seven different aesthetically-pleasing formats, e.g. contrasts, three-part lists, and so on. Interestingly enough, the concept of status surfaces in their article when they observe that 81% of all applause lines follow one or a combination of: (i) external attacks, (ii) statements of approval of own party; (iii) internal attacks on party faction; (iv) policy recommendation; (v) commendations of particular individuals or groups (1986, pp. 119–120).

^8. Perhaps most troubling to the next more activist generation of sociologists in the seventies was the lack of empathy in the implied anti-humanist, apolitical interpretation of protest.

^9. Alexander (2006, 2010) does the same thing in my view: working the binaries is a status process with cultural and affective dimensions.

^10. Jasper (2010) similarly compares rhetorical to other cultural approaches in social movements theory. He proposes that rhetoric ’encourages the cultural analyst to be precise about what purposes and outcomes the players seek’ (p. 79). Questions about intent and effects become more important.

^11. Here it should be noted that charisma does not necessarily entail eloquent rhetoric. One may think of the dark charisma of cults and demagogues. On the other hand, eloquence does seem to entail some level of charisma by nature, though it can be a more quiet, artful charisma. Cicero defined eloquence as wisdom expressed artfully and fluently so as to move audiences. I am in debt to Pete Simonson for clarifying these points to me (and responsibility for deviance from the rhetorical tradition is all mine).

^12. In The American Political Tradition, Richard Hofstadter writes

Phillips was the most valuable acquisition of the New England abolitionists. He brought to the movement a good name, an ingratiating personality, a great talent for handling mobs and hecklers, and, above all, his voice. He was probably the most effective speaker of his time. Chauncey Depew, when over ninety, declared that he could recall hearing all the leading speakers from Clay and Webster to Woodrow Wilson, and that Phillips was the greatest. (1989, p. 183)

^13. Stewart, J. B. 2000.

^14. On the life of Wendell Phillips, see Stewart (1986) and Bartlett (1961).

^15. “The only liberty the Publisher has taken with these materials has been to reinsert the expressions of approbation and disapprobation on the part of the audience, which Mr. Phillips had erased … This was done because they were deemed a part of the antislavery history of the times, and interesting, therefore, to every one who shall read this book …” (Publisher's note in Phillips, 1864, p. iv). Public address scholar Willard Hayes Yeager (1960) notes that Phillips did take advantage of the chance to revise the text of the speeches before their final published form in his two-part anthology. This could introduce some historical inaccuracy if one wanted to know exactly what he said and how he put it. For the purposes of analyzing the indications of audience approbation or disapprobation, which Phillips tried to delete, the potential distortion is less.

^16. My approach here is again indebted to Scheff:

By carefully examining the smallest parts, the words and gestures as they occur in utterances, the analyst can make systematic inferences about the thoughts and feelings of the participants, and the kind of relationship that develops between them. This study suggests that any segment of human discourse, no matter how brief, is a microcosm which contains many elements of the entire relationship between the participants, their relations with others, and indeed all human relationships. (Scheff, 1997, p. 149)

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Benjamin Lamb-Books

Benjamin Lamb-Books is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His research examines moral emotions and status dynamics in social movements. His dissertation is on rhetoric and emotion in American abolitionism.