{"id":12960,"date":"2018-07-23T02:27:21","date_gmt":"2018-07-23T02:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=12960"},"modified":"2018-07-24T02:29:07","modified_gmt":"2018-07-24T02:29:07","slug":"america-is-in-the-middle-of-a-battle-over-the-meaning-of-words-like-diversity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/america-is-in-the-middle-of-a-battle-over-the-meaning-of-words-like-diversity\/","title":{"rendered":"America is in the middle of a battle over the meaning of words like ‘diversity’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jennifer Mercieca<\/a>, Texas A&M University <\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

You might think that the culture war over race and immigration primarily transpires in dramatic events, like the woman who climbed<\/a> the Statue of Liberty to protest Trump\u2019s child detention policy or the events in Charlottesville<\/a> last summer.<\/p>\n

But it also exists in the banal and everyday ways that we communicate. <\/p>\n

It involves battles over the dominant meaning of words, and how we use those words to describe our values and construct our policies. For example, on July 19, House Speaker Paul Ryan urged conservatives to engage in a rhetorical battle<\/a> over what he called the \u201chijacking\u201d of traditional conservative terms like \u201cWestern civilization\u201d by the alt-right. <\/p>\n

Ryan asked conservatives to notice that a key term that they take for granted as universally understood had recently become contested<\/a>. In a 2009 speech Ryan explained<\/a> that \u201cWestern civilization\u201d was \u201crooted in reason and faith\u201d; it was a tradition that \u201caffirms the high dignity, rights, and obligations of the individual human person.\u201d Now Ryan fears<\/a> that it is being construed to mean \u201cwhite identity politics,\u201d which is more like \u201cracism\u201d and \u201cnationalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because we\u2019re so immersed in our own culture and social networks, these rhetorical battles can be easy to miss; you have to look at them from the outside, which is a tricky thing to do.<\/p>\n

One way to take a peek inside a culture\u2019s discourse is to examine what rhetorical scholars like me<\/a> call a culture\u2019s \u201centhymemes,\u201d which we can think of as the ways that words, phrases and ideas are understood in a particular community.<\/p>\n

Enthymemes serve as common ground<\/h2>\n

In the fourth century BCE, Aristotle coined the term \u201centhymeme<\/a>\u201d to explain how different words and arguments resonate in one community but not in others. Technically, an enthymeme is a \u201crhetorical syllogism<\/a>\u201d \u2013 an argument made with a premise that\u2019s assumed or taken for granted, and so goes unsaid. <\/p>\n

For example, when you hear someone say, \u201cthe states,\u201d you know they\u2019re referring to the United States of America. They don\u2019t need to actually say it. More confusing is when people say \u201cthe city\u201d because depending on where you are, \u201cthe city\u201d could be San Francisco or Chicago. The difference between how we understand \u201cthe states\u201d and \u201cthe city\u201d is the difference between a commonly shared enthymeme and one that\u2019s specific to a region.<\/p>\n

If you want to persuade a group of people, then you need to understand what they understand, see the world the way that they do and use the words that they use to describe objects and ideas. Otherwise, you\u2019ll just talk past them. <\/p>\n

As Aristotle pointed out<\/a>, what was persuasive in Athens might not be persuasive in Sparta. He thought that we could be most persuasive when we argue using commonly understood enthymemes and examples.<\/p>\n

Decoding one American enthymeme: diversity<\/h2>\n

It can be difficult to see how enthymemes operate in a culture when you\u2019re on the inside. It can help to look at how your culture is perceived by an outsider.<\/p>\n

As part of my research for a book that I\u2019m completing about the 2016 election, I\u2019ve spent the past few months reading the message boards and websites of white nationalists, a group that exists on the fringes of American culture. It\u2019s been fascinating to learn the white nationalists\u2019 enthymemes and to see how they understand discourse about race. <\/p>\n

I perused the now-banned white nationalist website Daily Stormer and read content like neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin<\/a>\u2019s article \u201cA Normie\u2019s Guide to the Alt-Right.\u201d<\/p>\n

I learned that white nationalists believe that racism is normal and that everyone else is a racist too. They are avowedly pro-white and believe that \u201cdiversity\u201d is the dominant American culture\u2019s code for a systematic program of promoting what they call \u201cwhite genocide.\u201d According to white nationalists, a conspiracy exists to exterminate white people \u201cvia mass immigration into white countries which was enabled by a corrosive liberal ideology of white self-hatred, and that the Jews are at the center of this agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that basic understanding in mind, let\u2019s turn to a seemingly innocuous July 4th tweet<\/a> from former President Bill Clinton celebrating the nation\u2019s diversity.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Many of the responses to Clinton\u2019s tweet understood his comment as a celebration of fundamental American values. Americans might disagree about how much diversity is best, but it has been generally understood that America is a \u201cmelting pot<\/a>\u201d and that diversity has made the nation stronger. <\/p>\n

But not everyone accepted Clinton\u2019s enthymemes. <\/p>\n

If you believe that there is a conspiracy in the dominant culture to exterminate white people through immigration, you would read Clinton\u2019s greeting claiming that the result of \u201cdiversity\u201d is \u201cdeeper strength\u201d as a call to unite all non-white people in the conspiracy of white genocide. You would read Clinton\u2019s celebration of \u201cwe the people\u201d as \u201cus versus them.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, one respondent<\/a> decoded Clinton\u2019s tweet from the white nationalist perspective, noting that \u201cdiversity\u201d is \u201canti-White, anti-America, anti-While [sic] male.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Another respondent rejected Clinton\u2019s enthymeme<\/a>, arguing that calls for diversity are calls for the eradication of white people:<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Imagine attempting to have a productive conversation about issues of race or diversity with someone who holds completely different enthymemes from you. <\/p>\n

When one side understands \u201cdiversity\u201d as America\u2019s strength and another side understands \u201cdiversity\u201d as a conspiracy to exterminate white people, there is little common ground to discuss policies such as building a border wall, affirmative action, or whether to abolish ICE.<\/p>\n

Without shared enthymemes, problem solving is almost impossible.<\/p>\n

Beyond white nationalism<\/h2>\n

While white nationalist beliefs and rhetoric represent an extreme version of how different groups understand \u201cdiversity,\u201d it\u2019s possible to see how the meaning of the word is contested in attacks on university diversity initiatives<\/a>. To one group, diversity initiatives mean allowing unqualified people to get an easy pass. To another, it fulfills an educational ideal of bringing people of different backgrounds and circumstances together. These different understandings make it that much harder to have a real debate.<\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a>
\n What comes to mind when you hear a word like \u2018diversity\u2019?<\/span>
\n AP Photo\/Rick Bowmer<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One way to describe this cultural moment is that we\u2019re in the middle of a battle to control the nation\u2019s culturally dominant enthymemes \u2013 the ways that we communicate our understanding of our nation and its ideals.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s productive for cultures and subcultures to have open disagreements about facts, words and values \u2013 otherwise, dominant ways of thinking about the world may become calcified and suffocate progress. Think about where we\u2019d be today if no one had ever questioned the once dominant enthymeme of \u201ccitizen\u201d that denied women or African-Americans the ability to vote. <\/p>\n

Yet nations need to share enthymemes to function. Without a mutually shared understanding of facts, words and values, a culture cannot endure. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible that at this moment in history there is little that we all understand in the same way, with the same emotional intensity.<\/p>\n

\"TheWe see more rhetorical battles over the meanings of key terms during moments of transition and upheaval. The instability in our understanding of the meaning of \u201cdiversity\u201d reflects the nation\u2019s actual instability.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Mercieca<\/a>, Associate Professor of Communication, Texas A&M University <\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jennifer Mercieca, Texas A&M University You might think that the culture war over race and immigration primarily transpires in dramatic events, like the woman who climbed the Statue of Liberty to protest Trump\u2019s child detention policy or the events in Charlottesville last summer. But it also exists in the banal and everyday ways that we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":12956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[3647,986,2034,149,700,697,3045],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12960"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12960"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12961,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12960\/revisions\/12961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}