Speech is one of man’s most marvelous tools and there is a direct relation between the kind of speech which he uses and the kind of work he does.

A good engineer can tell what language a machine ‘been built in just by looking at it.  There are some languages in which a machine cannot be built at all.  There are some languages in which it would be impossible to efficiently manage a factory.

Ford’s speech has a distinctive directness to it.  It’s quietly militant.

This might not surprise those who know Ford’s capitalist success story of the assembly line.  There’s a steadiness to his prose that resembles the production line–just look at the repetitive evenness of the last three sentences.

Ford’s quote shows a remarkable grasp of the relationship between language and reality, between our knowledge and our actions.  More specifically, it reveals in no uncertain terms how capitalism is successful in large measure because of our language choices.

Ford no doubt would find dreadful a society without “efficient” factories and engines–though we must understand that “efficient” in this context is heavily colored by a capitalist frame of reference.  “Efficient,” for Ford* and many other capitalists, for example, means maximizing the externalization of costs, and minimizing accountability in order to maximize profit.  “Efficient” will mean something quite different to a Marxist or an environmentalist.

But what Ford dreads is precisely what many are fighting for: a language that makes a capitalist economic model an impossibility.**  The goal is a language which cannot support the flagrant exploitation of labor and environment.

Among those broadcasting this message are Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, authors of Empire, Multitude, and most recently, Commonwealth.  One of their principle claims is that a language of resistance is an integral part of any successful resistance movement.  Of course, they’re not the only ones saying this, but they are perhaps the only ones saying it that have such a large constituency of readers.

I recently had the privilege of hearing Michael Hardt speak at the Nonstop Institute in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  He was very gracious with his time and answers, always working hard to understand the questions as clearly as possible, while remaining sensitive to the questioner’s desires.  In short, I was impressed and appreciative, along with many others.

When the microphone came around to me, there were two questions I had in mind, one that relates directly to Ford’s quote.  Hardt and Negri use the phrase “production of subjectivity” to discuss how capitalism influences thought- and action-patterns that benefit its continuation.  What I’m curious to know–and what I was lucky enough to ask Michael Hardt–is what happens when the key terms we use to critique capitalism are they same that have served its advancement so well?  Production is a term very near-and-dear to the capitalist way of life (see, for instance, how Derrick Jensen defines it–premise #5).  Do we reinforce certain lines of capitalist thought, even though we’re trying to critique it?  When we say “production of subjectivity” do we invoke a frame a reference that is best (if not only) understood through capitalist means?

Check out the video to hear his answer–roughly around the thirty minute mark.  (And please excuse my stumbling questioning.)

I’ll leave you with the same questions, as I don’t have any answers right now.  There are pros, cons, and in-betweens to all these choices.  What does a language of resistance sound like, read like, feel like?  On whose shoulders does it fall to create and sustain this language?  Should we be spending our energies elsewhere?

hmmm…

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* Perhaps the most notorious admirer of Ford’s commitment to “efficiency” was Hitler, who told a Detroit News reporter in 1933, “I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration.”  Indeed he did: a framed picture of Ford hung in Hitler’s office and he’s the only American mentioned in Mein Kampf. This should indicate clearly enough the devastating consequences of a subjectivity that fetishizes a certain type of “efficiency.”

** On this end of the spectrum we find yet another spectrum: there are those who argue the factory should be owned by the workers and there are those who argue the factory shouldn’t exist at all, no large-scale production facilities period, as they almost invariably support unsustainable economic models. We literally cannot continue an economic system of ravenous extraction and perpetual growth and sustain the ecosystems that make life possible.  The fact of this isn’t up for debate–but what we do in response to it most definitely is.

“Scientists hate the word spin. They get bent out of shape by the concept that they should frame their message,” says Jennifer Ouellette, director of the Science and Entertainment Exchange, a National Academy of Sciences program that helps connect the entertainment industry with technical consultants. “They feel that the facts should speak for themselves. They’re not wrong; they’re just not realistic.”

To spin or not to spin… while the white-coats are trying to figure that one out, I should add that some scientists tend to think that denial is a potentially insurmountable force, perhaps even hardwired in our brains. See: “Living in Denial: Why Sensible People Reject the Truth.”  *sigh!* With such scientific evidence mounting against the powers of persuasion, why even bother?

One of the most successful greenwashes of all time, the rebranding of BP has led them to be viewed as one of the most “environmentally aware” oil companies.  The oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is putting pressure on this perspective, of course, but there’s good reason to believe that BP’s image will recover.  They’re veterans, don’t forget: of oil clean-ups, congressional “interrogations” of weak safety measures and poor environmental records, and–most importantly–PR disaster management.

(Eric Dezenhall recently wrote about when a “late public-relations honcho for a big petrochemical company” once told him “that he knew it was time to retire when, after a spill, the CEO’s first call was to him: ‘Get up here, Harry, we’ve got a PR problem.”)

PR disaster management is where rhetorician mercenaries spring to action; these are the Navy SEALS of  rhetorical situations where making the weaker argument appear stronger seems nearly impossible.  The documentary Our Brand is Crisis reveals some of this rhetorical mercenary work:

So after having spent enough time vacillating between rage and despair while reading accounts of the (continuing) oil leak in the Gulf, I thought it best to go to Derrick Jensen for some words of wisdom.  In Endgame (Volume 1) Jensen discusses BP’s name change, which they framed as a “statement of priorities.”

This particular type of smokescreen has been most fully developed by a public relations consultant with the appropriately named Peter Sandman.  He has been nicknamed the High Priest of Outrage because corporations hire him to dissipate public anger, to put people back to sleep.  Sandman has explicitly stated his self-perceived role: “I get hired to help a company to ‘explain to these confused people that the refinery isn’t going to blow up, so they will leave us alone.’”

He developed a five point program for corporations to disable public rage.

First, convince the public that they are participating in the destructive processes themselves, that the risks are not externally imposed.  You asked for it by wearing those clothes, says the rapist.  You drive a car, too, says the PR guru.

Second, convince them that the benefits of the processes outweigh the harm.  You could never support yourself without me, says the abuser.  How would you survive without fossil fuels?” repeats the PR guru.

Third, undercut fear by making the risk feel familiar.  Explain your response and people will relax (whether or not your response is meaningful or effective).  Don’t you worry about it, I’ll take care of everything.  Things will change, you’ll see, says the abuser.  We are moving beyond petroleum and toward sustainability, says the PR guru.

Fourth, emphasize again that the public has control over the risk (whether or not they do).  You could leave anytime you want, but I know you won’t, says the abuser.  If we all just pull together, we’ll find our way through, says the PR guru.

Fifth, acknowledge your mistakes, and say (even if untrue) that you are trying to do better.  I promise I will never hit you again, the abuser repeats.  It is time to stop living in the past, and move together into the future, drones the PR guru.

Speaking to a group of mining executives, Sandman, who also consults for BP, stated, “There is a growing sense that you screw up a lot, and as a net result it becomes harder to get permission to mine.”  His solution is not actually change how the industry works, of course, but instead to find an appropriate “persona” for the industry.  “Reformed sinner,” he says, “works quite well if you can sell it…’Reformed sinner,’ by the way, is what John Brown of BP has successfully done for his organization.  It is arguably what Shell has done with respect to Brent Spar.  Those are two huge oil companies that have done a very good job of saying to themselves, ‘Everyone thinks we are bad guys…We can’t just start out announcing we are good guys, so what we have to announce is we have finally realized we were bad guys and we are going to do better.’ … It makes it much easier for critics and the public to buy into the image of the industry as good guys after you have spent awhile in purgatory.”

Here’s some “reformed sinner” performance, punctuated with blame-framing and blame-shifting.  It’s rather remarkable that right after Senator Wyden says, “And the company always says the same thing after one of these accidents: ‘We’re gonna toughen up our standards; we’re going to improve management; we’re going to deal with risks,’ and then another such accident takes place,” BP executive Lamar McKay responds with the exact same formula just outlined: “We are changing this company.  We’ve put in management systems that are covering the world in a consistent and rigorous way.”

But why depart from the template that has worked so well and so consistently for so long?

If you find such behavior and responses (both by oil executives and the “legal personhood” of a corporation) to be best described as pathological behavior, then you might find useful the documentary The Corporation, which uses some of the key symptoms of psychopathy as outlined by the DSM-IV as an analytical lens for understanding corporate behavior:

• callous disregard for the feelings of other people
• the incapacity to maintain human relationships
• reckless disregard for the safety of others
• deceitfulness (continual lying to deceive for profit)
• the incapacity to experience guilt
• failure to conform to social norms and respect for the law

Oil has brought us some nice things and (to borrow another phrase from Derrick Jensen) all other things being equal, I’d like to have some of the things that are the result of oil.

“But all other things aren’t equal, and I’d rather have a living planet.”

Every once and awhile, though, I realize just how high the stakes really are.

The video below was found at WikiLeaks, “a website that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive governmental, corporate, organizational, or religious documents, while attempting to preserve the anonymity and untraceability of its contributors. Within one year of its December 2006 launch, its database had grown to more than 1.2 million documents” (wikipedia entry).  It is a classified US military video that shows the shooting of a dozen people in a suburb of Baghdad.  Among the victims were two Reuters news staff.  Two children are also involved.

Please take caution: this is raw footage, complete with the Army’s audio, of people being shot.

I deliberated on alternatives for “being shot” for quite some time.  Perhaps–”this is raw footage of people being murdered.” Or “slayed.”  Or “wrongly identified and accidentally fired upon.”

Slaughtered?  Invalidated?  Massacred?  Killed?  Rendered collateral damage?

Or, perhaps: engaged.

In the video you hear the military personnel saying, “We just engaged all eight individuals.”

It’s important to note that the video’s opening frame is a quote by Orwell’s 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language”:

[Political language is] designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Elsewhere in that essay Orwell writes, “political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.”  I think the assumed interpretation of this is meant to indicate the government’s defense to the public.  This language is then, of course, picked up by the body politic, replicated by supporters to other members of the public.  This language becomes the banal standard, the terms we use–whether we’re for, against, or indifferent–to communicate.

But I wonder if we might think about how we use smokescreen language like this on ourselves, to psychologically shield ourselves from what we know is “indefensible,” which could be translated here as “unconscionable.”

So when the soldier in this video says, “I’m just trying to find targets again,” we could say it’s because it’s what allows him “to do his job” (another phrase of justification, used to pass accountability to another realm).  Can you imagine it rephrased?

“I’m just trying to find a breathing body that has hopes and dreams like you and I to send a piece of metal through so that his blood will mix with the sand.”

This isn’t a piece about placing praise or blame on soldiers.  This isn’t the forum for such a critique; and having known several veterans of Iraq, I would never hastily condemn the individual without knowing more.  (For instance, what if the person doing the shooting ultimately found such an act reprehensible and leaked the video himself in a courageous attempt to right a wrong?)

This is a forum about language and its consequences.

Military speak is an extreme example of language that shields its users from discussing the indefensible.  It’s easy for us to assume that we are separate from those who must use linguistic mirrors to either do what they’re told or justify daily action.  But if you find this use of language chilling in its brutal efficacy, perhaps you’re willing to try something…

Let’s search for all those terms that displace our own accountability.  Let’s identify them, interrogate them, and reframe them for the better.  And let’s do it in a public forum.

Habitat loss and endangered species perform the same function that collateral damage and enhanced interrogation techniques do.  They are terms that permit–indeed facilitate–thinking that directs us away from a frame of accountability.

For those that think it’s a stretch to align environmental atrocity with the atrocity in the video below, you might first question how the two aggressions, rationale and even people behind those acts are similar.  The connections are staggering.

And so I’m calling on all rhetoricians, language-lovers, and wordsmiths to raise the stakes a bit, and using the emotion generated by the video below, to take ownership of language in such a way that it becomes infused with accountability and agency.

This has given me the greatest trouble and still does: to realize that what things are called is incomparably more important than what they are.  The reputation, name, and appearance, the usual measure and weight of a thing, what it counts for–originally almost always wrong and arbitrary, thrown over things like a dress and altogether foreign to their nature and even to their skin–all this grows from generation unto generation, merely because people believe in it, until it gradually grows to be a part of the thing and turns into its very body.  What at first was appearance becomes in the end, almost invariably, the essence–and is effective as such.  How foolish it would be to suppose that one only needs to point out this origin and this misty shroud of delusion in order to destroy the world that “counts” for real, so-called “reality.”

We can destroy only as creators.  But let us not forget this either: it is enough to create new names and estimations and probabilities in order to create in the long run new “things.”

My friend, Fred, knows quite a bit about the relationship between epistemology and rhetoric.  He’s studied both in a thorough, indeed, obsessive manner.  I’ve learned a great deal from him about what contemporary rhetoricians call epistemic rhetoric–the concept that knowledge is not just shaped by persuasive forces, but constituted through it.

Most days I’m energized by this.  Probably because I identify myself as a rhetorician.  But today I’m feeling overwhelmed by the power of words that have reified, creating realities for so many.  To be more specific, two words are sticking with me today and generating equal parts despondency and rage:  habitat loss.  All-too ubiquitous of a phrase.  Revoltingly repetitive in our mediascape.

I don’t know what triggered today’s mental spiraling, but it might have been this article from the BBC, posted last week:

Loss of forest?  It’s lost?  You mean, as in, misplaced?

(The United States has less than 4% of its original forests.)

If you can get past the sickening anthropocentrism that frames the article (the ongoing loss is affecting human well-being?!), the article had plenty of memorable phrases, such as: “species extinctions [are] running at about 1,000 times the ‘natural’ or ‘background’ rate, [and] some biologists contend that we are in the middle of the Earth’s sixth great extinction.”

But it’s tough to tell if it was this article that triggered my tears and fists, or one of the many others that say the exact same thing.

How we discuss this collective murder (and by extension, suicide) structures the way we perceive it.  So let’s consider just for a moment this language, starting with Derrick Jensen’s take on it:

The very day we wrote the final words of this book, scientists declared that yet another subspecies of tiger had gone extinct in the wild (with only captives remaining, so discouraged they’re dosed with Viagra to try and make them breed).

Gone extinct. Such a passive way to put it, as though we know no cause, can assign no responsibility. It’s almost as though we were to say that victims of murder passed away, or that victims of arson decided to move.

It is a language of unaccountability.  It is a language that diverts attention away from those who are stealing land, toxifying the soil and our bodies, and murdering all forms of species.  Consider another instance of this rhetoric of unaccountability, in a different article from the BBC:

Are they just “moving toward” extinction, or being driven there involuntarily and ruthlessly?

Are they “swimming into trouble,” or are they being caught and slaughtered en masse?

Who’s responsible for the over-fishing that has taken 90% of the ocean’s large fish? Who’s responsible for the murder-to-point-of-extinction of sharks? The fishing companies? The corporations that own them? The corporations that buy from them? The large-scale stores that support the sale of anything that can have a price tag put on it “legally”? The consumer? The culture industry for portraying sharks as ruthless human hunters? (Think Jaws, then consider that the rate of shark attacks on humans to human attacks on sharks is about 1 to 20,000.)

None of these questions arise, because the language is neutral and passive.  Nothing in this rhetoric invites any inquiry toward responsibility.

A rhetoric that diffuses.  Diverts.  Attenuates.  Deflects.  Veils.  Distracts.

Take another look at that population index chart.  Then repeat to yourself the fact that the planet’s species are undergoing extinction at a rate 1,000 times greater than before industrial civilization.  Then–please–ask yourself if the seriousness of the situation necessitates an equally serious resistance movement.

Seriously, now’s the time to ask.

Unlike Fred, I do not think that “it is enough to create new names” for this particular situation.  Much more must be done.  Much, much more.  Anything and everything that will stop the murder of the planet must be considered.

But “new names” is indeed a part of this equation.  So today I recommend a reframing of the term “extinction.”  Instead of thinking of it as the death of a species, think of as the end of birth.

The graphic that’s posted at the very bottom has captured my attention for a number of reasons, mostly related to Derrick Jensen (no direct relation–only in the larger Danish sense), who is perhaps my favorite author (and certainly the most sane person I have ever had the pleasure of meeting).  As a radical environmentalist, Jensen is constantly searching for new ways to communicate just how severe the situation is we are currently, collectively facing.  That’s at the macro level.  At the micro level, he’s challenged with taking statistical data that most logically reveals how the earth is being murdered and transforming it rhetorically into something that sticks.

Some data for you:

Facts, though, have a tendency to roll right off of us.  We’re more inclined to be persuaded by stories that connect with us personally, in ways that we can readily link to everyday experience.  Here’s a stellar example of the rhetorical task he encounters when trying to persuade people that our way of life, our sense of self, and relation to what allows us to live is not just unsustainable, it’s immoral and insane.*    And stupid.

“Within our current system, the life span of any particular artifact as waste is usually far longer than its life span as a useful tool.  Let’s say I go to a food court at a mall and eat a meal with a disposable fork.  Let’s say I use the fork for five minutes before one of those tines breaks (as always seems to happen) and I throw it out.  The fork goes in the garbage and is buried in the landfill.  Let’s say this particular type of plastic takes five thousand years to break down … For every minute I used the fork it spends a thousand years as waste: a ratio of one to 526 million, a number so large it’s hardly meaningful to human minds.  On a scale that’s easier to fathom, if we compressed a fork’s five thousand year existence to one year, the fork would have spent only six one-hundreths of a second as an object useful to me.”

Although he presents it rather modestly, Jensen’s shift from a ratio to a story-of-sorts is a crucial rhetorical move–one that all environmentalists and activists of all walks should take note of.  We need to keep pressing for the most effective forms for communicating the gravitas of the situation (but without falling prey to the idea that that’s all that needs to be done).

I think the artists of GOOD and Fogelson-Lubliner that collaborated to produce the brilliant illustration below have a solid grasp of what it takes to translate facts in a way that sticks.  I strongly suggest that you click the image to view it in its full glory . . .

And when you’re done there, don’t forget to check out the archive of amazing at FlowingData.

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* I use the term “insane” quite literally, in its strictest definition(s): senseless; an unsoundness of mind that affects one’s capacity for proper responsibility; one whose way of life and/or mental state is such that they are unable to make a sustained commitment to their own health and the relationships that constitute it.  Perhaps “madness” is more accurate, though, since there is a particular violence to our collective insanity.

We’ve not only seen the items on our supermarket shelves change over the past few years, we’ve witnessed the surrounding rhetoric shift in places and intensify in others.  With the introduction of genetically modified foods in the early 1990s, the expansion and entrenchment of industrial farming and monocrop culture, and the consolidation of powers that control the entire system, the message that accompanies food has increased in significance, adopting narratives of progress in some sectors, while remaining obstinately old-fashion in others.  For example, listen to Michael Pollan kick off the powerful documentary, FOOD, Inc., with a quick, but incisive rhetorical analysis on some of the persuasive techniques used to sell food:

(Perhaps y’all could chime in with some of your favorite rhetorical approaches and we can keep this conversation going . . .)

Of course, our movement is mirroring those elsewhere throughout the world.  It’s distinct, however, given our consumer-centric society and place in the hierarchy of consumption (we comprise about 5% of the world’s population and consume roughly 1/3 of its meat).  Food Sovereignty Movements are in nascent stages across Africa, Europe, and South America.  Soon enough we will also be in a position where one must declare (as ludicrous as it sounds) the right to grow food and have a say in where the rest comes from.

Currently, however, the word “organic” is the dominant term in our food conversations.  The term carries vast and various associations and values that go far beyond a simple label indicating how the food was raised.  Here’s some fodder for you rhetoric junkies: The Daily Show’s look at the White House’s organic garden reveals a struggle over which values will get associated with organic.  Enjoy watching while I go hunt down some articles on the rhetoric of “organic” for a future blog post . . .

I enjoy the excuse to sit around outside, but I always have qualms about weeding–in part, because I’m never quite sure I’m pulling the right ones. But even more so, because I get uncomfortable about messing with nature. (Or rather, “nature,” since this is my urban and bricked backyard, after all.) I have these funny guilty feelings about killing something that’s growing, like its an environmental sin (cue Catholic upbringing) to in any way interfere with the natural course of, well, nature. I know that this isn’t logical, that there are immense and innumerable complicating factors… but still.

Side note: My students were so put off by Gore’s rhetorical choices in An Inconvenient Truth that they seem to have found the movie less than persuasive. It sure as hell worked on me. I’ve always considered myself an environmentalist. But now, all the time, I think about these things, the tiny details of our relationship with the earth. Negotiations and love songs.

Anyway, back in the garden, I’ve found that I can pretty comfortably pull the weeds that grow up in between the bricks of the patio, or where they might adversely affect our vegetable plants. I don’t want to analyze this, but I also tend to be more lenient with the ones I like, like clover. So delicate and pretty, no harm there. Today I didn’t yank a big ugly dandelion because there was a ladybug on it. Not logical, but a system is developing.

I weed the human areas and try to let the plant areas mostly alone. Which brings me to the borders, the lines that can be drawn and redrawn, the liminal spaces, the messy areas. I thought maybe I’d take a hard line and just declare a point past which the weeds are not welcome. But that line is hard to draw–and more importantly, I thought, they place the weeds within the surrounding areas in an interesting and precarious position. They’re in contested space (in my head, at least) between human and natural environments–and again, I wonder, who am I to decide? Plus, I’ve read Anzaldua and believe in the dynamic, disruptive potential of the borderlands. Again, not necessarily the most logical thought process… But for now, I’m going to let those spaces be, just to see what happens there.

Which brings me back to that paper about Harlot, into which I now think I should work some of these ideas about the messiness and growth potential of such border spaces. That’s some good gardening.

One trendy young woman  passed a couple of times on one of those new-style “easy-boarding” cruiser-types;  they look significantly different than trad or even updated cruisers — it’s not just that there’s no crossbar, but that the frame dips almost to the road between front and back tire.

Biria's easy boarding cruiser

I haven’t been able to figure them out, but seeing that girl ride hers in a dress made me realize at least part of the point — they’re wardrobe-friendly for women. (They’re also nicely accessible.) I ride a new cruiser myself, but it doesn’t have that design feature, which does impact what I wear to work in terms of practicality and decency. More importantly, they are actually part of a growing fashion trend: the cute, stylish bike that goes with a cute, stylish outfit… and lifestyle.

Coincidentally, today Tim sent me a link to David Byrne’s review of Jeff Mapes’ “Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities.” In it, DB agrees with Mapes’ claim that growing numbers of women riders will play a major role in attitudes and policies about riding:

I can ride till my legs are sore and it won’t make riding any cooler, but when attractive women are seen sitting upright going about their city business on bikes day and night, the crowds will surely follow.

I caught a glimpse of that shift today — and it brought another ray of sunshine. Because that ride had rhetorical potential.

Now if only she’d take that message off the sidewalk.

Anyway, I invite you to share these numbers with others and strike up a conversation about potential avenues for change . . .