Rancourt 1 Mike Rancourt Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 22nd Penn State Conference on Rhetoric and Composition Sunday, July

10-Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Neither Evil nor Stupid: Attitudes at the Roots of ad Bellum Purificandum Abstract:
As scholars such as Elizabeth Weiser and Jim Zappen argue, Kenneth Burkes project at least through his 1950 A Rhetoric of Motives was aimed at ad bellum purificandum, the purification of war. Much of his work, dating back even to the 1930s, examined the ways in which discourse could take the place of combat, saving not only the lives of the soldiers embroiled in battle but saving civilization as we know it from annihilation by nuclear war. This paper argues that concepts introduced in the 1937 text Attitudes Toward History provided the foundation upon which Burke could build his theory of ad bellum purificandum, that transcendence might be achieved through a shift away from the highly agonistic frames of rejection toward frames of acceptance which, while still corrective in nature, would come to promote and even enable the type of cooperative competition necessary for such transcendence. Whereas the comic frame of acceptance for Burke promoted humility and compassion, counting the opponents misdeeds as mere mistakenness, the burlesque frame of rejection sought to banish, providing only a caricatured representation of the opponent, whose misdeeds are the result of evil or stupidity. I further set the comic frame in contrast to its rejecting counterpart, the burlesque, to demonstrate the central importance of humility and identification with the opponent in moving toward transcendence and the purification of war while suggesting the problem of war and conflict can often be boiled down to a concern of oppositional versus cooperative identification.

James P. Zappen notes that the epigraph for Burkes 1945 A Grammar of Motives, ad bellum purificandum (toward the purification of war) also appears above the window and on a welcome sign in Burkes private study at the Burke Farm, where it is paired with another phrase, potius convincere quam conviciari. This, which Zappen translates as better to debate than to berate (Zappen, Halloran, and Wible), combines with ad bellum purificandum to describe a project in which Burke sought to theorize the discourse of peaceful coexistence. Zappen also

Rancourt 2 points us to A Grammar, where Burke indicates that the project encompasses not only that text but the other two major works Burke planned to follow A Grammar: A Rhetoric of Motives and A Symbolic of Motives. Burke notes that purification would include encouraging tolerance (in A Grammar), competitive cooperation, transcendence of the the human barnyard by appreciation (a task he plans to address in A Rhetoric), and a tempering of ambitions (to be addressed in A Symbolic) (A Grammar 442). This project, then, advocates for the adoption of the proper attitude by opponents who may need to set aside self-interest in the name of peace. M. Elizabeth Weiser offers insight into the ad bellum purificandum project, finding four trends in Burkes work from the 1930s that would become central. These include falling on the bias, translation, ambiguity and incongruity, and the comic corrective (Weiser; Burke, War, Words; 7). Each of the first three essentially prefigure the fourth, and thus the comic corrective becomes a way of finding an alternative to competing perspectives (7), translating one orientation toward reality into another (12), and seeing the flexibility of language to invite new perspectives and responses (16-17). For Weiser, however, the comic frame is only yet another step along the way to the dramatistic method at the heart of A Grammar. She explains that the advancement toward purification of war would be through dramatistic perspective: A broader understanding of motivations , treating the terms of motivation as more liquid than solid, was, therefore, not only the proper way to view human relations but also the way to transcend war (122). Concepts such as those Wieser identifies are crucial to an understanding of ad bellum purificandum and its implications for political discourse and social movements. This paper takes Weisers assessment as a starting point and considers some of the roots of ad bellum purificandum in Burkes 1937 Attitudes Toward History with an emphasis on the comic frame as a precondition for the purification of war. I argue that the comic frame models

Rancourt 3 the attitude necessary for dealing with conflict, not simply by forcing consensus or neglecting difference but rather by fostering the kind of consciousness which makes possible the basic identification necessary for dialogue and, to paraphrase Burke, the simple act of getting along (Attitudes unnumbered page 1). I further set the comic frame in contrast to its rejecting counterpart, the burlesque, to demonstrate the central importance of humility and identification with the opponent in moving toward transcendence and the purification of war while suggesting the problem of war and conflict can often be boiled down to a concern of oppositional versus cooperative identification. Transcendence One need not look far to find evidence that the comic frame is important to Burke in the ad bellum purificandum project. In the introduction to A Grammar, he writes, In our original plans for this project, we had no notion of writing a Grammar at all. We began with a theory of comedy, applied to a treatise on human relations (xvii). He goes on to indicate the power of the comic in working toward transcendence, noting, Feeling that competitive ambition is a drastically over-developed motive in the modern world, we thought this motive might be transcended if men devoted themselves not so much to excoriating it as to appreciating it (xvii). This is a familiar concept by now, central to what he defines as the aim of ad bellum purificandum, but transcendence deserves greater attention here. Transcendence is a key concept for Burke, particularly in his challenging of traditional conceptions of rhetoric according to two somewhat distinct meanings. First, in the Dictionary of Pivotal Terms in Attitudes, Burkes sense of transcendence is clearly one of identification, seeming to foreshadow the discussion of consubstantiality that would later be so important in A Rhetoric (20). Burke writes, When approached from a certain point of view, A and B are

Rancourt 4 opposites. We mean by transcendence the adoption of another point of view from which they cease to be opposites (Attitudes 336). Zappen clarifies the identification of transcendence, noting the forms that transcendence takes in A Grammar and A Rhetoric and arguing that it offers not more persuasion (You should believe me...) or even identification in its simple and limited sense (because you and I are really very much alike) but a promise of larger unities transcendencesthat encompass individual and group differences (281). Thus, transcendence is in this sense a process by which individuals learn to work together, even as they maintain their personal distinctions. This is crucial to the rhetorical theory Burke develops throughout A Grammar and A Rhetoric, for in order to transcend differences, one must engage not only in the agonistic Aristotelian discourse aimed at defeating the other but in the competitive cooperation which fuses rhetoric and dialectic. The second sense of transcendence for Burke is equally important for the project of the purification of war, for it is through dialectical transcendence toward larger unities not just of identification but unities of ideology that groups may attain an attitude which transcends war. Ross Wolin provides an assessment of Burkes position on the centrality of transcendence in this process, observing, although transcendence is not the only kind of transformation Burke analyzes in the Rhetoric, it dominates because one of the most common forms of transformation is the creation of a transcendent category to dissolve a dialectical pair (177). This is part of the process of dialogic exchanges which Burke takes up in the third book of A Rhetoric, and which, according to Zappen, seek to encompass a diversity of individual voices in larger unities that preserve, but transcend, anyone [sic] of them (281). Zappen goes on to explain Burkes conclusions from the 1951 essay, Rhetoric Old and New in which they are processes for mutually testing and correcting ideas with hope of producing better ideas than anyone [sic]

Rancourt 5 person alone could produce processes to be developed and sustained by a new rhetoric and a revolutionary linguistic approach to education (281). The emphasis on the dialectical cooperation of ideas compliments the unity of identification of Attitudes (and through A Rhetoric) to give a sense of a coming together through evolving consciousness. Neither the role of this transcending rhetorical-dialectical process in the purification of war nor the importance of the comic frame is made explicit here, but dialectical transcendence clearly becomes essential to the larger project. In her article, Burke and War, Weiser casts light on the link between transcendence, the comic frame, and ad bellum purificandum. She summarizes a letter Burke sent to the Sewanee Review in which he describes his intention to translate war to a higher level (qtd. in Weiser 295). Weiser writes, Burkes project would transcend physical war with verbal combat and pacification (3/23/44), turning the tragic absolute of war into the comic potentiality of alternate perspectives (295). This alternate perspectives refers to the work that calls forth both the dialectic of ideas and the comic frame of reference as outlined in Attitudes, and thus Weiser brings together transcendence, competitive cooperation, and the comic under the movement toward a purification of war. Attitude and Attitudes When Burke revisits Attitudes in 1955, he identifies a rather simple aim of the text, writing in the second introduction that it operates on the miso-philanthropic assumption that getting along with people is one devil of a difficult task but that, in the last analysis, we should all want to get along with people (and do want to) (Attitudes unnumbered page 1). This can be read first to support Ann George and Jack Selzers thesis that Attitudes sprang from attempts to reconcile the differences of Marxists and aesthetes between whom he found himself, especially

Rancourt 6 following the 1935 American Writers Congress (George and Selzer, 18-19), but it also supports both Wolins and Weisers arguments that the book was in response to the rise of fascism and in anticipation of the coming war (Weiser, Burke and War; Weiser, Burke, War, Words; Wolin, 149). The latter is further extended in the close of the 1955 introduction: We refer to the invention of technical devices that would make the rapid obliteration of all human life an easily available possibility. ... For by nothing less than such humanistic allowances can we hope to forestall (if it can be forestalled!) the most idiotic tragedy conceivable: the willful ultimate poisoning of this lovely planet, in conformity with mistaken heroics of war. Basically, this book would accept the Aristophanic assumptions, which equate tragedy with war and comedy with peace. (unnumbered page 5) At least for the later Burke looking back, Attitudes is of vital importance in its attempts to address the urgent issues which transcended the politics of the left and literary criticism. Also in the 1955 introduction, Burke explains the title of Attitudes, noting that the emphasis should be placed on attitudes rather than history since even when the text addresses processes or conditions, it does so from the perspective of accompanying attitudes (Attitudes unnumbered page 3). Burke offers among his definitions of attitude that which he derives from I.A. Richards, that attitudes can be thought of as first steps toward, a substitute for, or an incipient action or course of action (Attitudes, 20; A Grammar 236; A Rhetoric 50). Coupled with his definition of the comic frame as the attitude of attitudes, and describing it as the methodic view of human antics as a comedy, albeit as a comedy ever on the verge of the most disastrous tragedy (Attitudes unnumbered page 3), Burke draws attention to the ways in which the perspective of the methodic view of human antics can help lead to the condition of

Rancourt 7 peace. Peace is an action preceded by an attitude, and Attitudes provides a rough sketch of how to achieve the latter through the former. Comedy and Tragedy In illustrating the relation of attitude and action, Burke identifies the importance of poetic categories (epic, tragic, comic, satire, burlesque, grotesque, and several others) for framing the world. He argues that Each of the great poetic forms stresses its own peculiar way of building the mental equipment (meanings, attitudes, character) by which one handles the significant factors of his time (34). For example, the tragic frame rose during a period of transition in which business individualism conflicted with the reactionary values of the great Greek playwrights of the time, who portrayed hubris as a tragic, criminal source of downfall (39). Tragedy seeks a scapegoat, the sacrifice of which frees the society of guilt and thus rescues the collective through the symbolic action on the individual (188). As mental equipment, the tragic frame may be seen likely to lead to warfare in response to conflict in an age of individualism (to circle back to the Aristophanic assumptions). However, as Burke stressed with his attention to the comic and as subsequent scholarship has illuminated, the tragic is only one frame of many available to rhetors and social movements at any given time. The comic frame offers a far less agonistic approach to discourse. Burke swiftly notes the distinction between the two, writing, Like tragedy, comedy warns against the dangers of pride, but its emphasis shifts from crime to stupidity (Attitudes 41). Contemporary critics might object to the use of stupidity, which seems to have evolved in meaning from pitiable to pitiful in American culture, thus perhaps misleading readers who fail to reconcile Burkes emphasis elsewhere on the mistakenness rather than stupidity:

Rancourt 8 Call a man a villain, and you have the choice of either attacking or cringing. Call him mistaken, and you invite yourself to attempt setting him right. Contemporary exasperations make us prefer the tragic (sometimes melodramatic) names of villain and hero to the comic names of tricked and intelligent. (4-5) With the view of the comic as understanding, both tragedy and comedy can be seen to tend toward the corrective frame, both identifying that which ought to be examined and solved if possible. Burke further explains comedy in relation to tragedy, saying, When you add that people are necessarily mistaken, that all people are exposed to situations in which they must act as fools, that every insight contains its own special kind of blindness, you complete the comic circle, returning again to the lesson of humility that underlies great tragedy (41). As frames of acceptance, comedy and tragedy both promote a sense of resignation with regard to the given social order and historical situation (Biebel). Thus, as much as the tragic frame seems to tear down by naming evil and villainy, that which is lost is not the entire system or the social order which produced the sacrificial victim, but rather what is lost is the singular victim whose elimination symbolically allows the social order to remain intact. Of the two frames, the comic is better suited to the purification of war because it relies not on the violence inherent in the sacrifice bent on ridding evil from the social order but rather on the consciousness of the critic. A. Cheree Carlson observes, a comedy will recognize the evil that exists in all humankind, and thus have charity for the enemy (453). This recognition leads to the humility necessary to understand that ones position is just as susceptible to folly as the enemys position is. Thus, the comic frame encourages the consideration of multiple perspectives akin to the falling on the bias Burke came to fold into the comic corrective noted by Weiser (Burke and War, 295).

Rancourt 9 There remains a potential for confusion about whether the tragic is a frame of acceptance or frame of rejection, but Burke is quite clear that the acceptance of tragedy lies at the roots of the poetic category. He notes that the forensic characteristics of Greek tragedy hint at the ability of the justice system to correct the errors of villainy, or more to the current point it is through a critical eye toward hubris that one maintains ones humility (Attitudes 38-39). Humility, of course, is also central to the comic frame, so it must be said that the difference between them since they are both frames of acceptance is that humility arises in the comic frame not as a result of a critical eye outward but through a conscious eye, one pointed inward. In perhaps the most frequently cited statement on the subject, Burke observes that the comic frame should enable people to be observers of themselves, while acting. Its ultimate would not be passiveness, but maximum consciousness. One would transcend himself by noting his own foibles (Attitudes 171). This speaks quite directly to Burkes conception of how A Rhetoric helps the overall project toward a purification of war, for it is through the acknowledgment of the foibles of the human barnyard that one proceeds in that direction. Whereas the tragic frame may be used to obscure the flaws (or evils) in the social order by expunging guilt through sacrifice, the comic encourages not only recognition of these flaws but the consequent humility which tempers the judgment of others flaws. This enables (or requires) participants in society to acknowledge that those with whom they disagree may be motivated not by evil but by reasonable purposes, and thus to coexist with them requires strategies of acceptance and greater understanding rather than rejection through laughter or discount. It is tempting to think of the difference between tragedy and comedy as seriousness versus humorous and to assume, as some scholars seem to, that the way the comic forms acceptance is by laughing with others while the tragic offers only a disapproving frown.

Rancourt 10 However, this is not consistent with Burkes argument, and such a distortion may obscure the significance of the comic frame in his larger project. Carlson notes that Humor may exist in any frame, and is thus not a sure sign that the comic perspective reigns (Limitations, 319). It is important, then, to distinguish between humor and comedy. Clearly, it is not laughter alone which leads to the purification of war, for one may imagine examples such as rival sports fans laughing with each other in sharing a rousing night watching a game in a public space versus those who laugh at each other and escalate into a brawl. However, scholars have not always made a clear distinction between humor and comedy as presented by Burke, and the issue seems confused when humorous texts are chosen for analysis. For example, Chris Smith and Ben Voth look at Saturday Night Live skits surrounding the 2000 American presidential election and seem to mischaracterize Burkes comic frame, which they suggest includes gross exaggeration (111). Exaggeration and caricature are more appropriately classified under Burkes burlesque frame, another form often associated with humor. Other scholars (such as Carlson and Brett Biebel) examine humorous texts without confusing the issue, while perhaps the best work on the comic looks at non-humorous texts, or even social movements more generally, as in the case of Carlsons article on Gandhi and the comic frame and Kimberly A. Powells article on The Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching. What these latter texts demonstrate is the serious work of the comic frame in addressing political situations from a perspective of humility. Carlson is explicit about the connection of Gandhis movement for Indian independence with respect to its illustration of the comic frame and the purification of war. She closes her article, which is subtitled ad Bellum Purificandum, with reference to the promise of the comic frame:

Rancourt 11 Perhaps applying the comic frame to other movements beyond those of Gandhi and King can reveal the strategies and tactics which can produce a comic perspective in our society. Such efforts could be the first vital step in finding the moral equivalent for war that Burke has devoted his life to attaining. (453) In contrast, the other frames commonly associated with humor may have vastly different results. Most notably, the burlesque stands out as a frame active in much political discourse and which rejects the social order where the comic and even the tragic do not. Burlesque Whereas the tragic condemns the scapegoat (Biebel) and the comic chastises but never banishes the clown (Carlson 448) while at least partially accepting the social order, the burlesque rejects through merciless ridicule (Bostdorff 47). Burlesque, then, is a contrast especially to the fair-mindedness of the comic frame because it refuses to consider the victims psyche (Attitudes 54), electing instead to create a hierarchy with the rhetor on top and the victim as the marginalized other, a caricature reduced to absurdity and extremes (54). In a sense, the burlesque differs in the disposition of the rhetor whose view of her or himself drives the characterization of the other. Burke observes, The methods of caricature do not equip us to understand the full complexities of sociality-hence they warp our programs of action and, by identification, humiliate the manipulator of them, thereby making cynical self-interest the most logical of policies (93). This cynicism dissolves allegiance to the social order and serves only egocentric ends. The work of the burlesque, then, stands in stark contrast to that of the comic, particularly with respect to the purification of war. Where the comic frame increases humility, the burlesque destroys it. Where the comic encourages the consideration of multiple perspectives, the

Rancourt 12 burlesque thrives on discounting and silencing them. Where the comic expresses charity for the opponent, the burlesque expresses only contempt. Considered from this perspective, the purification of war is least possible not in the shadow of the absolutes of tragedy, as Weiser contends, but in the extremes of burlesque, which make impossible the very fundamental prerequisites of persuasion and cooperation with ones opponent. That is, the burlesque, as a frame of rejection, disables both the Burkean rhetoric of identification and the classical rhetoric of persuasion. The burlesque caricature leaves no room for unity in casting the rhetor as superior while rejecting the victim. To illustrate, one may consider a simple internet Google image search for the terms Bush Hitler, which yields 15,500 results (as of May 28, 2011), many of which quite explicitly compare or equate George W. Bush with Hitler. Such caricatures became especially notable during antiwar protests of Bushs presidency while comparable Obama Hitler images (18,100 on May 28, 2011) surfaced especially during and health care reform protests of Obamas first year in office (one may also consider the famous Obama witchdoctor image, as well). Unlike the comic frame, which would rather criticize policy stances with greater nuance and restraint of hyperbole, or the tragic frame, which may emphasize hubris and suggest a need for sacrifice to purge collective guilt, such burlesque critiques merely discount and destroy. The victim is made evil and is banished through absurdity. One does not negotiate with Hitler, nor does Hitler negotiate with his critics. Thus, the burlesque frame creates an unbridgeable divide between opposing sides. It may be argued that this has become the dominant mode of contemporary American politics in which the high stakes of elections create a sense of dire emergency: To vote for McCain is to vote for four more years of George W. Bush (read: evil fascism)!; To vote for the Democrat is to support Obamas march toward socialism! In

Rancourt 13 contrast, the comic frame features a rhetor who must be aware of her or his own foibles (Attitudes 171) and thus must acknowledge that to create an unbridgeable divide with a clear distinction between ones own supposedly superior virtue and the others inferior evil or villainy is a false proposition and one which will make no progress toward transcendence, toward competitive cooperation, or toward the purification of war. Comic and Burlesque, Unity and Division The burlesque, then, may serve valuable purposes similar to the ego function of protest rhetoric identified by Richard Gregg, who found that groups in the late 1960s and early 1970s such as Student, Womens Liberation, and Black Power movements tended to produce rhetoric more directed at themselves than at a rhetorical audience capable of making the changes they demanded. Such rhetoric rejected opportunities for identification [with the opposition] (73) while forming cooperative identification within the protest group. Essentially, this was the constitutive function of the burlesque frame, and while it managed to bolster self conception for such movements, it required an additional frame when dealing with the larger society in order to achieve peaceful social change. The burlesque is not without its appeal, however, as several scholars have found in analyses of burlesque as a unifying tool for social movements. One may even turn to Burke, whose analysis of The Rhetoric of Hitlers Battle finds Hitlers essentializing of the Jewish enemy to be a burlesque framing used to unify and mobilize for fascist ends (though much of Burkes analysis also indicates a tragic frame with the Jews cast as scapegoats) (Philosophy 194). However, burlesque as a means of unity may also apply to more positive situations in which oppositional identification brings a sense of community and empowerment to subaltern groups for whom participation in the public sphere is at the very least limited and even injurious

Rancourt 14 in its obscuring, undeliverable promise of egalitarianism (Fraser 62). For example, Gary Steven Selby argues that Ralph David Abernathys early civil rights rhetoric of ridiculing whites invited African Americans to scoff at, rather than fear (or pity) them (135). Unlike the comic frame, this encouraged audiences to identify not with the opponent but rather with the marginalized African American community in a process anticipated by Burke for whom identification was only necessary because division already existed (A Rhetoric 22). Selby argues that such oppositional rhetoric worked in concert with the comic frame exercised by the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., concluding that rather than being dominated by a single frame, a social movement's discourse may include multiple frames simultaneously, allowing movement rhetors to address a variety of competing demands (143). Thus, while Abernathys burlesque frame could not be expected to affect change through the public sphere, by affecting public policy through deliberative discourse directly, it did provide a valuable source for the counter-public identity to develop. Nancy Fraser writes, in stratified societies, subaltern counterpublics have a dual character. On the one hand, they function as spaces of withdrawal and regroupment; on the other hand, they also function as bases and training grounds for agitational activities directed toward wider publics (68). Thus, a contingent distinction may be made between the burlesque as a source of identity and the comic as a source of purification of war, as a means of fostering cooperative attitudes with wider publics. Both Carlson and Powell provide further insight into the uses of the burlesque and the uses of the comic in struggles for empowerment and justice. Carlsons analysis of nineteenth century women humorists suggests that the comic frame can be equally viewed as fostering identification, though, as she argues, it requires the careful creation of identification among all actors required to alter a social order (318-319). Such comic identification was characteristic of

Rancourt 15 early nineteenth century women writers, though they gradually came to adopt a burlesque frame in which the ideal of the true woman and the authority of men were often ridiculed. This, Carlson observes, would not solve their problems, even if it would create a stronger sense of self (318). Similarly, Powells examination of The Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching reveals the extent to which marginalized groups in their fight for justice and recognition must take an approach which avoids alienating their opponents who hold power in the social order. White southern women who fought against the heinous crime of lynching which had been justified by white men as a defense of delicate southern womanhood (93) knew they needed to adopt a comic frame. As Powell notes, Because white men held the power, and public opinion supported lynching, making lynchers scapegoats would have been difficult, if not impossible (96-97). So, the tragic frame is not useful when the would-be scapegoat is the very group who holds power and thus must be the ones to grant change. In one sense, the comic frame is useful because it gives that group a way to change without losing face. The burlesque could only offer such change if the scapegoat is to be cast aside with the whole system. Thus, the burlesque is not a tool of cooperative change or the processes in the purification of war. Rather, it highlights the role of the comic frame in approaching what might be described as delicate situations in which the group in power is the very opponent one seeks to change. Taken from this perspective, one might see the work of Gandhi as preventing a bloody revolution, the work civil rights activists including Martin Luther King Jr. as averting a race war, or the work of white southern women as helping to end the race war which had already been waged for decades if not centuries in America. Conclusion

Rancourt 16 This may be a more cynical age than the one Burke lived in. The people still see evil in their opponents now as then, but our cynicism has made even stupidity contemptible, rather than pitiable. Perhaps Burkes labeling of the clown or the fool as stupid (Attitudes 41, 43) gets lost in translation in an age in which the other is greeted with outrage, when difference of opinion is less likely to be seen as mistakenness than stupidity and is thus likely to be discounted as impossible to deal with. In one sense, the discounting caricature of the burlesque seems to dominate political discourse, but in another sense, one is tempted to point out that war is somehow averted in countless situations at each moment. That violence rarely breaks out between Republicans and Democrats is evidence that war has been purified. If one follows Gramsci (12), civil society itself was constructed as a kind of purification of war, especially in light of the assuaging of anger through the electoral system and the legitimization of authority through the granting of rights and the granting of voice to the people. However, this is in the service of the dominant group, and thus it must be considered that while Burke is convincing that the comic frame is fundamental in developing the attitude necessary to eliminate war, it may take alternative perspectives and the situational adoption of other frames for groups to gain the perspective necessary to name their oppression which becomes invisible under dominant ideology and civil society. Such oppositional identifications, however, can only go so far, can only be so radical and dismissive, before the division becomes too great. Burke suggests the danger inherent in such division: In the end, men [sic] are brought to that most tragically ironic of all divisions, or conflicts, wherein millions of cooperative acts go into the preparation for one single destructive act. We refer to that ultimate disease of cooperation: war (A Rhetoric 22). Thus, the purification of war requires an emphasis on unity and understanding consistent with

Rancourt 17 the comic frame in its allowance for change and the challenging without the immediate discounting of others.

Rancourt 18 Works Cited Biebel, Brett. Standing Up for Comedy: Kenneth Burke and The Office. KB Journal 7 (2010) : n. pag. Web. 1 Oct 2010. Bostdorff, Denise M. Making Light of James Watt: A Burkean Approach to the Form and Attitude of Political Cartoons. Quarterly Journal of Speech 73.1 (1987) : 43. Burke, Kenneth. A Grammar of Motives. University of California Press, 1969. Print. ---. A Rhetoric of Motives. University of California Press, 1969. Print. ---. Attitudes Toward History. University of California Press, 1984. Print. ---. The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action. University of California Press, 1974. Print. Carlson, A. Cheree. Gandhi and the Comic Frame: Ad Bellum Purificandum. Quarterly Journal of Speech 72.4 (1986) : 446. ---. Limitations on the Comic Frame: Some Witty American Women of the Nineteenth Century. Quarterly Journal of Speech 74.3 (1988) : 310-322. Print. Fraser, Nancy. Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy. Social Text 25/26 (1990) : 56-80. Web. 5 Apr 2011. George, Ann, and Jack Selzer. Kenneth Burke in the 1930s. Univ of South Carolina Press, 2007. Print. Gramsci, Antonio. Prison Notebooks: Selections. Ed. Quentin Hoare & Geoffrey Nowell-Smith. Trans. Quintin Hoare & Geoffrey Nowell-Smith. International Publishers, 1972. Print. Gregg, Richard B. The Ego-Function of the Rhetoric of Protest. Philosophy & Rhetoric 4.2 (1971) : 71-91. Print.

Rancourt 19 Powell, Kimberly A. The Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching: Strategies of a Movement in The... Communication Quarterly 43.1 (1995) : 86-99. Print. Selby, Gary Steven. Scoffing at the Enemy: The Burlesque Frame in the Rhetoric of Ralph David Abernathy. Southern Communication Journal 70.2 (2005) : 134. Smith, Chris, and Ben Voth. The Role of Humor in Political Argument: How strategery and lockboxes Changed a Political Campaign. Argumentation & Advocacy 39.2 (2002) : 110. Print. Weiser, M. Elizabeth. Burke and War: Rhetoricizing the Theory of Dramatism. Rhetoric Review 26.3 (2007) : 286. ---. Burke, War, Words: Rhetoricizing Dramatism. Univ of South Carolina Press, 2008. Print. Zappen, James P. Kenneth Burke on Dialectical-Rhetorical Transcendence. Philosophy and Rhetoric 42.3 (2009) : 279-301. Web. 29 May 2011. Zappen, James P., S. Michael Halloran, and Scott A. Wible. Some Notes on Ad Bellum Purificandum. KB Journal 3.2 (2007) : n. pag. Web. 30 Sept 2010.

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