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Using Burke's Dramatism to Unpack Intractable Conflict Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Dissertations Department of English Spring 5-10-2014 Using Burke’s Dramatism to Unpack Intractable Conflict: Bush 43 and the Process of Peace in the Middle East Trent Mills Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss Recommended Citation Mills, Trent, "Using Burke’s Dramatism to Unpack Intractable Conflict: Bush 43 and the Process of Peace in the Middle East." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2014. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_diss/120 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. USING BURKE’S DRAMATISM TO UNPACK INTRACTABLE CONFLICT: BUSH 43 AND THE PROCESS OF PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST by TRENT MILLS Under the Direction of Elizabeth Lopez ABSTRACT I investigate how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as an exemplar case study of intractable conflict, might be re-envisioned by destabilizing the paradigms of the belligerents. I detail how paradigms and our perceptions of and interactions with them influence, direct, and even defeat attempts at understanding social situations (of which violent conflict is one). Furthermore, with the premise that proposed solutions are reactions to existing paradigms, I analyze the potential benefits and risks of revealing the assumptions, premises, and biases of the paradigms with which belligerents, and those who represent them, construct their realities. In addition, I demonstrate how narratives and rhetorical myths prescribe action, not passively reflect action. Ultimately, I demonstrate the recursive relationship amongst originating paradigms, rhetorical myths, and the terms and concepts of narratives. This problem set transcends the motives of individual Agents and directs the focus on the rhetorical nature of the conflict’s intractability, not its ultimate resolution. I destabilize the assumption underpinning demonstrated U.S. policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: direct negotiations, as the core of the peace process, will result in peace. This project joins current efforts to extend Burke’s dramatism into arenas where multi- ple rhetorical artifacts must be critically analyzed simultaneously to produce a more synoptic perspective. My approach leverages the heuristic character of Burke’s pentad to reveal a set of variables and relationships which account for a phenomenon: a “dramatistic” methodology for unpacking intractable conflict. My methodology also treats other Burkean concepts generally nested under the Dramatism moniker: god terms, comic and tragic frames of acceptance, en- telechy, and the pitfalls of the scapegoat. I demonstrate how the suite of Dramatistic terms and concepts might be leveraged to reveal the interconnectivity amongst U.S. policies, the Scenes the artifacts call forth, and the Agents who manipulate them. Furthermore, to address the im- plications of prescriptive paradigms on problem formulation, I align my approach with Burke’s mythic, constitutive, and narrative projects. This study is significant for rhetorical studies and peace and conflict studies because it provides a rhetorical framework to destabilize paradigms: a first step toward shifting a conflict from an intractable to a tractable condition. To that end, policy makers should be able to assess phenomena, like the Arab Spring, as part of a Dramatistic framework burdened with countless motives, rhetorical myths, competing narratives. For these reasons, this project is immediately relevant for understanding problem constitution at the intersection of rhetorical studies, peace and conflict studies, and policy development. INDEX WORDS: Paradigms, Pentadic analysis, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Rhetorical myth, U.S. foreign policy USING BURKE’S DRAMATISM TO UNPACK INTRACTABLE CONFLICT: BUSH 43 AND THE PROCESS OF PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST by TRENT MILLS A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2014 Copyright by Trent Irwin Mills 2014 USING BURKE’S DRAMATISM TO UNPACK INTRACTABLE CONFLICT: BUSH 43 AND THE PROCESS OF PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST by TRENT MILLS Committee Chair: Elizabeth Lopez Committee: Carol Winkler Michael Harker Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University May 2014 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I’d like to thank my committee for the rope I wanted and the reigning in I needed. To Carol Winkler for pointing to Burke and saying, “right there.” To Michael Harker for being the first to sign on and knowing which rock to place upstream. To Elizabeth Lopez for seeing so clearly how this project fit within our discipline and ensuring I did not waver. Special thanks to Tomasz Tabako for hosting a frustrating and frenetic summer of Burke that changed the way I see and not see. vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1 The Separation Wall as of 2012……………………………………………………………………………….93 vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... v LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ vi 1 INTRODUCTORY MATTERS .................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background to the Problem ........................................................................... 3 1.2 Significance of the Study ................................................................................ 6 1.3 Chapter Overview ........................................................................................ 10 1.4 Review of Literature .................................................................................... 11 1.4.1 Paradigms of Peace, War, and the Spaces Between ................................ 11 1.4.2 Narrative, Myth, and Burke’s Dramatism ................................................ 24 1.4.3 Peace as Process ..................................................................................... 31 1.5 Methodology ............................................................................................... 38 1.5.1 Dramatism: Refining the Problem ........................................................... 39 1.5.2 Dramatism: As a Guide for Collection ...................................................... 41 1.5.3 Dramatism: Framing the Interpretation of Results .................................. 44 2 A ROLE FOR MYTH IN “PERFECTING” THE PROBLEM ............................................ 47 2.1 The Problem-solving Power of Myth ............................................................ 49 2.2 Form and Function of Rhetorical Myth ......................................................... 53 2.3 Burke and Rowland on Entelechy: A Necessary Distinction ........................... 61 viii 2.4 Toward a Shared Myth ................................................................................ 66 3 THE COMEDY OF INTRACTABLE CONFLICT ........................................................... 70 3.1 Comic Frame: Defined in/by the Context of Intractable Conflict ................... 74 3.2 Comic Frame: Distinctions and Methods ...................................................... 82 3.3 Comic Frame in Application ......................................................................... 86 3.4 Intractable Conflict Revisited ....................................................................... 90 4 TO DESTABILIZE A PARADIGM: A QUESTION OF CIRCUMFERENCE ....................... 98 4.1 A Roadmap to Peace Situated Within a War on Terror ................................. 99 4.2 A Pentadic Process of Unpacking................................................................ 108 4.3 The Role and Influence of Scene on Policy: A Practioners Perspective ......... 116 4.4 A Look Past the War on Terror Paradigm .................................................... 124 5 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................... 128 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................... 135 1 1 INTRODUCTORY MATTERS Politics, insofar as it concerns relations among states, seems to signify—in both ideal and objective terms—simply the survival of states confronting the potential threat created by the existence of other states…the art of politics teaches men to live in peace within collectivities, while it teaches collectivities to live in either peace or war (Aron 6-7) Raymond Aron’s 1966 theory of international relations delineates foreign affairs from any other form of social intercourse because interstate relations “take place in the shadow of war or, to use a more rigorous expression, relations among states involve, in essence, the alter- natives of war and peace” (5). From this dire characterization alone, rhetoricians have rightfully focused on the rhetorics of international politics by focusing on the most influential statesman in U.S. politics: the president. The perception of the institution of the president is perhaps more valuable than the efficacy of any solitary rhetorical act. In terms of rhetorical power in inter- state social discourse, the
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