The Demands of Character: Performances of Authenticity and Virtue in Marginalized Group Street Protests 1976-2000 Eric Ronis A Thesis In the Humanities Program Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Humanities) at Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada November 2013 © Eric Ronis, 2013 CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES This is to certify that the thesis prepared By: Eric Ronis Entitled: The Demands of Character: Performances of Authenticity and Virtue in Marginalized Group Street Protests 1976-2000 and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Humanities Program complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality. Signed by the final examining committee: Dr. Travis Smith, Chair Dr. Stuart Murray, External Examiner Dr. Deborah Dysart-Gale, External to Program Dr. Jean-Philippe Warren, Examiner Dr. Mark Sussman, Examiner Dr. Maurice Charland, Thesis Supervisor Approved by: Marcie Frank Chair of Department or Graduate Program Director Joanne Locke Dean of Faculty iii ABSTRACT The Demands of Character: Performances of Authenticity and Virtue in Marginalized Group Street Protests 1976-2000 Eric Ronis, Ph.D. Concordia University, 2013 This dissertation investigates the means of persuasion available to marginalized identity groups who protest against the state. “Performances of authenticity and virtue” provide one theoretical framework to explain how a group’s very identity as “marginalized other” can be leveraged rhetorically for claim-making against the state and as a way of creating social/political change. Protest groups frequently harness the power of radical street performance. Because of the theatricality of the protest, a focus on “character” rather than “identity” seems more appropriate. An audience’s judgment of protestor character as “authentic” or “virtuous” requires a horizon against which such evaluation can occur. The street performances therefore require recognizable character “types,” characters inherited from various cultural narratives, and such characters make their own demands on the protestors. Aristotle’s treatment of character as rhetorical ethos (Rhetoric), as dramatis persona (Poetics), and as one’s virtuous or vicious nature (Nichomachean Ethics) serves as a basic division, structurally, in this thesis. Stanislavski’s approach to theatrical performance offers insights into how the inhabiting of character and meeting the demands of a script function for protests. His premises that actors need to be in belief and fully committed to their performances are vital to iv successful performances of authenticity. Erving Goffman, in sociology, relies on these same premises. Special emphasis is placed on the tactics used by protestors–these are their rhetorical pisteis, the appeals that actually persuade the audience. These tactics are intimately tied to the identities and specific situations of the protestors themselves. There is a clear connection between ethos and logos. I apply Burke’s concept of “impious rhetoric” here. The sense of “what goes with what” is violated according to the rules of the public sphere, but justified in another sense by the collective character of the protesting group. This dissertation represents an intersection among three academic areas: rhetoric, theatre and sociology. Concepts from one discipline help solve theoretical problems and fill in lacunae existing in the other disciplines. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could not have completed this massive undertaking without a significant amount of support and guidance from many people and I would like to thank them here: I offer my profound gratitude to Maurice Charland, my thesis supervisor and program advisor. His patience, insights, and sense of both kairos and prepon when it came to offering criticism and new challenges have allowed this thesis to happen. Huge thanks go to my other supervisors, Mark Sussman in Theatre Studies and Jean-Philippe Warren in Sociology. Both challenged and excited me intellectually, introducing me to cases and theorists that have taken root in my mind and blossomed into the work that follows. Thank you to Sharon Fitch and Brenda Brisson of Concordia University who have been so kind and responsive over the years, helping me negotiate my way through the PhD program as an oddball “part-time foreign student.” Thank you to my employer, Champlain College, for helping to fund this educational endeavor. Thank you to so many of my colleagues at Champlain College for their support, advice and feedback along the way, in particular: Cinse Bonino, Elaine Young, Adam Rosenblatt, Laurel Bongiorno and Nancy Kerr. Thank you to Kirsten Isgro for helping demystify the whole writing process. I am tremendously appreciative to three of my colleagues for taking the time from their busy work lives to help proofread my writing and suggest where I may have gone astray: Erik Esckilsen, Kelly Thomas and Miriam Horne. And finally, I would like to acknowledge my son, Andrei Ronis, who has accompanied me on this PhD journey (often literally back and forth to Montreal) and who has indulged me in my various moods as I completed this thesis. The sounds of SpongeBob SquarePants will forever be linked in my mind with readings in critical theory. vi Table of Contents CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION I. A. A mother before Solomon (a brief Biblical exegesis) 1 I. B. Founding questions for the study: an interdisciplinary approach 6 I. C. Literature review 9 I. D. What’s new here? Where is the shift in scholarship? 20 I. E. Methodology and intent 26 I. F. Overview of four case studies 34 I. G. Preview: overall structure of argument 41 I. H. Key terms: “character” and “authenticity 53 CHAPTER TWO: CHARACTER AS COLLECTIVE IDENTITY II. A. Identification and idem: the “what” of the “who” 61 II. B. Identity politics questioned and justified 65 II. C. Deploying the “marks” of character 82 II. D. Between normification and minstrelization 91 II. E. Case study: Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo 97 II. F. Conclusion 116 CHAPTER THREE: CHARACTER AS DRAMATIS PERSONAE III. A. Recognition and disruption 119 III. B. Choice of theatrical approach 126 III. C. The ethos-logos connection 135 III. D. Impiety: eccentricity of character 140 III. E. Performing authenticity and the problem of instrumentality 149 III. F. Case study: Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo 155 III. G. Conclusion 169 CHAPTER FOUR: CHARACTER AS MORAL JUDGMENT IV. A. State attacks on protestor character 172 IV. B. Character and virtue 179 IV. C. Narrative frameworks 186 IV. D. Performing virtue 199 IV. E. Case study: Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo 219 IV. F. Conclusion 234 vii CHAPTER FIVE: PERFORMANCES OF AUTHENTICITY AND VIRTUE IN ACTION V. A. Otpor 238 V. B. ACT UP 259 V. C. CCNV and NUH 282 V. D. Conclusion 300 CHAPTER SIX: IDENTITY AND CHANGE, RHETORIC AND INTERSUBJECTIVITY VI. A. Summary and beyond 302 VI. B. Identity, again 306 VI. C. What can a “rhetoric” be? 317 VI. D. The value of the “inauthentic” 328 Endnotes 332 Works Cited 337 1 Chapter One INTRODUCTION I. A. — A mother before Solomon (a brief Biblical exegesis) In Kings I. 3 there is the well-known story of two women—prostitutes, or “harlots” as the King James Version calls them—who come before King Solomon, each claiming that the same week-old infant is her own. Unable to get at the truth from the women’s conflicting statements, Solomon declares that the child should be cut in half so that each woman gets an equal share. According to the Bible, “the woman whose son was alive was deeply moved out of love for her son and said to the king, ‘Please, my Lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!’ But the other said, ‘Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!’” (Harper Collins RSV 518). From their responses to his ruling the king is able to determine the real mother, and he rewards her the child. This Biblical tale is typically meant to illustrate how wise King Solomon was. Let me argue, however, that, through an alternate reading of the story, the tale of the two women before Solomon illustrates how “a performance of authenticity and virtue” is able to subvert a policy declared by the state, and how a claim of specific and recognizable identity—a labeled “character” or “role”—must necessarily enter into any effective form of political claim-making, at least for those whose claimed identities are what we might term “marginalized” (though Iris Marion Young’s use of the labels “powerless” and “culturally dominated” might be more appropriate for such groups [Justice 56-60]). Let us suppose that Solomon was not a wise king but a small-minded bureaucrat or a 2 cruel tyrant. Let us suppose that Solomon’s edict to cut the baby in half was not a performance meant as a test but was, in fact, the state’s vision of true justice. The first woman’s plea then becomes an act of protest: do not carry out this unjust ruling. Her protest becomes effective in two ways. First, it delays the state’s action (the sword remains in the air, not coming down to cut the baby in half). Second, her actions identify her as the true mother in the eyes of any savvy audience member. Her protest is a “performance of authenticity” that allows the audience to recognize the woman as the mother of the child. The first woman’s actions arise naturally— authentically—out of her character as “mother” (the text notes that she is “deeply moved”). Instinctually, she acts to save the life of her baby. Her specific action has rhetorical weight, though, only when read against the horizon of her given identity as mother in that specific situation. Savvy audience members (Solomon yes, but hopefully others who may have been witness) recognize the woman as the true mother.