Copyright by Joseph Dee Brentlinger 2011
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Copyright by Joseph Dee Brentlinger 2011 The Thesis Committee for Joseph Dee Brentlinger Certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis: Mysterious Criticism: A Burkean Perspective on Hierarchy and Human Social Relations APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: Barry Brummett Larry Browning Mysterious Criticism: A Burkean Perspective on Hierarchy and Human Social Relations by Joseph Dee Brentlinger, B.A. Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts The University of Texas at Austin May 2011 Dedication To my sister, Leslie. Acknowledgements The Author would like to thank Lura and Joe Long, John and Grace Roberts, and Dr. R.W. Brentlinger and Marjorie Brentlinger for being wonderful grandparents. Also he would like to thank Gary and Melissa Brentlinger, Donnell Long, PFC Andrew Brentlinger and Leslie Brentlinger for being a supportive family. Lastly, he would like to thank Barry Brummett, Larry Browning, Joshua Gunn, Dana Cloud, Helena Woodard, R. Mark Sainsbury, and D. O. Nillson for being amazing influences on my work and my life. v Abstract Mysterious Criticism: A Burkean Perspective on Hierarchy and Human Social Relations Joseph Dee Brentlinger, M.A. The University of Texas at Austin, 2011 Supervisor: Barry Brummett This work introduces the idea of mysterious criticism as a viable means by which to critique, explain, and understand the role that hierarchy plays in human social relations. It scrutinizes the works of Kenneth Burke and others to explain the role that mystery plays in human hierarchical circumstances, and becomes a foray into popular culture as a suitable object by which to explicate the form of critique offered in its pages as well as providing fruitful sources for the study of hierarchy in the beginning of the 21st century. vi Table of Contents Chapter One: A Fascination with Burkean Mystery ...............................................1 Burkean Contemplations of Hierarchy ...........................................................5 Burkean Contemplations of Mystery ............................................................11 Conclusion ....................................................................................................21 Chapter Two: Mysterious Criticism, its Articulation, and its Fomation................2 3 Rhetorical Analysis in Bentham……………………………………………24 Marx on “Mystification”……………………………………………………27 Terministic Reservations (in View of Cromwell’s Motives)……………….31 Carlyle on “Mystery”……………………………………………………….32 Courtship, Identification, Embarrassments…………………………………37 Defining Mysterious Criticism……………………………………………..42 Mysterious Criticism as a Method of Inquiry……………………………...45 Chapter Three: Mystery in The Social Network ..……………………………….54 Synopsis of the Film……………………………………………………….56 The Hierarchical Metaphor………………………………………………...59 Clothing in The Social Network…………………………………………...62 The Social Life……………………………………………………………..72 Women and their Exclusion from Hierarchical Circumstances……………79 Courting Zuckerberg, or, The Rivalry between Eduardo Saverin and Sean Parker……………………………………………………………….....88 The Demystification of Cameron Winklevoss……………………………..104 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………109 Chapter Four: Kevin Smith’s Speech at the Sundance Film Festival …………....112 vii References .....................................................................................................…...124 viii CHAPTER ONE: A FASCINATION WITH BURKEAN MYSTERY THIS WORK, FROM START TO FINISH, CONCERNS THE METHODIZATION OF A WORD INTO A FORM OF CRITICISM. THE WORD IS MYSTERY, AND THE FORM OF CRITICISM THAT WILL BE DEVELOPED IN THE FOLLOWING PAGES WILL THUS BE CALLED MYSTERIOUS CRITICISM. AND THOUGH THE WORD ITSELF CONNOTES MANY THINGS, THIS WORK ENDEAVORS TO MAKE A SENSE OF MYSTERY LESS MYSTERIOUS, INASMUCH AS IT ATTEMPTS TO EXPLICATE HOW THE WORD IS USED BY ONE THEORIST, LITERARY CRITIC, RHETORICIAN, AND IN SOME CASES, PHILOSOPHER: KENNETH BURKE. AS WE SHALL SOON SEE, LITTLE HAS BEEN SAID OF BURKE’S UNDERSTANDING OF MYSTERY, BUT THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT LITTLE WAS SAID BY BURKE ABOUT THE WORD HE NEVER FULLY DEVELOPED INTO A METHOD OF CRITICISM. BUT BEFORE WE DELVE INTO BURKE’S SPECIFIC UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORD, OR EVEN HOW MYSTERY CAN BE UTILIZED AS A FORM OF CRITICISM, LET US LOOK AT THE WORD IN A MORE GENERAL SENSE. The Oxford English Dictionary gives many definitions for the word “mystery,” some of which are “theological” such as “Mystical presence or nature; mystical significance. in (also through) his mystery: in or by its mystical presence or nature. in (a) mystery: mystically, symbolically; with hidden or mystical significance. Obs.” as well as “non-theological uses” such as “A hidden or secret thing; something inexplicable or beyond human comprehension; a person or thing evoking awe or wonder but not well known or understood; an enigma.”1 There are other uses of the term, as when the word “mystery” is defined as “Ministry, office; service, occupation. Obs.”2 These definitions are good inasmuch as they reveal certain understandings of the word that become important when methodizing a mysterious criticism, such as the divine mystery 1 http://www.oed.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/view/Entry/124644?rskey=kQkzuZ&result=1&isAdvanced=false# 2 Ibid. 1 (something outside language yet linguistically conceived), the enigmatic aura attached to mystery in general, or the fact that mystery has ritualistic or institutional connotations. But I think the second definition is an apt one for mystery in a common understanding of its usage. In this sense it is simply to call mystery the “that which is unknown” of whatever it is that fascinates in the moment. From this standpoint we might call mystery the je ne sais quoi of an aspect of human social relations, even if it is a bit pretentious (but then again, when discussing Burke, a little pretense is to be expected), and the je ne sais quoi of an aspect of social relations can be very powerful and lead to hierarchy. Take, for instance, the multiple stories of the man on the mountain. A person wants to know the secrets to why we are here, what the point is to all this human nonsense. This person hears that there is a man on the mountain just at the limits of his or her sight who, it is claimed, has all the answers. A hierarchy is automatically established. For the person who wants to know does anything that is necessary to climb the mountain in order to gain the knowledge of the one who, until they meet, had never contemplated the person’s existence. The person who wants to know the secrets that the man on the mountain purportedly has must come to the man on the mountain’s ground, must attain some understanding of the person’s point of view, by traversing a path similar to the one that the man on the mountain did in order to become the man on the mountain. Quite often in these stories, the person who wants to obtain the knowledge that the man on the mountain has is disappointed: we find at the end of the story that the man on the mountain is there because he was as baffled by the nonsense as the person who ascended it to gain all the answers. This, of course, is not the only way that mystery and hierarchy are linked. Quite often we see something mysterious in hierarchies that are already established, such as in the case of 2 exclusive clubs like the Freemasons, in power cliques at work, in social settings, on campus, or even in the “classless” hierarchy that is both prevalent in The United States yet remains unacknowledged. The point is that mystery is a condition that results from estrangement, from being in some way separated from something that is alluring (such as specialized knowledge, or property, or respect) while at the same time thinking or feeling, “why not me.” It is from this condition that, as we shall see, Burke takes his point of departure in discussing his own sense of mystery. In studying Burkean mystery, one is slowly but surely inducted into a strange caste, a group that never again looks at the word as he or she once did. This is because a Burkean sense of mystery is connected to other concepts he contemplated: concepts such as hierarchy, human social relations, dramatism, identity and identification, embarrassment, mystification, courtship, and dialectic. In fact, William H. Reuckert states that “The eloquent passage which brings A Rhetoric of Motives to a close is the best description of what hierarchy is and why it permits the furious activities of dialectics and yet provides one with a fixed goal and those moments of stasis which are heaven’s reward. Burke chants,” the mystery of the hierarchic is forever with us, let us, as students of rhetoric, scrutinize its range of entrancements, both with dismay and in delight. And finally let us observe, all about us, forever goading us, though it be in fragments, the motive that attains its ultimate identification in the thought, not of the universal holocaust, but of the universal order—as with the rhetorical and dialectic symmetry of the Aristotelian metaphysics, whereby all classes of beings are hierarchically arranged in a chain or ladder or pyramid of mounting worth, each kind striving towards the perfection of its kind, and so towards the kind next 3 above it, while the strivings of the entire series head in God as the beloved cynosure and sinecure, the end of all desire. (RM, 333.)3 This current work will rely heavily on Burke’s A Rhetoric of Motives,