Rhetoric of Ridicule Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Grewell, Greg Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 26/09/2021 17:04:31 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/312568 RHETORIC OF RIDICULE by Greg Grewell ____________________________ A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WITH A MAJOR IN RHETORIC, COMPOSITION, AND THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2013 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Greg Grewell, titled Rhetoric of Ridicule, and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 14 Nov. 2013 Ken McAllister _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 14 Nov. 2013 Thomas P. Miller _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 14 Nov. 2013 Damian Baca Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. ________________________________________________ Date: 14 Nov. 2013 Dissertation Director: Ken McAllister 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that an accurate acknowledgement of the source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his or her judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. SIGNED: Greg Grewell 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………………….…….…5 Chapter 1: Introduction ………………………………………………………………….……6 Chapter 2: A Theory of Ridicule .…………………………………..…………...……….27 Chapter 3: A History of Ridicule ......…………………………….…..………………….92 Chapter 4: Monological Ridicule ………………………………………………….…..146 Chapter 5: Dialogical Ridicule ……………………………………………………….…200 Chapter 6: Internet Ridicule ……………….……………………………………………241 Works Cited ………………………………………….…………………….…………………..…293 5 Abstract Ridicule is a means of affecting change. Issuing an interpretation of a subject’s relation to an ideological formation or social norm as an argument to change behavior, language-use, belief, or the like, ridicule can be used both to affirm and to contest prevailing hierarchies. As a discursive function, this dissertation theorizes, ridicule can be either monological or dialogical. Monological ridicule often takes the form of a demand or directive and usually commands its subject to comply with some ideological formation or social norm. Used in this way, it is a norming tool. In contrast, dialogical ridicule generally invites or encourages negotiation or mediation. As such, it is often used to contest or challenge prevailing hierarchies, with the ultimate aim of creating conditions that can allow for transformation. In six chapters, this dissertation offers a theory of ridicule, traces conceptions of it through western history, examines both monological and dialogical applications of it, and, lastly, explores its use on the Internet, where it has flourished. If the aim of rhetoric is to please, to instruct, or to entertain, then ridicule may be the master rhetorical trope as it can achieve all three simultaneously. 6 Chapter 1: Introduction Ridicule—whether in the form of teasing, heckling, mocking, taunting, or derision—has become a pervasive feature of contemporary US culture, affecting private, public, and political life. From politics to literature, from sport to music, from school playgrounds and classrooms to family dinners and gatherings, ridicule permeates nearly every facet of US culture. It has saturated media, especially television sit-coms, reality shows, talk-radio, and more recently comment-sections of online blogs and of social websites, among other social public spaces. Like rhetoric for much of rhetoric’s existence, ridicule pervades every field of study yet does not itself constitute a field of study. Thomas O. Sloane notes similarities between humor, of which ridicule is considered a type, and rhetoric: “Humor is elusive, for many of the reasons that rhetoric is elusive. The nature of both is culturally dependent, and their effectiveness is linked to place, time, and occasion” (359). As elusive as humor and ridicule are, both are universal, common to all cultures, even if what passes as humor and as ridicule may vary according to cultural preferences. Furthermore, anyone reading these words has been exposed to humor, has laughed, and moreover has experienced ridicule, whether as ridiculer, as ridiculed, or as witness or audience to acts of ridicule. If the aim of rhetoric is to please, to instruct, or to entertain, then ridicule may be the master rhetorical trope as it can achieve all three simultaneously. Yet what humor—and particularly ridicule—are and how they work remains largely a matter of speculation. In his 2005 book Laughter and Ridicule: Toward a 7 Social Critique of Humour , the only recent book on the topic of ridicule, Michael Billig observes, “the historical discussion [of humor] suggests that no single theory can hope to explain the complexity of humour” (175). The case is even more poignant with that type of humor called ridicule: “the historical discussion has also suggested that there is no complete theory of ridicule that can be pulled off the shelf, dusted down and then applied to the relevant phenomena” (Billig 175). Although “no single theory” can account for humor’s complexity and “no complete theory of ridicule” presently exists, psychologists nonetheless have endeavored to measure ridicule’s effects. Educators warn against the use of ridicule as a means of “correcting” behavior and have gone to great lengths to reduce the form of ridicule called bullying, while business experts recommend that humor and slight mockery can be effective in managing subordinates, as evidenced by Donald Trump’s toupee. Fat studies scholars abhor ridicule. Philosophers, social scientists, and historians have labored to understand and trace it throughout history. Those in women’s studies and those who study racial constructions and race theory have examined ways it has been used to belittle, oppress, and maintain asymmetrical power relations, while some few such as Leon Rappoport contend that the ridicule of “racial-ethnic humor” is useful “as a playful form of entertainment that can have significant social benefits” (151). Only those in humor studies claim some ownership of the term “ridicule,” as a sub-category of satire, yet most humor scholars tend to ignore ridicule or only mention it briefly in passing. After all, ridicule as a type of humor does not fit neatly and only within any one of the main three main theories of humor—superiority, 8 incongruity, and relief—since a given instantiation of ridicule can both operate according to the tenets of any one of the three theories and slip among them. Nor can humor studies contain or try to account for excessive ridicule, ridicule that is not humorous but hurtful or harmful. Pervasive as it is in US culture, ridicule as a concept and act well precedes the formation of the US. Categorized by Aristotle in Rhetoric as an element of ethos, ridicule includes “laugh[ing], mock[ing], or jeer[ing]” as a means of both “show[ing] contempt” to “inflict injuries” and “stir[ing]” people “to anger” (62-63). Ancient Greece and Rome were rife with ridicule, and Greek and Roman philosophers and citizens were well aware of the power of ridicule. According to Patrick Hurley, citizens of Alexandria learnt this point after they mocked the second-century Roman Emperor Caracalla for claiming the murder of his brother was in self-defense. Not humored, Caracalla ordered troops to massacre the Alexandrians he found offensive. So prevalent were satire and ridicule in ancient Greece that the god Momus was said to embody them. In Gorgias , Plato’s characters Callicles and Socrates both engage in acts of ridicule. Rhetorica Ad Herennium ridicules Sophists. Before either Plato employed it in his plays or Aristotle attempted to categorize ridicule, Aristophanes’ play The Clouds mocked a caricature of Socrates, which in later eighteenth-century debates regarding ridicule became a classic example of ridicule’s ability to cause unjust yet irreparable harm. In Greek culture, Aspasia and those associated with her, along with non-citizen metics and slaves, were often the