Manifestos

Artistic rendering of
SCUM Manifesto

If there’s one thing I love, it’s a good manifesto.

Manifestos operate as public addresses or documents seeking to define an individual, group, or movement. An author or group of authors radically outline his/her/their views and a plan for accomplishing changes for the betterment of societies. Manifestos are often related to politics or art and constitute, what I consider at least, to be a mutable genre. Some manifestos are more formal (think: The Declaration of Independence), while others are more satirical (see: SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas).

In recent years, the manifesto has become a more popular genre, less about political or theoretical content and more as a guide to life. I don’t know enough about the genre to say for certain, but I’d like to chalk the genre’s content change up to Baz Luhrmann’s 1999 musical manifesto “Everybody's Free (to Wear Sunscreen)” addressing the graduating class of that year. Unlike the previously mentioned manifestos, “ Everybody's Free,” and my subsequent genres address “you,” instead of stating “we.”

The "Holstee Manifesto"

Manifestos have become also become popular in workplace motivational materials. For example, the “Holstee Manifesto”, which went viral on the internet in 2011, functions as a call to action, but does not necessarily align itself with the values of an individual or organization, but for copyright information included at the bottom of the original print. Although the values expressed in the video are undeniably American, the manifesto sidesteps authorial identification, instead directly addressing “you” to change “your life.”

But my favorite manifesto is the editorial statement from BLAST, a short lived literary magazine published by Wyndham Lewis in 1914. It comes to you today from The Modernist Journals Project, an archival undertaking at Brown University. Utlizising the classic manifesto "we," the BLAST manifesto is broken into three sections: first, the editors outline the things they want to “blast” in current culture. Second, the editors outline the things they want to “bless” in current culture. Both lists include humor and France. The last section details the changes the editors should be made in the literary community of the time. The journal propagates vorticism, an artistic movement similar to cubism.

I like a lot of things about this manifesto. I like its fire. I like how the authors attempt to play both sides of several issues (like their love/hate relationship with the French). I love the way it looks. It’s interesting to me, too, how much modern manifestos, like “Holstee Manifesto,” seem to borrow from its aesthetic and design, although I’m not sure there’s a real connection to be drawn.

As a genre, I consider manifestos inherently rhetorical. They first seek to provide a layered definition. A good manifesto defines not only a movement or theory, but a people or culture, offering also a method of identification.  Second, they seek to incite an action that will improve the current situation, which, as Bitzer tells us, is crucial trait of a rhetorical act. Manifestos often draw on evidence to make claims about the world as the authors perceive it. They often draw on a strong emotional connection. They make bold and powerful propositions about what is possible for societies, communities, and ourselves.