Identification and Persuasion United

I felt as if our reading of Anzaldua in many ways spoke to Campbell’s article “The Rhetoric of Women’s Liberation:  An Oxymoron.”  Anzdldua’s discussions of the various roles and identities ascribed to her as a woman, a Chicano, and a lesbian seem to address the multiplicity and differences that Campbell describes as unique in the rhetoric of women’s liberation.  Rather than persuasion, Campbell identifies consciousness raising as the central aim of women’s liberation rhetoric.  Specifically, she describes this process as:

 ...involv[ing] meetings of small, leaderless groups in which each person is encouraged to   express her personal feeling and experiences.  There is no leader, rhetor, or expert.  All participate and lead; all are considered expert.  The goal is to make the personal political:  to create awareness (through shared experiences) that what were thought to be personal deficiencies and individual problems are common and shared, a result of their position as women. (128)

Thus, the rhetoric of women’s liberation is paradoxical (or oxymoronic) in a sense—the rhetoric serves to actually create the audience.  Once the women involved can share their personal experiences and find similarities to create a feeling of unity, then more political actions can be taken.  Unlike common rhetorical situations in which a rhetor attempts to persuade an already established audience, this form of rhetoric involves everyone as rhetor and audience, seeking to create a felt sense that will lead to action.

Anzaldua discusses a similar scenario, albeit from a more personalized perspective.  She notes that, “This step is a conscious rupture with all oppressive traditions of all cultures and religions.  She communicates that rupture, documents the struggle.  She reinterprets history and, using new symbols, she shapes new myths.  She adopts new perspectives toward the darkskinned, women and queers.  She strengthens her tolerance (and intolerance) for ambiguity” (1600).  This passage illustrates Campbell’s concept of the movement from personal to political.  The struggle of women’s liberation rhetoric appears, at least in my estimation, to find unification while acknowledging difference; to find a common cause without reducing those involved to commonalities.

Essentially, the addition of this second population complicates what we know of rhetoric since it acknowledges an initial step not addressed in classical notions of rhetoric—the creation of the audience.  In many ways, I see parallels between this and Burke’s notion of identification.  Women’s liberation rhetoric seems, according to Campbell, to require identification before persuasion can happen.  Hence, rhetoric serves both purposes, with one (identification) creating the ability for the other (persuasion). 

Although these readings focused on women’s rhetoric, theoretically this concept of identification creating the exigence for persuasion could be applied to numerous movements.  Having done some research on the Tea Party movement (before I switched topics), there was strong evidence to support the assertion that identification helped created the audience to be persuaded.  Many Tea Party members are both fundamentalist Christians as well as staunchly opposed to Obama.  Once these individuals identified with one another, the movement was able to persuade the collective of the best courses of actions to reach goals that aided this shared sense of identification.  Rhetorical theory, thus, seems to be less of a debate between identification and persuasion and more of a study of how the two reciprocally influence one another.  Contemplating this second population enabled me to complicate my understanding of these rhetorical processes.