Popular Culture Review 29.1 (Spring 2018) | Page 36

have accepted that in real-world persuasion , emotions , prior beliefs , tribalism , and prejudice also contribute to how audiences evaluate and understand statements and positions . A twentiethcentury American rhetorician , Richard Weaver , provides key insights into the rhetorical understanding of belief systems and the ensuing extra-rational ways in which people think about leadership . Weaver argues that in each particular culture there are “ charismatic ” terms , to which the culture responds viscerally rather than analytically . These can function as ultimate “ god ” or “ devil ” terms , embodying beliefs and inclinations of a society so fundamental that they are “ uncontested ” ( 1953 , 211-232 ). Writing in the 1950s , he saw “ progress ” as among one of the uncontested positive or “ god ” terms and “ un-American ” as one of the uncontested devil terms . Trump ’ s “ America first ” doctrine and the unbridled techno-optimism expressed by many Silicon Valley thought leaders are the twenty-first century equivalents of these positions .
Weaver grounds the existence of devil terms in “ the tribal need for a scapegoat ... to take care of those expressions of scorn and hatred to which peoples must give vent ” ( 1953 , 222 ) and argues that :
When another political state is not available to receive the discharge of such emotions , then a class will be chosen , or a race , or a type , or a political faction ( 1953 , 222 ).
In the World of Warcraft , the undead Scourge , to which Sylvanas and the Forsaken were subjugated before they recovered their free will , held that scapegoat position , and we see an echo of that attitude remaining in attitudes of the other races towards the Forsaken .
When two cultures have different uncontested terms , the problem is that they cannot rationally debate with each other because uncontested terms are not by nature rational conclusions arrived at through a chain of logic but rather the fundamental starting points from which arguments are developed . Weaver describes such “ charismatic terms ” as “ terms of considerable potency whose referents it is virtually impossible to discover ” ( 1953 , 227 ). In the case of Sylvanas and Garrosh , many of their differences ensue from holding different terms as uncontested . For Garrosh , two uncontested god terms are “ strength ” and “ honor ”, the latter conceived in the narrow sense of saving face and not backing down in cases of conflict or adversity . For Sylvanas , on the other hand , the uncontested positive term is “ survival ”, both individual and racial .
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