Psychopolitics of Speech : Uncivil Discourse and the Excess of Desire

187 Pages·2019·1.161 MB·English

by  James Martin

James Martin
Psychopolitics of Speech
Political Science | Volume 40
James Martin is Professor of Political Theory at Goldsmiths, University of Lon-
don. His research includes studies on Continental political theory, psychoana-
lysis, and rhetoric.
James Martin
Psychopolitics of Speech
Uncivil Discourse and the Excess of Desire
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Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-3919-3
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Content
Preface �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 7
Introduction ������������������������������������������������������������������������� 9
1. Bodies of Speech ������������������������������������������������������������� 25
2. Voicing Desire ����������������������������������������������������������������� 53
3. Talking to Excess ������������������������������������������������������������ 83
4. The Force of the Bitter Argument ������������������������������������ 109
5. An Ethics of Speech? ������������������������������������������������������ 139
Conclusion �������������������������������������������������������������������������� 169
Bibliography ����������������������������������������������������������������������� 175
For Luis
Preface
This book originates in work undertaken for a Leverhulme Trust Re-
search Fellowship from 2013–15 on ‘Affective Rhetorical Strategies in
Political Rhetoric’. I am grateful to the Trust for their support in that
project, which produced various papers and a journal publication (see
Martin, 2016), and to the organisers of various events at which some
early ideas were developed as paper presentations. Versions of the text
were delivered at: the University of Bath (2015); the Political Studies As-
sociation (PSA) conference in Sheffield (2015); the University of Essex
(2016); the University of Bournemouth (2017); the Rhetoric Society of
Europe Conference at the University of East Anglia (2017); Goldsmiths
(2017); Oxford Brookes University (2018); and the PSA conference in
Cardiff (2018). My gratitude also goes to the following for reading (or
hearing) parts of the text and offering helpful insights and sugges-
tions: Jakob Horstman at transcript; Jeremy Larkins, Saul Newman,
Tom Henderson and Peter Reece at Goldsmiths; Judi Atkins at Aston
University; and my son, Luis, to whom this book is dedicated. Parts of
Chapter 4 appear in a contribution to S. Krüger, et al. Fomenting Politi-
cal Violence (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2018).

Introduction
Nothing gets people arguing more than argument itself. Public dis-
agreements so frequently dissolve into acrimony over what is a per-
missible claim, which remarks count as fair and factual, or who is a
genuine participant worthy of hearing. That is because to engage in
argument is more than just to express an opinion. It is to modify the
space of argument itself so that alternative opinions (and the people
who hold them) are diminished or compelled to react. Argument – or,
more broadly, ‘rhetoric’ – is an activity of speech that involves, si-
multaneously, expressing one’s views and controlling opportunities
for others to express their own. People bicker over the conditions of
engagement because they anticipate, correctly, they might not get
heard as they would prefer. We like to imagine public debate as a no-
ble and inclusive endeavour based on respect for free expression of
different opinions but, unavoidably, most arguing entails a more-or-
less subtle contest for advantage. ‘Speech constrains’, claims Stan-
ley Fish, ‘because as an action impelled by belief and conviction it is
always in the business (implicitly if not explicitly) or rejecting and
stigmatising the beliefs and convictions of others’ (Fish, 1999: 93. See
also Fish, 2016).
What is at stake in social and political discourse, then, is rarely
a matter of innocently getting one’s voice heard. More than that, we
affirm our stance towards a wider situation and try to get others to
recognise it, even accept it as their own. That is why rhetoric matters
to politics. Beyond mere self-expression, to speak and argue in public
is to affect others. The way argumentative speech is formulated func-
tions in excess of its overt propositional content and, as such, disposes