Battling over Our Values with the Pledge

In the spirit of the recent 4^th of July holiday, firecracker debris now finally cleared from the streets, I would like to turn the rhetorical lens on a common fixture of American patriotism: the Pledge of Allegiance.

The Pledge of Allegiance is recited by millions of children everyday before they dive into math, science, and reading. We are asked to stand and recite it at formal occasions, like graduations, and sometimes sporting events. Organizations, like the Boy Scouts of America, have even incorporated the civic oath into their ceremonial fare.

In recent years, however, it has become a site of contention. More specifically it has become a battleground in the never-ending “culture wars.” Recently the North Carolina Secular Association, as part of a larger campaign “to end official discrimination by reverting to the original Pledge of Allegiance” along with other initiatives, put up a number of billboards in North Carolina around the Independence Day holiday with a particular phrase from the Pledge of Allegiance, except that they had modified it.

Courtesy of NCSA

As you can see, the NCSA has removed the words “under God” leaving “One Nation Indivisible.” However, objectors spray-painted the words “Under God” on one of their billboards, the one standing next to the Billy Graham Parkway, no less.

Courtesy of Yahoo! News

This controversy, as represented by this billboard-spray paint dialogue, represents a larger battle that seems particularly focused on the Pledge of Allegiance, although by no means exclusively. Why?

In ancient Greece, Aristotle, one of the first to systematize rhetorical theory in the West, devised a three-part classification system of public oratory: 1) Judicial oratory, which included discourse that occurred in the law courts, 2) Deliberative oratory, which included the discourse of politicians usually before a body citizens voting on a piece of legislation, and 3) Epideictic, which included funeral eulogies, festival speeches, public invective, and speeches given on ceremonial occasions.

Given the occasions that the Pledge of Allegiance is often recited, I think we may safely place it in the category of epideictic. Of course, rhetoricians are never satisfied with simply classifying discourse; they must describe its persuasive facets. For a description of epideictic, we jump a couple of millennium forward to the work of European thinkers Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca writing in the wake of World War II. They give us a succinct definition of the genre:

The purpose of an epid[e]ictic speech is to increase the intensity of adherence to values held in common by the audience and the speaker. (52)

Epideictic assumes that the values it espouses are held in common by speaker and audience alike, by the community, and it works to promote these values by reinforcing our attachment to them—and constant recitation seems like a rather effective means towards this end. Further, they explain:

The speaker tries to establish a sense of communion centered around particular values recognized by the audience…. (51)

Epideictic is supposed to unite us around our shared values, perhaps by making what is usually invisible to us visible, and in particular that which informs our sense of identity.

The very concept of this kind of oratory…results in its being practiced by those who, in a society, defend the traditional and accepted values, those which are the object of education, not the new and revolutionary values which stir up controversy and polemics…. In epideictic rhetoric, the speaker turns educator. (51)

Epideictic by nature is a conservative form of rhetoric. It works to preserve the putative values of the community. Epideictic in many ways is a form of cultural education, bestowing upon the next generation the community’s values, and in this sense the epideictic rhetor is a teacher.

It’s no wonder then that Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca write,

It is because epid[e]ictic discourse is intended to promote values on which there is agreement that one has an impression of misuse when in a speech of this kind someone takes up a position on a controversial question, turns the argument toward disputed values and introduces a discordant note on an occasion that is liable to promote communion, a funeral ceremony for instance. (53)

When controversy enters into a piece of epideictic discourse, it represents a violation of one of epideictic’s fundamental purposes, which is to unite the community.

As we begin to understand epideictic rhetoric and begin to see the Pledge of Allegiance as an instance of the genre, why it has been the site of so much controversy becomes not only clearer but also more complex. As the US has become more pluralistic in recent years, and the number of citizens claiming no religion has increased, a piece of oratory that presents and rhetorically reinforces theism as a shared belief would understandably be repugnant to those who don’t in fact share that belief. What is supposed to unite the nation is understandably felt to be exclusive and therefore divisive.

On the other hand, those whose values are reflected in that particular phrase, and who see theism as an intrinsic value of the United States, a value to be preserved and taught to future generations, would find the removal of the offending phrase not only an attack on their beliefs, but more relevantly an attack on the identity of the nation through its values. Epideictic is meant to both reflect the values of the community and preserve them. A change in an established, recited discourse like the Pledge of Allegiance suggests a change in the composition of the community itself, not just its values, which for some could be unsettling, especially if they are invested in a particular identity of the United States.

That there is a “culture war” currently being waged in the US is not news. Nor is it news that the Pledge of Allegiance has been one battle site for this on-going war. However, by understanding the Pledge of Allegiance as an instance of epideictic rhetoric, we can perhaps understand why the battle over two words has been so explosive. The Pledge of Allegiance is one of the few stable, national, public discursive forms we have that reflects and reinforces our values. While there have been other efforts to remove other expressions of theism from the civic sphere, the Pledge of Allegiance is a frequent object of attack, and subsequently defense, because of its important role in the struggle over values.