Messianic hopes at the moral carnival – The [rhetorical] question of advocating for the humanities, for now

• Author: Doxtader, E.
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a1
• Published date: 05 September 2022
• Date: 05 September 2022
• Pages: 1-51

1

https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a1

Messianic hopes at the moral carnival –

The [rhetorical] question of advocating

for the humanities, for now

ERIK DOXTADER*

for Philippe – 5x5 and leading light

Why must the hum anities be defended? What is to be said in their

name? This inquiry does not seek to make a case for the human ities.

It is rather concerned with what happens in contemporary advocacy

that contends for the value of the humanities, the my riad arg uments

that take on the responsibil ity of speak ing for the huma nities and

expressi ng the good for which the hum anities are t hought responsible.

In all of this work, in so ma ny eorts to argue the huma nities, what

remains uncomprehended, and indeed what is reg ularly set aside as

simply incomprehensible, is the work of rhetor ical-argument itsel f,

the contingent conditions, dy namics and power of a response, the

response-ability on wh ich a comprehension of the hum anities m ay

yet depend.

Step quick and step up – for a chan ce to say your piece about the humanities.

Get three claims through the hoop and have fun doing it. Defend the faith.

The greater the piety, the bigger the prize! Everyone is a winner!

Yes indeed, welcome to the carnival, the show that never

ends – until it pulls up stakes and leaves town under the cover

of darkness. If one might wish otherwise, we have not arrived

at a more or less Bakhtinian bacchanalia of self-relinquishment

(usually operationalised in more or less inebriated pleas to ‘show

us your ... literature!’). Not so much. Though somet imes attached

to local and provincial fairs, with their displays of homegrown

vegetables and livestock, the carnival – or funfair – is a properly

retro ‘stick and rag’ show. Trucked-in, unfolded and opened in

rural elds and empty urban lots by ‘ying squadrons’ that follow

‘red arrows’ to the ‘next jump’, this midway without a proper

circus is announced with ‘paper’ that tempts ‘marks’ with sights

* P rofessor of Rhetoric, Un iversity of South Carol ina, USA.

2022 Acta Juridica 1

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2 THE CRI TICAL RHETORIC OF Ph-J SALAZAR

https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a1

unseen and ‘swag’ to bring home.1 Once arrived – parking is extra

– there is no cause to fret the crowd, if there is one. The corndogs

will ease the pain, at least if they are eaten after riding the high-

ying-spinning rides, all of which show a bit too much rust and

sound a bit too much clatter, a disconcer ting if not fear-inducing

fragi lity that speaks to the somewhat detached machinations

of a largely invisible corporation. In whatever order they are

consumed, the tilt-a-whirl and the cotton candy will always cost

a bit too much and come with no assurance of satisfaction beyond

their procurement after waiting in an inexplicably slow line, an

interval that renders legs sore and ears tired. Indeed, the barkers

are relentless with their endless and competing invocations to part

with a coin in the name of a prize that will conrm one’s worldly

skills and impress one’s companion. Be warned though – to play

such games is to confront humility, and more than likely, a bit of

humiliation if the x is on, which it is. Of course, we should have

known better, although it is dicult not to be distracted, to keep

one’s bearings in faux alleys beset with blinking lights and bells

and whistles, all of which conspire to keep us playing and paying

beyond the time that we had hoped to depart.

Precisely what are we doing at the carn ival? What is to be

said in the name of the humanities? There is a deep resonance

between these questions. But, to be clear from the turnstile at

the front gate, it is not that the carnival discloses the problems

that motivate so much humanistic inquiry, or that the midway

is a manifestation of modern ity’s passage through and into the

humanism that stages this or that dialectic of enlightenment.2

And while perhaps tempting, it is also not that the carnival aords

space to reect on the popular charge that the humanities are an

unproductive, unedifying and overpriced distraction. All in all, if

the carnival symbolises a cheap date that we cannot really aord,

what follows is not an attempt to grasp, indeed comprehend,

the humanities through the operations of the midway, or linger

with maniacal critics bent on demonstrating that the classroom

1 O n the Americ an and Brit ish-Euro ca rniva l ‘lingo’, see American Circ us

Lingo, avail able at http://goodmagic.com/carny/c_a.htm.

2 W hat follows her e is not meant to ru le out such an inqui ry. For an import ant

reection t hat relies some what on the gu re of the carnival, see S Wynter ‘The

ceremony must be fou nd: After Human ism’ (1984) 12 boundary 2 19.

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MESSI ANIC HOPES AT THE MORA L CARNIVAL 3

https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a1

door (to say nothing of faculty research) marks the threshold of

the (socialist-activist-leftist) freak show. Indeed, such inquiries

require a kind of deliberate miscomprehension, an overlooking

and mis-taking of the obvious: the carnival is trite. Its attractions

neither astound nor confuse (nor indoctrinate, except perhaps for

the deep-fried butter). Beyond an unfullling self-indulgence, the

carniva l calls for the suspension of disbelief in the midst of a self-

betraying façade. It is then exceptional. Demanding a complicity

that brushes the edge of hypocrisy, the midway’s promise is a

tenuous metaphor, a relation strained to the point of a hyperbole.

It is a conceit.

We understand this, though it is considered inappropriate to

say so aloud. Long before we ar rive, and for the duration of the

tired ride home, we grasp that the carnival does not deliver. We

understand the b that the carnival asks us (not) to tell, the white

lie (of its white mythology) that leaves us with the never-quite-

answered question of how we ended up here in the rst place. Year

after year, appeals to the ‘needs’ of the children and invocations

of a ‘tradition’ that no one can quite recall do not really cut it.

The carnival’s many lights and inviting booths promise what they

then refuse to provide; the midway’s gastronomy begs the question

of its consumption; and its grand attraction, the romantic Ferris

Wheel, precludes lateral motion (one hopes), takes us aloft for a

single view, and rocks us back and forth in an eort to obscure

how we have spent most of our time waiting in line to get on and

o in one spot.

None of this composes a picture of the humanities. And yet,

all of this, quite precisely, can be said about the contemporary

eorts to advocate for the humanities. Indeed, it is not a stretch

to suggest that the carniva l’s conceit allegorises so very much of

the work dedicated to explaining and defending the va lue of the

humanit ies. More than a few wil l nd this sugge stion dour, unkind ,

or perhaps even disloyal – is now the moment to pledge allegiance? It

is not, however, a prelude to yet another vitriol-laden rant against

the humanities, the likes of which appear on a weekly basis and

subvent so much ‘reporting’ on higher education.3 Nor is it the

beginning of another round of the ever-popular game, ‘read the

3 F or a laundr y list of char ges, with a bib liography, see S Sin clair

‘Confront ing the criticis ms: A survey of attack s on the humanities’ 4Humanities

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