Presence, analogy, and 'Earth in the Balance.' (book by US Vice Pres. Albert Gore Jr.)

• Author: Murphy, John M.

Vice-President Albert Gore, Jr.'s bestselling book on the environment, Earth In the Balance, has generated a storm of controversy. Admirers, such as Lance Morrow of Time magazine and Martin Peretz of the New Republic, argue that Gore "speaks with a certain rare passionate authenticity, a ring of the unfakable that is rare enough in the (usually ghostwritten) outpourings of politicians" (Morrow, 1992). Such opinions won Gore the 13th annual Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. Detractors, on the other hand, call Gore an "out-and-out radical" and maintain that "the heart of his world view is an apocalyptic vision of an Earth teetering on the brink of destruction" (Bailey, 1992). They dispute Gore's evidence (Lucian, 1992) and come close to accusing him of deception (Easterbrook, 1992).

The heart of the book, and the sections that make supporters and detractors Gore most uncomfortable, consists of three analogies. The first is Gore's comparison of nuclear war to the environmental difficulties facing the world. The second, and most disconcerting, is Gore's likening of civilization's relationship to the earth with that of a dysfunctional family. The third is a familiar one; he compares the effort needed to the Marshall plan. These three analogies focus the argument of the book. The first provides an interpretive framework for the magnitude of the problem; the second suggests a language to describe the spiritual issues behind problem and solution; the third structures the proposals necessary to save the Earth. Gore's use of the analogies gives the book its rhetorical power or, in Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's terms, gives "presence" to his arguments.

The ill-defined concept of "presence" has tantalized argumentation scholars since the English translation of The New Rhetoric in 1969. As Karon (1989) argues, presence, loosely "translated" as the attention paid to or the importance accorded to an argument, is a critical element in the rhetorical theory of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca; if the goal of argument is "to induce or to increase the mind's adherence to the theses presented for its assent" (1969, p. 4), then the attention granted to those theses is of utmost salience. Presence, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca state, is of "paramount importance to the technique of argumentation".

Yet "presence" is ambiguous. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca identify it as both a psychological and a rational mode of argumentation. Its relationship to the rest of their rhetorical theory is uncertain. There is no analysis of its role in the uses of analogy, metaphor, example, quasi-logical argumentation, or any of the other strategies Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca forward. The secondary literature is equally scant. Only Karon (1989) and Kauffman and Parson (1990), and Leroux (1992) comment upon presence at length. Karon's intriguing analysis is concerned with what presence reveals about Perelman's epistemology. Kauffman and Parson comment insightfully on the relationship between metaphor and presence, but they are interested in the use of dead metaphors. Rather than detailing the "presence" of presence, they study the strategic absence of presence.

Leroux (1992) opens the most useful path to an analysis of presence. His discussion of presence, situated within the development of a critical vocabulary for the understanding of style, emphasizes the function of presence. He argues that "style is the initial encounter through which auditors apprehend meaning" and that presence, treated as a stylistic device rather than a philosophical concept, can be useful for understanding "the language variations and tactics [that] can enlarge or vivify a subject". Leroux notes the important role that analogy can play in creating presence and suggests that presence is one way through which critics can collapse the troublesome form/content distinction.

In this essay, I extend the work of these authors, particularly Leroux, by exploring the relationship between analogy and presence through a critique of Earth in the Balance. I have three purposes. The first is to offer an explanation for the rhetorical power of a treatise on the environment which has become a bestseller. The second is to demonstrate the significance of presence as a theoretical and critical concept, particularly in terms of its ability to negotiate the form/content distinction. The third is to offer, through this critique, a "redescription" (Rorty, 1989, 1991; see also Horne, 1989, 1993) of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's work as a pragmatic rhetorical theory, one aimed at collapsing the distinction between rhetoric and philosophy. I suggest that it might be useful to "mis-read" the New Rhetoric against the tradition of American pragmatist thought, rather than in light of European philosophy. Such a move would permit critics to view Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's New Rhetoric as a taxonomy of the means by which Rorty's redescription takes place.

In the first section of the essay, then, I examine the obstacles Gore faced as he sought to alert the American public to the possibilities of environmental catastrophe. After an explication of the relationship between analogy and presence in Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's thought, I turn to an analysis of Gore's use of analogy as a response to his obstacles. Finally, I conclude with some thoughts on the possible relationships between contemporary pragmatism and the New Rhetoric.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT

Environmental historians agree that there have been three waves of ecological activism in American history (McCormick, 1989; Shabecoff, 1993). The first movement, sparked by President Theodore Roosevelt and his advisor, Gifford Pinchot, was motivated by the need to create and preserve the national park system in the United States. This period marked the marriage of Roosevelt's political power with the conservationist impulses of environmental groups (Shabecoff 1993, pp. 62-76). The second outburst occurred in the 1960's and 1970's. Sparked initially by Rachel Carson's moving 1962 bestseller, Silent Spring, and fueled by outrage over a series of environmental catastrophes, the focus of this movement was pollution. The result was legislation throughout the 1970's designed to clean up the nation's air and water. In addition, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency gave such concerns a permanent place within governmental deliberations (McCormick, 1989, pp. 47-68, 132-135).

We are now in the midst of the "Third Wave" of environmental activism (Shabecoff, 1993, pp. 251-275). The third wave differs in important ways from the other two movements. First, the contemporary movement is far more decentralized than past ones. As recognition of environmental problems grows, organizations have split over focus and tactics. Some have become professional lobbying and mass-marketing ventures, no different in skills and structure from the corporate groups they seek to defeat in the halls of Congress. Others have turned to radical, grass-roots, action to save threatened areas and species, as well as to oppose environmentally dangerous projects in their areas (pp. 261-262; see also, Short, 1991). While a "division of labor" works well to accomplish specific tasks, the movement is ideologically and tactically muddled.

The movement also lacks a good relationship with the federal government. Unlike the previous two movements, the third wave has, until January of 1993, operated in a hostile atmosphere. The counter-revolution of the 1980's, led by Ronald Reagan, demeaned traditional environmental concerns, starved appropriate agencies of funds, and gave opponents of environmental activism, such as James Watt, the key positions in the Administration. Reagan, and many allies, argued that environmental legislation cost American jobs. They also attacked the very idea that there were major environmental concerns, claiming that liberal scientists had overstated their case (Shabecoff, 1993, pp. 203-230).

Finally, the third wave has adopted a global perspective and a concern for social justice. Throughout the 1980's, it became evident that many environmental problems, such as global warming, rain forest depletion, or whale-hunting, transcended national boundaries. Groups like Greenpeace became truly international organizations and the links between the American environmental movement and Green parties throughout the world began to grow. In addition, activists recognized that poverty and pollution often went hand-in-hand. For instance, governments and corporations often chose poor areas as locations for waste dumps, assuming that the people there would not have the ability to light back. Social justice forced its way on to the environmental agenda (Shabecoff, 1993, pp. 231-250).

Gore's rhetorical obstacles grew out of the characteristics of the Third Wave.(1) First, the book seeks to set the priorities for a sprawling movement; Gore talks of Silent Spring in his introduction (1992, p. 3) and Carson's book serves as his model. He seeks to rebuild the link environmental activism traditionally enjoyed with political power and to carve out a "progressive" center to support environmental legislation.

In order to do so, Gore needs to accomplish a second objective: to refute the arguments of conservatives. The claim that economic growth and environmental activism are mutually exclusive goals hinders any effort to invigorate a powerful political coalition in favor of change. Technical obfuscation, so characteristic of ecological arguments (Farrell and Goodnight, 1981), should be cleared away. Gore, quoting Ivan Illich, argues that we must begin to search "for a language to speak about the shadow our future throws". Finally, if the arguments of the book are to be credible to middle America, Gore needs to dissociate himself from the radical, Earth First! fringe of the movement. I argue in this paper that Gore's three major analogies work well to overcome these...