Representation and Symbols Within the Rhetorical Situation of Human Rights

Representation and Symbols Within the Rhetorical Situation of Human Rights

“…the systems of representation reflect the histories of domination and power within them.”-Lyon and Olson

  Before entering this class, I had really never given much thought to human rights functioning as a “text,” or within a rhetorical situation. Furthermore, I had never thought about how “human rights” have been defined, shaped, shifted, and debated through rhetoric, and how this is a continuing conversation, particularly in the academic setting. With that being said, reading Lyon and Olson was very eye-opening to me in regards to the present discussion of human rights within academia.

 Lyon and Olson discuss how one of the main functions of rhetorical analysis of human rights looks at the representation of human right concerns. When looking at representation, one can have a “so basic a rhetorical focus the scrutiny of language itself.” It is important to scrutinize language because sometimes “the very means of communication can work against advocates’ endeavors to actualize social justice.” Particularly through representation can language actually be a hindrance as opposed to helping, and as we analyze human rights this is something that is important to keep in mind. Adrienne Rich observes that “certain challenges in using language and symbols to transform cultures in life-enhancing ways, including witnessing and testifying, because the systems of representation reflect the histories of domination and power within them. Human rights can be declared, advocated, and debated only through symbolic representations, however much these vary among cultures.”

            Rich’s observation left me thinking about symbolic representation within human rights, and how oppression throughout history plays a major role in establishing these symbols. Human rights arise out the fact that at one point there were/are people experiencing a lack of humans rights, and therefore the language surrounding conversation can easily be stained with such traces. It stains these symbolic representations, creating a different experiences with such symbols.

            The idea of symbolic representation led me back to Burke’s Symbol as Formative and his claims about modes of experiences and how they come to substantiate a symbol. Burke describes modes of experiences as being the “relationship between and organism and its environment.” It’s through these patterns of experiences that a symbol is formed, as a symbol is a verbal parallel to patterns of experiences. What is important to keep in mind however, is that people are always going to have different relationships with their environment, creating different patterns of experience and therefore different interactions with a symbol. In Rhodes Must Fall, for example, Cecil Rhodes and the people during that time had a very different experience with their environment than the current residents of Capetown and participants of the movement, creating very different interactions with the symbol of the statue. The symbol of the statue is stained with the representation of colonialism and white supremacy, past histories of domination and power. But only for those who have had this experience.

            Through looking at Burke’s idea of patterns of experiences and how they parallel to symbols, we are able to see what Rich meant through her observations about the challenges of looking at representation of human right concerns.