Collective Identity as a Rhetorical Device

Abstract

Of the plural dimensions of collective identity, this paper explores identity as a rhetorical device.The identity tag is a case in point of pragmatic effectiveness.To account for such a power a hypothetical model of identity categories is presented.Its constituent modules shape four basic dimensions: position, deindividuation, exclusion and cognitive shielding.Such delineated narrative identity becomes equivalent to an informal ideology (Halliday, 2005).As constitutive rhetoric (Charland, 1987), the narrative construction of identities converts self-referential tautology into strategies of discrimination, purification and extermination of exponents of otherness.Last century mass destruction -totalitarianism, colonialism, ethno-nationalism -has been tributary to the identity paradigm. Key wordscollective identity, rhetoric, us vs. them, exclusion, moral obligation, political violence "Ogni identità è anche orribile perché per esistere debe tracciare un confine e respingere chi sta dall'alltra parte."C. Magris (Microcosmi, 43) "It is not the attribute that makes the group, but the group and group differences that make the attribute important (…) What counts is not whether objective differences are present, but whether they are used to mark one group off from another."D. Horowitz (1985: 50) "Sitôt qu'un homme se compare aux autres il devient nécessairement leur ennemi."J. J. Rousseau (Fragments Politiques, O.C. III: 478) "Nous sommes tous frères, nous nous sentons comme un seul hombre.(…) À present, nous sommes nous.(…) Nous voulons de nouvelles frontières.Nous voulons un empire."V. Stevanović (La neige et les chiens, 68)In this article * I link the concept of group loyalty with that of uncivil behaviour.Therefore, the scope of this relationship should be qualified from the

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