In reading Ornatowski’s “The Future is Ours” in The Responsibilities of Rhetoric, I was fascinated by the discussion on totalitarian rhetoric using the language of the Realist Socialists in Poland, Stalinist Communist rhetoric, and the rhetoric of the Nazi party in Nazi Germany as examples. While his discussion as a whole was very interesting and featured specific ideas and broke them down rhetorically, some specific parts stood out to me and made me think about totalitarian rhetoric in our world today.
One of the most interesting comparisons Ornatowski made was his discussion of the V for Vendetta “The Future is Ours” slogan to the “I Like Ike” slogan. I enjoyed the way he established groundwork for his discussion by focusing on the way that the V for Vendetta phrase captured the totalitarian rhetoric in establishing a present future, forcing mass identification, and rejecting debate. I felt that this set a great groundwork for further analysis and identified core parts of totalitarian rhetoric. I also really enjoyed the way that he compared this to the “I Like Ike” slogan. I had never thought of the ways that this slogan presented individuality and choice, but after reading his discussion, I see the way that simple phrases can hold deeper messages. Interestingly, this immediately made me think of the “Make America Great Again” phrase and whether it represented individual or totalitarian rhetoric. I think that this phrase focuses on the unity of the people behind an idea and an assumed “we” that falls under the umbrella of totalitarian rhetoric.
Ornatowski’s focus on the rhetoric of “we” was also very interesting. I enjoyed reading about the ways that each regime addressed the usage of “we,” and I especially felt that his discussion of the term as representative of a tribal consciousness was illuminating. This idea of a word as unifying a tribe became more apparent as he went on, and I realized the value it had in unifying a group under the ideas of some rather than the ideas of all. Ornatowski’s continued focus on this term was a great way to introduce the idea of Totalizing rhetoric.
The concept of “totalizing” was especially interesting to me. His use of this term to describe the idea of totalitarian rhetoric’s “sole correctness” was very illuminating and allowed me to understand his message further. Ornatowski also presented an interesting idea with this term and its focus on promoting a single party while creating an enemy out of another. I found his example of the word “Terrorist” to describe a common enemy to be relatable, powerful, and somewhat unsettling. It is both interesting and scary to think of how easy a word can enter our national dialect and represent totalitarian ideas.
In all, I enjoyed reading this work. I feel that it is very valuable to focus on totalitarian rhetoric in today’s world where we are seeing a resurgence of nationalism and authoritarianism. It is important to understand the words that are being spoken in today’s political spheres in order to identify problems and rhetorical coercion in today’s world.
Jake Anderson 