RT Article
T1 Spiritism as a target of 'annihilation': conceptual clarification and exemplification of a rhetorical strategy
JF Social compass
VO 66
IS 2
SP 211
OP 223
A1 Usarski, Frank
LA English
YR 2019
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1668022265
AB The rhetorical strategy of annihilation appears in situations of conflict between different world-views. It is the attempt of one of the parties involved to attribute an inferior status to the adversary. The technique requires the capacity of a social actor of influencing the public image of the phenomenon in question in a way that a public interest in the campaign becomes obvious. The success of this process of social construction depends on a twofold rhetorical talent of the 'constructor'. The first faculty is to reduce the complexity of the challenging phenomenon to alleged 'core elements'. The second one is to associate these 'core elements' to pre-established negative definitions so that the 'enemy' appears as a mere variant of a well-known unacceptable social phenomenon. In order to illustrate how and why the strategy of annihilation works, the article refers to the campaign against Spiritism driven by Brazilian authorities between 1890 and 1940.
K1 Brazil
K1 Brésil
K1 Annihilation
K1 Kardecism
K1 kardecisme
K1 Spiritism
K1 Spiritisme
K1 Stigmatisation
K1 Stigmatization
DO 10.1177/0037768619833312