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possible that hate speech would be used on some occasion. Rhetors who oppose implementation of a speech code could argue that it is possible that such a code will stifle free speech. Arguing from relative possibilities, those who support a code could argue, alternatively, that its implementation increases the possibility that those who might otherwise utter offensive remarks will keep these to themselves.

The topic of possibility is also used regularly in discussions of abortion. Proponents of choice argue that it is not possible to stop women from hav- ing abortions by means of legislation against it. Opponents argue that it is possible to stop women from having abortions, and they seek to do so either by passing laws against it or by bringing the moral authority of the community to bear.

C O M M O N P L A C E S A N D I D E O L O G Y

Contemporary rhetoricians have a way of speaking about the sensus com- munis, or the common sense that is shared among members of a commu- nity: they call it ideology. As we suggested in the first chapter of this book, ideologies are bodies of doctrines, familiar ways of thinking that are characteristic of a group or a culture. They can be economic, ethical, politi- cal, philosophical, or religious. When we call someone a capitalist or a socialist, we assume that she subscribes to a set of coherent beliefs about the best way to structure an economy. If we say that someone is a Christian, Muslim, or Jew, we imply that she holds a recognizable set of religious val- ues. If we describe someone as a conservative or as a liberal, we imply that her political practices are guided by a distinct set of beliefs about human nature. If we refer to someone as a feminist or an environmentalist, we imply that his ethical, economic, social, and political practices are governed by a coherent philosophical position. Capitalism and socialism, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, conservatism and liberalism, feminism,

and are examples of ideologies.

As the preceding examples illustrate, some ideologies are more sweep- ing than others, some are highly respected in given cultures, and some are older or more powerful than others. In rhetoric, the power of an ideology is measured by the degree to which it influences the beliefs and actions of relatively large groups of relatively powerful people. Ideologies that are subscribed to by large groups of people are called "dominant" or "hege- monic" (from Greek hegemoon, "prince" or "guide"). Ideologies subscribed to by small or marginalized groups are called "subordinate" or "minority." The relations between dominant and subordinate ideologies are complex and they change over time. Forty years ago, for example,

ism influenced the discourse and practice of only a people; it was a dis- tinctly subordinate or minority discourse in America. In the process of gaining wider support, environmentalism has challenged the hegemony of other, far more powerful those of individualism and capitalism. It has not yet succeeded in becoming a dominant ideology, pre-

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cisely because it calls into question hegemonic discourses that are central to American thought. Environmentalism has not had much impact on the dis- course of individualism, for example, as is attested by the resistance Americans have shown to buying smaller, less polluting vehicles and to cutting back on the amount of driving they do.

Even more confusing, several ideologies can be referred to by a single term: there are varieties of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, just as there are different kinds of feminism and environmentalism. All are subscribed to with varying degrees of faithfulness by people who are influenced by them. Some ideologies are so pervasive or have been in place for so long that the people who subscribe to them seldom actually articulate the beliefs that constitute them. To articulate can mean both "to speak" and "to connect to nearby things or concepts," and we hope that our readers will keep both meanings in mind when we use this word. As a general rule, the need to articulate deeply held ideological beliefs comes about only when some new ideological construct challenges an older one. Such is the case currently with vegetarianism, which, as we suggested in the first chapter of this book, has recently challenged the centrality of meat eating within American dietary beliefs and practices.

Ideologies can be held by a small group or an entire culture. No doubt the ideology held by each person results from life experiences and educa- tion. But even though ideologies grow out of experience, none is unique, because experiences, and our memories of them, are influenced by prevail- ing cultural attitudes about ethnicity, gender, class, appearance, and occu- pation, among a host of other things.

Commonplaces that make up an ideology sometimes contradict one another. Some thinkers about ideology argue that its function is precisely to smooth over contradictions in our lives. How can Americans be per- suaded to go to war, for example, where the probability is high that the lives of loved ones will be put in danger? A skilled rhetor who urges our going to war can deploy commonplaces drawn from American patriotism to downplay fears of injury or death and to cause people to forget about the horrors of war.

Groups often coalesce around ideologies, such as environmentalism (Greenpeace, the Sierra Club) or fascism (American Nazi Party, skinheads). Groups also coalesce around specific issues: members of Operation Rescue are united by their opposition to abortion; members of NOW (the National Organization for Women) are united by their desire to enact legislation that will secure equality for women. Members of each of these groups may or may not share the same ideologies, however. Some members of Operation Rescue, for example, appear to oppose abortion on religious grounds, while others oppose it for moral or political or social reasons. Members of NOW may subscribe to a variety of radical, cultural, materialist, third-wave, it is conceivable that a member of NOW may not be a feminist at all.

Some rhetoricians think that entire cultures may subscribe to a com- mon ideology. E. D. Hirsch, for example, claims that there is a perceptible

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American ideology that centers on values embedded in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Hirsch describes America's "civil religion," as he calls it, as follows:

Our civil ethos treasures patriotism and loyalty as high, though perhaps not ultimate, ideals and fosters the belief that the conduct of the nation is guided by a vaguely defined God. Our tradition places importance on carrying out the rites and ceremonies of our civil ethos and religion through the national flag, the national holidays, and the national anthem (which means "national hymn"), and supports the morality of tolerance and benevolence, of the Golden Rule, and communal cooperation. We believe in altruism and self-help, in equality, freedom, truth telling, and respect for the national law. Besides these vague principles, American culture fosters such myths about itself as its practicality, ingenuity, inventiveness, and independent-mindedness, its con- nection with the frontier, and its beneficence in the world (even when its lead- ers do not always follow beneficent policies). It acknowledges that Americans have the right to disagree with the traditional values but nonetheless acquiesce in the dominant civil ethos to the point of accepting imprisonment as the ulti- mate means of expressing dissent. (98-99)

Has Hirsch captured Americans' commonplace sense of what it means to be an American? Remember that commonplaces are not necessarily

the distinguishing mark of a commonplace, rather, is that it is widely believed. Remember too that the commonplaces that make up an ideology sometimes contradict one another.

Take the value called "patriotism," for example. During the Vietnam war, those who opposed the United States' participation in that war were widely castigated as unpatriotic. A popular slogan, "America: love it or leave it," suggested that anyone who did not support the war did not sup- port America and hence was not wanted in the country. Those who opposed the war, however, thought of themselves precisely as

people who loved their country and showed as much by dissenting from its foreign policy (an act that is quintessentially American, according to Hirsch). Some opponents of the war actually went to prison in order to express their dissent. The boxer Muhammad who was then called Cassius Clay, is probably the most famous person who was imprisoned for refusing to serve in the war. But thousands of other men were also incar- cerated for burning their draft cards or otherwise refusing to be inducted into military service.

For rhetoricians, the point of this example is that while Americans may disagree about what counts as a patriotic act, the value of

of in American discourse with such power that it

affects lives and actions. Disagreements about what patriotism is or about the specific acts that can be classified as patriotic (voting? serving in the military? speaking well of friends and ill of perceived enemies?) are argu- ments; that is, they can be subjected to invention (conjecture and definition in these examples), and rhetors can work toward achieving agreement about them. Patriotism itself, in contrast, has a second important status in

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rhetoric if it is a fundamental tenet of American is, if it is a commonplace in that ideology.

During the 1960s, conjectures about patriotism became available for argument; that is, there was sufficient disagreement about what constitutes patriotism that fierce discussion and even violence erupted over its mean- ing. That people were willing to do verbal and physical battle over this value suggests that its status as a commonplace was then in jeopardy. People do not generally make arguments about values that are so funda- mental to their belief systems that they literally "go without saying" or can be "taken for granted." Both phrases in quotes are shorthand ways of describing an interesting feature of commonplaces, which are so basic to a mode of thought and behavior that people who subscribe to them may remain unaware of their allegiance to them. Commonplaces are, literally, "taken for are statements that everyone assumes already to be satisfactorily proven. So no one bothers to discuss them. Today it seems that patriotism has returned to its status as a commonplace that virtually "goes without saying." As we write, however, politicians and journalists are discussing reinstatement of the military draft. We cannot predict the outcome of this argument, but we can say with assurance that arguments about reinstating the draft will be saturated with references to patriotism and struggles over its meaning.

Here is another list of American commonplaces, written this time by Howard Zinn, whose politics are to the left of Hirsch's:

We grow up in a society where our choice of ideas is limited and where certain ideas dominate: We hear them from our parents, in the schools, in the churches, in the newspapers, and on radio and television. They have been in the air ever since we learned to walk and talk. They constitute an American

is, a dominant pattern of ideas. Most people accept them, and if we do, too, we are less likely to get into trouble.

The dominance of these ideas is not the product of a conspiratorial group that has devilishly plotted to implant on society a particular point of view. Nor is it an accident, an innocent result of people thinking freely. There is a process of natural (or, rather unnatural) selection, in which certain orthodox ideas are encouraged, financed, and pushed forward by the most powerful mechanisms of our culture. These ideas are preferred because they are safe; they don't threaten established wealth or power.

For instance:

"Be realistic; this is the way things are; there's no point thinking about how things should be."

"People who teach or write or report the news should be objective; they should not try to advance their own opinions."

"There are unjust wars, but also just wars."

"If you disobey the law, even for a good cause, you should accept your punishment."

"If you work hard enough, you'll make a good living. If you are poor, you have only yourself to blame."

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"Racial equality is desirable, but we've gone far enough in that direction." "Our constitution is our greatest guarantee of liberty and justice."

"The United States must intervene from time to time in various parts of the world with military power to stop communism and promote democracy,"

"If you want to get things changed, the only way is to go through the proper channels."

"We need nuclear weapons to prevent war."

"There is much injustice in the world but there is nothing that ordinary peo- ple, without wealth or power, can do about it."

These ideas are not accepted by all Americans. But they are believed widely enough and strongly enough to dominate our thinking. (3-4)

Zinn's list shows that commonplaces do change. For instance,

places about the threat of communism are not now so powerful nor so widespread as they were prior to the collapse of Soviet Communism, and the threat of nuclear war does not now seem so menacing as it once did. Nonetheless, all the commonplaces Zinn lists have enjoyed currency within American discourse, and many still harbor the power to stir people to action.

Even though Hirsch and Zinn do not agree precisely about what beliefs constitute an American ideology, they do agree that it exists. Whether we can list its contents precisely or not, everyone who lives in America is affected by its ideology, since its values are embedded in our public dis- course. Our coinage says "From many, one" and "In God we trust"; our ele- mentary schoolbooks tell us that "all men are created equal"; our national anthem tells us that America is "the land of the free and the home of the brave." Action movies tell us that life's problems can be solved by vio-

more spectacular the better. Whether we believe these com- monplaces or not, they provide the terms within which American discourse works. Rhetors cannot escape the commonplaces of American public dis- course, and they overlook them at their peril.

An understanding of ideology, of the common sense of a group or a whole culture, is important to rhetors because people do not respond to a rhetorical proposition out of context. Their responses are determined by the ideologies to which they subscribe. People use commonplaces to express ideological positions. Contemporary commonplaces range from well-worn slogans ("tax and spend," "family values," "When guns are outlawed only criminals will have guns") to sophisticated texts that encapsulate key beliefs of a given ideology (the platform of a political party, a bible, a con- stitution). The persuasive power of rhetorical commonplaces depends upon the fact that they express assumptions held in common by people who subscribe to a given ideology. For example: a first principle of envi- ronmental philosophy is preservation of the earth's ecosystem. Within the environmentalist community, people have developed commonplaces that express this principle: "Earth first"; "Good planets are hard to find." These slogans represent the received wisdom of the environmental community in a shorthand that reminds its members of their shared beliefs. They can be deployed whenever the group needs to be energized or reminded of its

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ideological commitments or when its members wish to persuade others to adopt their ideology.

Rhetorical commonplaces have heuristic potential as well, since they give rise to an inexhaustible supply of proofs. They can be used as major premises for arguments (see our discussion of enthymemes in Chapter 5, on reasoning), and like all rhetorical proofs, they can also be used to per- suade others to join the community and to accept its commitments. For instance, the appeal to family values is a well-worn commonplace. Even though it was initially put into circulation by conservatives, it has since been adopted by people who subscribe to other political ideologies. A first principle of contemporary American is that morality is best transmitted across generations when people live in a nuclear family headed by two parents in which moral authority rests with the father. Hence a conservative rhetor is likely to argue that Americans could solve problems as diverse as high rates of teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, or inadequate public schools if only we would return to traditional family val- ues. The commonplace of family values is a shorthand way for conserva- tives to express their dismay that most Americans no longer live in nuclear families; its use also strengthens their sense of community. Like all com- monplaces, however, the appeal to family values is very

explains why it has so easily been appropriated by liberals. Nor is it neces- sarily a good causal explanation for issues such as dilapidated schools and drug abuse, issues which may or may not be caused by a perceived decline in so-called family values. Nevertheless, this commonplace was so perva- sive for awhile it even appeared on a bumper sticker: "Hatred is not a fam- ily value."

Like most commonplaces, the commonplace of family values also has heuristic potential. Using it, a rhetor can think through his position on almost any political issue, from AIDS research (Does AIDS threaten fami- lies?) to abortion (Is this practice anti-family?) to defense systems (How much and what kind of defense is required to keep American families safe?). The power of ideology and commonplaces stems from the fact that they reside in the very language we speak and the symbols we rely on. For that reason many of our ideological values are hidden from our conscious awareness, just as Quintilian said they were. Take, for example, the response of the American people to the first President Bush's declaration of war against Iraq in 1991. People who remembered the country's negative reaction to the Vietnam war predicted that Americans would not support another interventionist war. But President Bush's rhetoricians succeeded in associating the war with American values by arguing that it would restore democracy and freedom to the Kuwaiti people. They invoked powerful

symbols of American flag and yellow sug-

gested that anyone who did not support the war did not support American soldiers. This strategy, focusing on traditional American values and sym- bols, diverted attention away from the hard facts of war and destruction, hunger and privation. For a time, the president's popularity soared, thanks to his rhetoricians' skillful use of commonplace symbols