Apocalyptic Argument and the Anticipation of Catastrophe: the Prediction of Risk and the Risks of Prediction

Argumentation - Tập 11 - Trang 293-313 - 1997
Stephen D. O‘Leary1
1University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA

Tóm tắt

This essay proposes to extend the model of apocalyptic argument developedin my recent book Arguing the Apocalypse (O‘Leary, 1994) beyond the study ofreligious discourse, by applying this model to the debate over awell-publicized earthquake prediction that caused a widespread panic in theAmerican midwest in December, 1990. The first section of the essay willsummarize the essential elements of apocalyptic argument as I have earlierdefined them; the second section will apply the model to the case of the NewMadrid, Missouri, earthquake prediction, in order to demonstrate thatcertain patterns of reasoning characteristic of religious apocalyptic arepresent in the discourse over an anticipated local disaster. My ultimatepurpose is to show that predictions of global and local catastrophe mayserve as extreme cases that will illuminate the dynamics of predictiveargument in general. Thus my argument will seek to undercut Daniel Bell‘sdistinction between prophecy and prediction (Bell, 1973) by establishingthat these discourses share identifiable formal and substantivecharacteristics, and depend for their rhetorical effect on anxiety, hope,far, and excitement as modes of temporal anticipation.

Từ khóa


Tài liệu tham khảo

Aristotle: 1941a, Rhetoric, W. R. Roberts (trans.), in R. McKeon (ed.), The Basic Works of Aristotle, Random House, New York, pp. 1325–1451.

Aristotle: 1941b, Poetics, I. Bywater (trans.), in R. McKeon (ed.), The Basic Works of Aristotle, Random House, New York, pp. 1455–1487.

Bell, D.: 1973, ‘Prediction versus Prophecy’, in J. Dumoulin and D. Moisi (eds.), The Historian between the Ethnologist and the Futurologist, Mouton & Co., Mouton/Paris/The Hague, pp. 57–66.

Berger, P.: 1969, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, Anchor Books, New York.

Burke, K.: 1968a, ‘Psychology and Form’, in Counter-Statement, University of California Press, Berkeley.

Burke, K.: 1968b, ‘Dramatism’, in D. Sills (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, MacMillan, New York.

Burke, K.: 1984, Attitudes Toward History, University of California Press, Berkeley.

Cox, J. R.: 1982, ‘The Die Is Cast: Topical and Ontological Dimensions of the Locus of the Irreparable’, Quarterly Journal of Speech 68(3), 227–239.

Davidson, J. W.: 1977, The Logic of Millennial Thought, Yale University Press, New Haven.

Festinger, L., H. W. Riecken and S. Schachter: 1964, When Prophecy Fails, Harper Torchbooks, New York.

Fraser, J. T.: 1990, Of Time, Passion, and Knowledge, 2d ed., Princeton University Press, Princeton.

Gager, J.: 1975, Kingdom and Community: The Social World of Early Christianity, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

Garver, E.: 1994, Aristotle's Rhetoric: An Art of Character, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Goodnight, G. T.: 1982, ‘The Personal, Technical, and Public Spheres of Argument: A Speculative Inquiry into the Art of Public Deliberation’, Journal of the American Forensic Association 2, 214–227.

Goodnight, G. T.: 1987, ‘Generational Argument’, in F. H. van Eemeren, R. Grootendorst, J. A. Blair and C. A. Willard (eds.), Argumentation: Across the Lines of Discipline, Foris Publications, Dordrecht-Holland, pp. 129–144.

Lindsey, H. and C. C. Carlson: 1973, The Late Great Planet Earth, Bantam, New York.

Lindsey, H.: 1980, The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon, Bantam, New York.

Lifton, R. J.: 1985, ‘The Image of the End of the World: A Psychohistorical View’, in S. Friedlander, G. Horton, L. Marx and E. Skolnikoff (eds.), Visions of Apocalypse: End or Rebirth?, Holmes and Meier, New York/London, pp. 151–167.

Melton, J. G.: 1985, ‘Spiritualization and Reaffirmation: What Really Happens When Prophecy Fails’, American Studies 26, 17–29.

Miller, T. (ed.): 1991, When Prophets Die: The Postcharismatic Fate of New Religious Movements, State University of New York Press, Albany, New York.

O'Leary, S. D.: 1994, Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric, Oxford University Press, New York/Oxford.

Popkin, R. H.: 1986, ‘The Triumphant Apocalypse and the Catastrophic Apocalypse’, in A. Cohen and S. Lee (eds.), Nuclear Weapons and the Future of Humanity, Rowman and Allanheld, Totowa, New Jersey, pp. 131–150.

Schall, J. V.: 1976, ‘Apocalypse as a Secular Enterprise’, Scottish Journal of Theology 29, 357–373.

Simon, J. L.: 1995, ‘Why Do We Hear Prophecies of Doom from Every Side?’, The Futurist January–February, 19–23.

Spence, W., R. B. Herrmann, A. C. Johnston and G. Reagor: 1993, Responses to Iben Browning's Prediction of a 1990 New Madrid, Missouri, Earthquake, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.

Weber, M.: 1946, ‘Politics as a Vocation’, H. H. Gerth and C. W. Mills (trans.), in Gerth and Mills (eds.), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, Oxford University Press, New York.

Weber, T.: 1987, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming, Revised ed., University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Whisenant, E.: 1988, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988, World Bible Society, Nashville, Tennessee.

Zencey, E.: 1988, ‘Apocalypse and Ecology’, North American Review June, pp. 54–57.

Zygmunt, J. F.: 1970, ‘Prophetic Failure and Chiliastic Identity: The Case of Jehovah's Witnesses’, American Journal of Sociology 75, 926–948.

Thông tin
Thông tin xuất bản

Argumentation

Tập 11

293-313

Thông tin tác giả