ABSTRACT:
Much of the political debate about the Gulf War centered on the time dimensions of the event. Rhetoric about American national identity, historical continuity, and traditions were used to deny uncertainty about the possible course of the war and its alternatives. This study explores political rhetoric about the Gulf War, using newspapers, radio, the Congressional Record, and the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents as sources. Cornelius Castoriadis' theory of the "imaginary institution of society" and its "identitary time" informs this analysis of the ideas about time and history expressed before, during, and after the war.
Political discourse about the war and its place in the nation's history also controlled uncertainty by denying the plurality of audiences and their experiences. Politicians rhetorically instituted a homogeneous polity and continuous historical project shared by the whole nation. While the interpretation of political meanings were as varied as were the audiences, the rhetorical efforts by politicians and mass media can be seen as efforts to control interpretation. The analysis of how political talk is meant to control interpretation, to convince listeners of singular and universal truths about Americans, and thus to inspire support for military action or delay, reveals the dimensions of our institution of ourselves as a nation. In Foucault's terms, What are the "conditions of possibility" for such talk, and what is revealed when it fails to persuade? What assumptions about the meaning of space, time and history delimit the possibilities for political debate in America?
Read a much larger discussion of the concept of time in social analysis.
© Nathan Light 1994
revised 3/8/2001.