ABSTRACT
From "ritual drama" to "victimage" is a small step rather than a giant leap, but in order to make it we will need to walk over some theoretical ground. The last chapter ended with the notion of an ethical self that is more consubstantial than substantial. The importance of the epithet "ethical" (from the Greek, ethos, or "character, disposition") should not be overlooked. Kenneth Burke's philosophy of dramatism visualizes the human being as playing a role, yet not as indulging in a game. The comic frame is "charitable," yet not irresponsible. Burke sees hierarchy and mystery as intrinsic to the world of symbolic action, but he thinks it possible to discriminate between the necessities of "order" and the abuses of privilege. He knows that all rhetorical "identification" tends to exclude some symbolic actors from this or that "scene" of the total drama, but he thinks it possible to resist the temptation to what he calls "congregation by segregation."
