Introduction

This chapter aims to clarify what it means to have a “rhetorical problem,” first by discussing some aspects of rhetorical method. It outlines the central assumptions of Marxism and demonstrates how these assumptions create a conceptual and rhetorical gap between structural determination and popular struggle. Marxism—and the Left in general—has more problems than a lack of rhetorical sensitivity, but that lack is certainly a significant one. The relationship between structure and struggle is the central, unresolved problem in Marxism. The picture of Marxism that emerges from Richard Rorty’s essay is a rather simplistic one. It seems to consist only of clanking jargon and the rejection of a market economy. The various Marxisms share a common representative anecdote: Human beings are laboring animals. A typical criticism of Marxism is that it undermines democracy by depicting audiences as passive idiots. Rorty, for instance, writes that this depiction masks the power hunger of intellectuals.