A Rhetoric of Balance

No two snowflakes are alike. No two fingerprints are alike. Everyone has a unique handwriting. And, it may be argued, everyone is rhetorically unique. This uniqueness can be seen most clearly in major figures. It has been said that Lincoln argued by definition. Winston Churchill is probably best known for the rhetoric of addition. (Think of his "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat" or his "we shall fight" speech, which repeats the phrase seven times before beginning the last paragraph with "we shall never surrender.") Kennedy was a master of the chiasmus (Ask not...).

Probably a great deal can be made of rhetorical style - Sherlock Holmes like, we might develop a "personality analysis" based on the types of devices, fallacies and constructions a writer, speaker or really any individual prefers. Patterns will out.

But that's beyond a blog. What is within our purview here is just how much President Obama relies on a rhetoric of balance. It is, I think, his rhetorical signature, and he is most effective when employing it. Perhaps no other figure - certainly no other president - is such a virtuoso.

One can easily speculate why Obama is so comfortable in the rhetoric of balance, but here I'd like to look at an opinion piece he wrote for the Wall Street Journal ( http://on.wsj.com/eZ8HrV ). Of course, his speech after the Tucson shootings, widely and rightfully praised, also exemplifies a rhetoric of balance. But the op-ed piece will also serve, in part because it will not receive the same attention as the Arizona speech.

The essay's appearance in the WSJ can be seen as an act of balance, since that newspaper represents business, conservative thought and the Republican Party in a way that parallels, say, the New York Times on the other side. (I note, for a later discussion, that both favor a perspective and yet are respected as examplars of journalism.) Obama's move toward the right can be seen, again, as a betrayal of the left. Yet, as he points out, it need not be so.

He begins by favoring "America's free market" and "entrepreneurialism," but then balances it with regulation. "... one of the reasons the free market has worked is that we have sought the proper balance." He carries this rhetorical balance throughout the speech. Let me point out a couple of examples:

preserved freedom ... applied rules and regulations to protect

embraced common sense rules of the road ... without unduly interfering with the pursuit

Even within those sentences, in parts not quoted, one can find a further balancing of ideas.

In the next section he talks about imbalance - and balances the imbalances: they can be too much ("placing unreasonable burdens on business") or too little ("failing to meet ... responsibility to protect the public interest").

He draws a parallel between the historic pursuit of balance, which have sought "throughout our history" and the goal of his administration. His executive order embeds his - and American history's - quest for "the right balance" into the regulatory code, and thus the way we do business.

Trying to "ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth" may seem quixotic, but with so many other examples, Obama's vision can be described as a drive toward equilibrium.

Here's another example: Speaking of the new fuel-economy standards, Obama declares it a "victory for car companies that wanted regulatory certainty; for consumers who will pay less at the pump; for our security, as we save 1.8 billion barrels of oil; and for the environment as we reduce pollution." car companies: consumers; security: environment. This is a double balance.

It's easy to see Obama's preference for balance as a weakness, as a dependence on compromise, or as something else altogether. But when we see one device returned to at so many critical moments, and relied on so heavily to carry the the logic, argument and emotion, then we ought to look more closely not just at how the rhetoric works, or even what it means, but how that rhetoric creates meaning - how it expresses a vision.

I would offer this as a preliminary observation: Obama sees progress and the "general welfare" of the Constitution emerging from harmonizing opposites. Victory does not equal conquest and conflict, ideally, an oscillation toward consensus and cooperation. If "our economy is not a zero-sum game," neither is life.