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Control and Consolation in American Culture and Politics Dana L. Cloud

Control and Consolation in American Culture and Politics By Dana L. Cloud

Control and Consolation in American Culture and Politics by Dana L. Cloud


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Summary

Traces the replacement of social and political activism by the pursuit of personal, psychological change. This title identifies the movement as the rhetoric of therapy, where a persuasive cultural discourse that applies concepts such as coping and adapting replaces active attempts to reform flawed systems of social and political power.

Control and Consolation in American Culture and Politics Summary

Control and Consolation in American Culture and Politics: Rhetoric of Therapy by Dana L. Cloud

What are the consequences in American society when social and political activism is replaced by pursuit of personal, psychological change? How does such a shift happen? Where is it visible? In wide-ranging case studies, Control and Consolation in American Culture and Politics points out this change in American culture and attributes it to the rhetoric of therapy. This rhetoric is defined as a pervasive cultural discourse that applies psychotherapyAEs lexiconuthe constructive language of healing, coping, adaptation, and restoration of a previously existing orderuto social and political conflict. The purpose of this therapeutic discourse is to encourage people to focus on themselves and their private lives rather than to attempt to reform flawed systems of social and political power. Author Dana L. Cloud focuses on the therapeutic discourse that emerged after the Vietnam War and links its rise to specific political and economic interests. The critical case studies describe in detail not only what the therapeutic style looks like, but how and why therapeutic discourses are persuasive. These studies include: the rhetoric of family values; media coverage of support groups during the Persian Gulf War; Gloria SteinenAEs Revolution from Within; the film Thelma and Louise; and literature of the New Age Movement. Cloud concludes with a chapter urging resistance to the therapeutic persuasion she describes envisioning in its place engaged public politics. At once unique and engaging, Control and Consolation in American Culture and Politics is a must read for academics and students interested in communication studies, cultural studies, sociology, political science, and media studies.

Table of Contents

Introduction On Therapy and the Therapeutic Perspectives on the Therapeutic The Therapeutic History Inventing and Disciplining the Modern Self Family Therapies From the White House to the Hood The Support Group Nation The Therapeutics of Feminism From Self-Esteem to Suicide The New Age of Post-Marxism Conclusion Antidotes to the Therpeutic Hegemony

Additional information

NLS9780761905073
9780761905073
0761905073
Control and Consolation in American Culture and Politics: Rhetoric of Therapy by Dana L. Cloud
New
Paperback
SAGE Publications Inc
1998-01-08
216
N/A
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