Trumpism. Rules. Roles.
Everybody has their own America, and they have pieces of fantasy America
that they think is out there but they can’t see. —Andy Warhol
The “rash and erratic
president”—as a recent Washington Post
article termed Donald Trump (1)—has continued to cause consternation on the
world stage. But the basic tactic of this new administration is simple: to create
smokescreens on important governance issues by a constant and chaotic
crisismongering. Evoked much of the time, on a pragmatic level, are the worst
features of things like cold wars and “détente”—not to mention xenophobia. The
Trumpist’s ratcheting up of dystopian worldviews also brings to mind Wittgenstein’s
notion of language games. Wittgenstein viewed speech acts as involving conversation
based on “moves.” What people say, in other words, sets up a kind of
competition.
Language games also
involve the well known difference between denotation and connotation, as well
as the possibility of falsification and legitimation. And then there are levels
of games and types of games. As Jean-François Lyotard stated, “In the ordinary
use of discourse, for example, in a discussion between two friends, the
interlocutors use any available ammunition, changing games from one utterance
to the next: questions, requests, assertions, and narratives are launched
pell-mell into battle. The war is not without rules, but the rules allow and
encourage the greatest possible flexibility of utterance” (2). We
would seem to be in the presence during some of these games of what Trump is
fond of terming “fake news,” although it isn’t always certain just who is
faking what. Consider, for that matter, revisions regarding Silicon Valley and
“the Deep State” (3). And yes, even in an age of
globalism, Wikileaks, and e-democracy.
Hopefully Lyotard’s
militaristic metaphors serve as pragmatic reminders of what underlies discourse
per se on a sociological level—magnified obviously on the geopolitical stage.
“An institution differs from a conversation,” Lyotard (p. 17) also notes.
Unfortunately the Trump administration doesn’t seem to recognize this.
Notes: (1) Robert
Costa and Ashley Parker, “For 14 days Trump kept his No. 2 in the dark. What does that
mean for Pence?” WP 15 February 2017.
(2) Jean-François
Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A
Report on Knowledge. Manchester
UP, 1984 [1979], p. 17.
(3) As in Mike
Lofgren. “Anatomy of the Deep
State” <http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/>