Infestation Metaphor in Hitlers Rhetoric

1
Infestation Metaphor in Hitlers Rhetoric

• Based on Steven Perry. Rhetorical Functions of
  the Infestation Metaphor in Hitlers Rhetoric.
  Central States Speech Journal 34 (Winter 1983),
  229 235.

2
Failure of Rhetorical Critics to Deal Adequately
with Metaphor and with Fascism

• Treatment of metaphor as adornment.
• Treatment of the success of Fascism according to
  leaders personality traits.
• Failure to treat Hitlers parasitism as
  constituted rather than illustrated by the
  infestation metaphor.

3
Perrys Thesis

• One class of metaphorsthose referring to the
  disease/infestation of the national
  bodyfunction to explain and morally legitimate
  the National Socialists stance toward the Jew.

4
Hitlers Organic Metaphor

• The highest purpose of a folkish state is concern
  for the preservation of those original racial
  elements which bestow culture and create the
  beauty and dignity of a higher mankind. We, as
  Aryans, can conceive of the state only as the
  living organism of a nationality which not only
  assures the preservation of this nationality, but
  by the development of its spiritual and ideal
  abilities leads it to he highest freedoms.

5
Three Infestation Metaphors

• Viral-bacterial Jews, possessed nothing
  except infections political and physical
  diseases.
• Parasitic The Jew remains the typical
  parasite, a sponger. . .
• Poison National Socialism has sought to remove
  . . . those weaknesses which might have favoured
  the inflow of Bolshevist poisons.

6
The Strategy of Renaming Ones Enemies

• To dehumanize and depersonalize them.
• Japanese named Gook, Nip, etc.
• Hitler renamed the Jews.

7
Parasite as an Answer to a Paradox

• If the Jews are inferior, how do they pose a
  threat?
• The Jews are to the Aryans as the parasite is to
  the host a lesser dependent being, capable of
  bringing about the destruction of the superior
  host.

8
Infestation Metaphors Imply an Impurity of the
Natural Order.

• Consumption of the body from within.
• Jews are the fundamental anti-natural force.
• Jews threaten to destroy the purity of the Aryan
  race.

9
Infestation Metaphor Resolves Moral Ambiguities
about Treatment of Jews.

• Serves to dehumanize the Jews.
• Moral category of human is inoperative with
  regard to Jews.
• When curing a patient of infestation, the Dr. is
  not worried about harming the disease-causing
  agent.

10
Perrys Conclusion

• A metaphor-centered approach can make greater
  sense of the National Socialist world-view.
• A metaphor-centered approach allows us to examine
  the attitudinal and valuative claims of those
  metaphors.