On Martin's "Communion With Nelson Mandela In So Many Respects"

Martin & Rose (2007: 61-3):

We’ll close this section with an example of stance shifting from one of Jim’s papers where he tried to figure out what he found so moving about the final couple of pages of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom (a text we’ll return to in Chapter 7). …

By the end of this study however he was still feeling a little mystified about why the text he was analysing was so moving. His communion with Mandela, at such a distance in so many respects, seemed to transcend the sum of the analyses he had undertaken, however focused he tried to make them on what was going on.  In exasperation, he decided to shift stance and wrote:

… In a sense then, Mandela is promoting socialism in the name of freedom; … We need, in other words, more positive discourse analysis (PDA?) alongside our critique; and this means dealing with texts we admire, alongside those we dislike and try to expose (Wodak 1996). (Martin 1999a: 51-2)

… [Jim] evaluates the text as graceful, he’s charmed by it, he admires it and of course the man who wrote it. … Allowing himself a reaction got him thinking about how Mandela finesses his radical politics, disarming people [a]round the world into communities of admiring fans. And it allowed Jim to make a further point about the importance of focusing on heartening discourses of this kind instead of being so depressingly critical all the time by focusing solely on hegemony and all that’s wrong with the world. … These guys are heroes; let’s see how they move the world along’. … 

Just as we’ve been changing voices here; we’ll pull back now, in case our scholarly credentials are wearing a little thin.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Since this section is neither an exposition of Appraisal theory, nor an application of Appraisal theory to text analysis, it is useful to consider the function it serves.

[2] Here Martin & Rose are informing the reader that one of them, Jim Martin, has much in common with Nelson Mandela — in terms of shared mental or spiritual experience.  (The word 'communion' means the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially on a mental or spiritual level, or shared participation in a mental or spiritual experience.)

For a reality check, see Jim Martin "Honouring" The Late Ruqaiya Hasan.

For an insightful portrait of the 'academic revolutionary', enjoy Rumpole And The Right To Silence by John Mortimer.

[3] A critique is a detailed analysis and assessment of something, especially a literary, philosophical, or political theory. It is 'critical' in the sense of critical thinking, as expressing or involving an analysis of the merits and faults of a work. Martin, however, relates 'critique' to the other, less scholarly meaning of 'critical' as simply expressing adverse or disapproving comments or judgements.

[4] This would appear to be the objective of Mandela's soul-mate as well. The choice of the word 'disarm' — deprive of the power to hurt — betrays the authors' interest in the power relation between the hero and his fans.

[5] Martin's focus on heroes (and on positive "critiques", and on communities of admiring fans) can be explained by his ideological orientation as a disciplinarian, rather than a libertarian.  Bertrand Russell explains the distinction in his History Of Western Philosophy (pp 21-2):

Throughout this long development, from 600 BC to the present day, philosophers have been divided into those who wished to tighten social bonds and those who wished to relax them. With this difference, others have been associated. 

The disciplinarians have advocated some system of dogma, either old or new, and have therefore been compelled to be, in greater or lesser degree, hostile to science, since their dogmas could not be proved empirically. They have almost invariably taught that happiness is not the good, but that ‘nobility’ or ‘heroism’ is to be preferred. They have had a sympathy with irrational parts of human nature, since they have felt reason to be inimical to social cohesion.

The libertarians, on the other hand, with the exception of the extreme anarchists, have tended to be scientific, utilitarian, rationalistic, hostile to violent passion, and enemies of all the more profound forms of religion. 

This conflict existed in Greece before the rise of we recognise as philosophy, and is already quite explicit in the earliest Greek thought.  In changing forms, it has persisted down to the present day, and no doubt will persist for many ages to come.

[6] As should be clear from this clause, and the authors' likening of Jim Martin to Nelson Mandela, this section of Martin & Rose's text is merely an exercise in managing the readers' perception of the authors.

If this critique of Martin & Rose (2007) has taken a bizarre and personal turn at this point, it is because the text under discussion has itself taken a bizarre and personal turn at this point.  See also Rose as a semiotic reincarnation of Benjamin Whorf.