RHETORICAL CONSTRUCTS IN THE LEGITIMATION OF POLITICAL POWER
RHETORICAL CONSTRUCTS IN THE LEGITIMATION OF POLITICAL POWER

Summary/Abstract: Ideologically, the last century has been broadly dominated by three principled constructs, which we can think of as belonging to the same genus, which we call high-powered chauvinism. The communist ideology claimed that all the revolutions produced in the entire history of humanity did nothing but replace the dominance of one social class with the dominance of another class, that is, to change one form of exploitation of man by man with another form of exploitation. But, for the first time in history, the proletariat is called, somewhat messianically, to abolish private property and, by doing so, to completely abolish every form of exploitation of man by man. In the course of the socialist revolution, the proletariat not only emancipates itself, but, by emancipating itself, it also emancipates, objectively and even involuntarily, the entire society. In German Nazism, Hitler replaces the proletariat of the communist ideology with the German people, replaces the social class saving mankind with the superior race of the Aryans, also meant to save mankind. The superior race and the need to safeguard it, for the good of all mankind, is the principle from which the absolute ideological truth and the belligerent rhetoric in this case derive. Finally, in the contemporary hegemonic neoconservative ideology, the United States must hold global dominance, because it has military power, and it must have as much military power as possible, in order to hold global dominance for as long as possible. This construct says: we are the strongest military alliance in History, so we are always right. These constructs have had bad consequences and can only have bad consequences.

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