later changed to Operation Enduring Freedom). However, the rhetoric of idealism and
dedication to a higher purpose – defense of the nation and of freedom globally – remain
at the center of this language, as they have in the past.
Actions/Consequences
The kinds of actions undertaken in response to the enemy by the US in the post-
September 11 world demonstrate a “dramatistic”
and ritualized approach to engagement
with an enemy. This, I believe, depends upon an implicit process of personifying the
state in the political imagination. After September 11, the president found himself on a
stage-set of dramatic challenge and he chose to play that role as a leader in a fight to rid
the world of enemies: “Until victory is America’s and there is no enemy” he approvingly
quoted the Marine Rifleman’s Creed (7/11/05 at FBI Academy). But there are at least
two ways in which the actions in a drama of enmity may be driven to unfold. The first is
that of a moral drama. Even if we disagree with Bush’s messianic drive, we should
acknowledge that for many citizens, this would be seen as a high road of America’s self
image – in which the state acts morally in a global drama. Such enactment fulfilled a
sense of self etched in the American psyche. In this vein, the dynamics leading to the
imposition of US power cannot be reduced to sinister intentions or a desire for global
political domination
on Bush’s part or that of the US public.
The other type of existential drama unfolds according to a clash of protagonists or
antagonists as the case may be. The appearance of an enemy as a concrete threat demands
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Ivie uses the term “dramatistic pentad” to refer to the five components of a dramatic
unfolding: act, scene, agent, agency and purpose. Dramatism is the idea that one can
understand the relationship between symbolic and social experience through a dramatic
framework. The logic of social action is in part driven by the dramatic constraints of act,
scene, agent, agency and purpose.
30
Though economic and military superiority are to be maintained.
29
Convention