Thinking Like a Copper Mine: An Ecological Approach to Corporate Ethos and Prosōpon

Rhetoric Society Quarterly Mar 2023

Thinking Like a Copper Mine: An Ecological Approach to Corporate Ethos and Prosōpon

Nicholas S. Paliewicz

Abstract

This essay uses Aldo Leopold’s essay “Thinking Like a Mountain” as a heuristic for analyzing the rhetorical processes of erasure that have created one of the largest open pit copper mines on the planet: The Bingham Canyon Mine (BCM). Contributing to studies of corporate rhetoric, persona criticism, and nonhuman agencies, I argue that the BCM, and its corporate owner Rio Tinto, is characteristic of Being-in-the-Anthropocene and informs rhetoricians about our extra-human ethos, or manner of dwelling, as an entwinement with corporate actors. Taking Rio Tinto as a synecdoche for corporate personhood and persona (prosōpon), I make the case for an ecological approach to corporate disclosedness that accounts for the earthly resources of corporate rhetorical invention (e.g., copper). Through the later work of Martin Heidegger, I show how the BCM has become a standing reserve within a corporate world picture that is rhetorically apparent in the rhetorical architecture of Salt Lake City, Utah.

Journal: Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published: 2023-03-15
DOI: 10.1080/02773945.2022.2129757
Open Access: Closed
Topics: argument

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

Cites in this index (7)

Barnett (2021)

Rhetoric for Earthly Coexistence: Imagining an Ecocentric Rhetoric

Rhetoric & Public Affairs
Bloomfield (2019)

The Rhetoric of Energy Darwinism: Neoliberal Piety and Market Autonomy in Econo…

Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Doxtader (2017)

<i>Zōon Logon Ekhon</i>: (Dis)possessing an Echo of Barbarism

Philosophy & Rhetoric
Musgrave (2017)

A Battle for Hearts and Minds: Evangelical Capitalism and Pastoral Power in Bru…

Rhetoric & Public Affairs
Seegert (2014)

Play of Sniffication:

Philosophy & Rhetoric

Show all 7 →

Davis (2011)

Creaturely Rhetorics

Philosophy & Rhetoric
CHERRY (1998)

Ethos Versus Persona

Written Communication

Also cites 42 works outside this index ↓

10.1093/isle/isaa098

↗
10.1080/17524032.2018.1561485

↗
10.2979/ethicsenviro.25.1.04

↗
10.1080/00909889009360318

↗
10.1353/rap.2010.0014

↗
10.1080/17524032.2017.1398176

↗
DeLuca Kevin (2007)

Environmental Justice and Environmentalism: The Social Justice Challenge to the Environme…

↗
10.1016/S0962-6298(99)00089

↗
10.1080/10570314.2019.1689288

↗
10.1080/14791420802632103

↗
10.1080/17524032.2012.688060

↗
10.1215/9780822393221

↗
10.1080/14791420701472866

↗
Gross Daniel M. (2005)

Heidegger and Rhetoric

↗
10.1017/S0260210519000135

↗
10.7208/chicago/9780226398204.001.0001

↗
10.1007/978-1-349-25249-7_3

↗
10.1080/17524032.2012.672928

↗
10.1080/17524030701642728

↗
10.1386/cjcs.2.2.267_7

↗
LeCain Timothy (2009)

Mass Destruction: The Men and Giant Mines that Wired America and Scarred the Planet

↗
10.1353/plc.2020.0147

↗
McNeill William (2012)

The Time of Life: Heidegger and Ethos

↗
10.1080/10510978309368127

↗
10.3390/h8010036

↗
10.1080/00335630209384372

↗
10.3366/olr.2012.0043

↗
10.5962/bhl.title.23297

↗
10.1080/17524032.2017.1416421

↗
10.1080/10570314.2021.2016939

↗
10.1080/17524032.2011.616516

↗
10.1080/17524030701334292

↗
10.1080/17524032.2014.919331

↗
10.2307/j.ctt5hjqwx

↗
10.1353/par.2007.0030

↗
10.1080/10570319809374610

↗
10.1057/978-1-137-53315-9

↗
10.1080/17524031003760879

↗
10.1215/9780822374817

↗
10.2979/ETE.2006.11.2.45

↗
10.5749/minnesota/9780816692644.001.0001

↗
10.1080/10510978409368190

↗

CrossRef global citation count: 0 View in citation network →