"Where Human Relations Grandly Converge": The Constitutional Dialectic of Hizb ut-Tahrir

KB Journal: The Journal of the Kenneth Burke Society Apr 2011 web Open Access

"Where Human Relations Grandly Converge": The Constitutional Dialectic of Hizb ut-Tahrir

Abstract

I argue that a sub-area of Burkean criticism should be developed using Burke’s constitutional dialectic to examine constitutions as the primary objects of study. To demonstrate the possibilities of this strain of criticism, I use Burke’s constitutional dialectic to examine the draft constitution for an Islamic state urged by the worldwide movement Hizb ut-Tahrir. In that document, internal conflicts and differences, not to mention challenges coming from ideologically incorrect states, are anticipated and woven into a comprehensive plan offering Islamic answers to citizens’ problems and to the problem of the state’s place and purpose. I argue that the draft constitution is a systematic strategic act of totalizing comprehensiveness that trades agency for order, with troubling consequences.

Journal: KB Journal: The Journal of the Kenneth Burke Society
Published: 2011-04
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Topics: modern rhetorical theory
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