Author: Rebecca Rohn

The concept of the self/other relationship is seen across many fields of study. In the field of Rhetoric & Communications, this term includes aspects of all of these different contexts, as rhetoric is crucial in defining of who is “self” and who is “other” in all fields of study. The rhetoric used by politicians, media, and philosophers enforce societal norms and ideas of who is included in the “self,” and who is considered to be “other.” Changing notions of who and what defines the self and the other can be seen in rhetoric throughout history, and has been a widely used rhetorical strategy of created difference. Self/other is an important keyword in the study of rhetoric because it is rhetoric itself that has been used to both create and enforce traditional beliefs about who encompasses each of these categories. In this essay, I will be focussing on the prevalence of othering throughout U.S. history in relation to one of the  powerful formations of the “self” in U.S. society, which is the white male.The self/other relationship is important in the study of rhetoric and communications because it is through rhetoric and media that such categories are created and enforced, and conversely, can be dismantled. Othering as it is seen in any other field would not be possible if normative categories were not established and enforced through rhetoric and communications. It is through rhetoric that political, colonial, gendered, and more types of othering occur. People in power have traditionally used rhetoric, and in modern times, media, to create normative categories and enforce them. Only recently have these power structures, created by othering, been acknowledged and begun through the hard work of some to be dismantled. Despite this, there is a still a lack of representation for women and minorities in film (Erigha, 1).

Otherness” has been important throughout history in defining and enforcing power structures and social identities. Beginning with ancient philosophers defining humanity as white, male, and western European dissent, constraining and circumstantial definitions of humanity have continued throughout history to be forced on colonized people and minorities. This continues white patriarchal power structures in which otherness is defined as being either nonwhite, non male, or non western European (Spivak, 68). This idea of what constitutes otherness continues to shape cultural and societal rhetoric today, as otherness is still seen in rhetorical and media portrayal of those who are non-normative (Erigha, 2). “Otherness” has historically been portrayed as and associated with being considered “less than” the self. This is especially seen in colonization and the civil rights movements in the United States. The most common form of othering can be seen in the colonial/minority model in the United States, as well in the exoticization and fetishization of certain minorities.  Though media is becoming more inclusive, modern rhetoric and media still enforce traditional self/other binaries (Erigha, 2).

In rhetoric and communications studies, the self is generally anyone included in the normative or traditional group. In the United States, the self would most likely be a straight white person. However, it is important to remember that the concept of the self is subjective and who is considered the “self” is dependent on the speaker. As Cherry writes in What is the Ingroup Bias?, the self is often viewed as the standard, or norm for a certain society. The self is often laced with underlying bias, whether conscious or unconscious, as people tend to favor groups that they are members of (Cherry, 2016). For example, a white person viewing caucasians as “better” or above other races would demonstrate the intrinsic bias that is often attached to groups in which one considers themselves a member of the “self.” Although these categories are not always explicitly stated or discussed, they are essential in how we structure and define the world, and are deeply ingrained in the human psyche.  

The “other,” or “otherness,” is defined in relation, and often opposition, to the self. Without the self, there could be no other. In “The Subaltern Cannot Speak,” Spivak writes that white western male normativity is so ingrained in our society that we cannot even fathom a world in which othering and classifying minorities as other does not exist (Spivak, 1988, p. 85). We cannot conceptualize a world in which humans are not categorized by such definitions. The two words are inverses of one another, yet are also dependent on another for meaning. Ultimately, these categories are arbitrary, and designed  to enforce and justify traditional viewpoints and power structures, as all humans are humans and different societies have differing structures and ideas of what is considered normative. Therefore, while the self/other binary is both subjective and arbitrary, it still holds extreme power in the way that it enforces traditional power structures in society and allows for continued oppression of those whose ways of being would be considered “other.”

There can be many combinations of selves and others, depending on who the speaker is. Although there is the traditional white male/minority, there are endless possible combinations of definition. Some examples include: man/woman, binary/non binary, white/nonwhite, American/non-American, First world/third world, democrat/republican, Christian/muslim. The self depends on the speaker. For example, the Rohingya in Myanmar are othered by the ruling class, despite the fact that neither group is comprised of western European males (Beech, 2108). We can see this through power structures in society. There are also definitions of various types of “others” in film that are helpful in understanding the application of otherness in rhetoric and communications. 

There are several types of others in film. These include “accepted others,” who are different from the self, yet viewed for some reason as worthy of acceptance. There are also “rejected others,” who for reasons such as disability or visible physical difference, are not accepted into the same groups that the self is a member of (Stockings). Othering in film can be used either to stigmatize or to normalize difference, depending on how the other is portrayed, or if someone is even portrayed as “other” in the first place. This will be discussed more at length later on. However, stigma is a very important factor in how and why some groups of people are othered and some are not.

One important concept in understanding our perceptions of those who are “othered” by society is the social stigma associated with difference. In the field of sociology, Goffman defined three categories of difference that prevent people from achieving full social acceptance: physical defects, weaknesses in personal character or background, and belonging to or associating with minority groups such as religious or racial minorities. As Slattery explains in Key Ideas of Sociology, “Stigmas may therefore be ascribed or achieved, something you are born with or something you ‘earn’” (Slattery, 2003, p. 186). Those who Goffman identified as being stigmatized are prevented from being accepted into the group of “self,” and are instead othered in society. But where did these deep rooted psychological and sociological categories originate?

The concept of the self, as well as who is included in this category, can be traced back to the ancient philosophers who defined and questioned humanity. Although perhaps not intentionally, ancient philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle defined humanity and what it means to be human through there own lense–that of a white European man–without considering that there were other experiences and definitions of humanity depending on which group of people was defining it. In his “Myth of Metals,” Plato defines categories of humans by arguing that God frames different humans for different classes by infusing their souls with different metals. Ruling classes, such as the Greeks, are infused with gold, resulting in their achievement of the “best” civilization and form of humanity. Other races and civilizations are infused with lesser metals according to Plato (Burton, 2010). Such philosophical reasoning about society placed western Europe at the top of the period as the most civilized society which should be emulated by other. These fundamentals of philosophy are steeped in what Spivak would define as epistemic violence (Spivak, 1988, p. 82). Because Plato and other philosophers assume a universal self, they inherently other and lessen all who do not fall into that category. As Judith Butler explains in Giving an Account of Oneself, “the particular individual, or the “I,” cannot be understood apart from its social conditions, and the imposition of universality without reference to cultural specificity creates a form of ethical violence” (Hodapp, 2013, p. 2). Assuming universal terms of humanity based in western culture delegitimizes other cultures by implying that they are not as civilized or modern simply because they have a different understanding of the meaning of those terms. Because these works have been referenced and built upon time and time again, they have aided in the strengthening and justified  the continuation of white patriarchal power structures in which those who are “other” are seen as different and therefore are deprived of power, opportunity, and equality.

One of the best examples of this epistemic violence that is inflicted through the categories of self and other is American colonialism, and the ways Americans both viewed and treated colonized peoples. Throughout U.S. colonization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the United States took a paternalistic, patronizing, and racialized attitude towards the people that they colonized. The country did not view the colonized people as equal, and therefore prescribed identities to them, depriving them of agency and equality. In his 1898 speech, “March of the Flag,” Albert Beveridge exemplifies this when he advocates for U.S. imperialism by contrasting “civilization” with the Phillipine “other.” Like Plato, Beveridge also justified white male supremacy by arguing that it was God’s will. God had “endowed us with gifts beyond our deserts, and marked us as the people of His peculiar favor,” he wrote of Americans (Beveridge,1898). Although his argument centers on the economic and capitalist benefits of U.S. imperialism, this focus dehumanizes those who live in the Philippines and Caribbean even more, by refusing to acknowledge their claim to their own land in the face of God-anointed U.S. supremacy. He categorizes class on a global scale, defining all those who live in developed countries as the “self” or the standard, and all those who live in underdeveloped countries as “other,” or less than (Beveridge, 1898).

Rhetorical patterns of categorization and oppression through othering can be seen throughout U.S. history specifically, and are important to acknowledge when considering the power structures that have led to present day issues of discrimination, as well as future solutions. Shifts and trends in the targets of American othering can be seen as the nation shifted from colonization into WWII, into the Cold War, and later into the War on Terror. During WWII, American propaganda was anti-Japanese andanti-German. Images of evil “huns” dehumanized the Germans as monsters. Meanwhile, German propaganda used similar tactics to to “other” or define Jewish populations in the countries that it controlled at the time.

 
(Hopps, 1917)  

Immediately after WWII however, the Germans and Japanese became U.S. allies and the Cold War began. During the Cold War, U.S. othering shifted to focus on Russians and other communist countries. Throughout this period, it was extremely common for villains in popular media, such as the highly popular James Bond movies, to be Russian operatives (From Russia with Love). When the Cold War began to thaw and a new war began, the War on Terror, the United States defined another, different “other” – those from the Middle East or of Middle Eastern descent. Especially following 9/11, this othering of Middle Easterns and categorization of them as terrorists could be seen everywhere, from movies like Zero Dark Thirty  to airport security lines. An Arab-American survey respondent expressed that after 9/11, Americans “don’t see me as a peer or another individual with her own beliefs and ideas, but as a Muslim and a poster child for Islam. When I answer questions, I must be answering for Muslims” (Welborne, 2018, p. 76). These shifts in who was defined as non-normative display how othering has historically been used as a strategy, both through rhetoric and media communication, to take power away from any group that was considered a threat at the time. This use of rhetoric and communications is important to acknowledge, in order to prevent similar patterns from happening in the future, as well as to dismantle current social and domestic forms of oppression, enforced through similar, if less obvious, othering of women and minorities in the United States.  

Othering has been used as a political tool throughout history to create support for controversial or inhumane political decisions and power structures. Othering, however, is often also fetishized. This can be seen, for example, with the exoticized Asian other. Orientalism is Said’s theory that the West has exoticized the far away and misunderstood “east,” and while they are viewed with prejudice and racism, they are also romanticized and sexualized, especially Asian women. Asian cultures are viewed as unaware and needing to be civilized and taught by the United States. He explains that culture and media have enforced stereotypes (often in the form of tropes) which “other” asian cultures and peoples, and that western cultures are only able to see Asian cultures through their own lens, rather through the eyes of the people who live there (Said, 1979).

The self/other relationship and categorization relates closely to other terms in rhetoric & communications studies that are included in this book. Specifically, the relationship of this categorization to “agency” and “identity” is extremely important. As was discussed earlier, when people are othered, they are deemed different and less than, somehow, than those doing the othering. This is often built upon societal ideas about what constitutes “civilization,” or ancient, ingrained ideas of what constitutes “humanity.” This othering, therefor, prescribes an identity to those othered that is often either not true, or does not take into account the views and experiences of the othered. When identities are falsely prescribed to those who are othered, it removes their agency, as they do not have as much power when another group assumes it has authority due to its more “civilized” or educated nature. Those othered are then silenced, as their views are not deemed to be as relevant, important, or logical as the opinions of those doing the othering (Spivak, 1988, p. 83). We also see this prescribing of identity and removal of agency in Crenshaw’s work on intersectionality. Crenshaw explains through her concept of intersectionality how people can be othered in more than area at the same time, and the more ways they are othered, the more they are silenced. This newer concept has changed our understanding of the self/other by expanding the concept beyond a binary categorization. Rather, Crenshaw explains that people can be othered through multiple categories, creating an exponentially more isolating experience. She writes specifically about the experience of black women in her essay on intersectionality. She explains that due to the intersection of race and gender in which black women are not the “norm” on either spectrum (that is, neither male nor white) they are “theoretically erased” (Crenshaw, 1989, p. 1). She reminds readers that “dominant conceptions of discrimination condition us to think about subordination as disadvantage occurring along a single categorical axis,” rather than acknowledging that the more categories one fills as “other,” the more that individual is silenced, or prescribed (Crenshaw, 1989, p. 2).

The way that “others” are represented in popular culture has a vast effect on whether a group continues to be seen as unequal, or are given the chance to break out of the categories forced upon them. The representation of others in film and other media has a long and troubled history that only recently has begun to be addressed and truly reconsidered (Erigha, 2). There are countless examples of racist and sexist othering in film in the 20th century. For example, Mickey Rooney’s portrayal of a blundering Japanese landlord in the 1950’s classic Breakfast at Tiffany’s shows the way that the United States categorized Asian people during that time. Modern movies that are set in the past also tend to show the way various groups were marginalized and othered at the time, though intentionally and with the purpose of showing that it was wrong. Hairspray for one, is set in 1960’s Baltimore during the Civil Rights movement and fight to integrate public television. In the 2007 remake of the film, those who fight to keep television segregated by othering the black youths in Baltimore are denounced for their racism, as the film aims to shed light on the racism and oppression that was and is still so prevalent against African Americans. These are just two examples of a history of purposeful othering in media, both for positive reasons like enacting change, and negative ones of enforcing stereotypes and white male power structures.

​​​When “others” are represented negatively in media, it reinforces the preconceived notions about that group in the minds of those doing the othering, and allows for such oppression to continue. However, when films, books, or other media are created that show the previously “othered” in a positive light, and as equal to those doing the othering, these stereotypes can be challenged and slowly broken, to create greater diversity and equality. This has been seen a lot in recent Hollywood films. Many recent films aim to break the stigma surrounding different groups, from drug addicts (Beautiful Boy), to homosexuality (Call Me By Your Name), to those living with aids (Rent). Such representation in popular culture is important in the weakening of power structures that othering creates in society. If rhetoric and media is what creates and enforces these categories, it can also deconstruct these categories to eliminate such violence and inequality that is imposed by “othering.” The categorizing of people as “other” dehumanizes them, and also only allows for one definition of humanity, when in reality there are many definitions across cultures and societies. Othering delegitimizes the voices of those othered. Although different cultures other different groups, the othering that the United States inflicts on groups both domestically and abroad has historically and still today inflicted massive amounts of pain and suffering. American othering views humanity through the western, white, and male gaze. This is important because scholars located in the United States are not outside of this history and process. It is important to understand this othering, and what allowed it to become so powerful, in order to break down these power structures and truly live in a free and equal society. This is especially important in the field of rhetoric and communications because it is through rhetoric and media that these structures can be broken down, and new structures built to replace them.
 

Works Cited

Beech, H. (2018, July 19). Myanmar’s Military Planned Rohingya Genocide, Rights Group Says. The New York Times, Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/.

Beveridge, A. (1898). “March of the Flag.” Voices of Democracy. U.S. Department of Communication. Retrieved from http://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/beveridge-march-of-the-flag-speech-text/.

Burton, N. (2010, Oct. 22). Platonic Myths: The Myth of the Metals. Retrieved from: https://outre-monde.com/2010/10/22/platonic-myths-the-myth-of-the-metals/. 

Cherry, K. (2016, Aug. 30). What is the Ingroup Bias? Retrieved from https://www.explorepsychology.com/ingroup-bias/.

Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics. In University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1(8), 139-167. Retrieved from: https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=uclf. 

Erigha, M. (2015). “Race, Gender, Hollywood: Representation in Cultural Production and Digital Media’s Potential for Change.” In Social Compass, 9(1), 78-89. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/soc4.12237.

Hopps, H. R. (1917). Destroy this mad brute. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-German_sentiment.

Hodapp, C. (2013). Giving an Account of Oneself [Review of the book, Giving an Account of Oneself, by Judith Butler]. In The Pluralist, 8(1), 115-188. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.5406/pluralist.8.1.0115.pdf?ab_segments=0%252Ftbsub-1%252Frelevance_config_with_defaults&refreqid=excelsior%3A6e8814ca7f362ddc6fb1a6a0f58427a6.

Said, E. (1979). Orientalism (1-3, 5). New York: Vintage. Retrieved from https://wmich.edu/dialogues/texts/orientalism.htm.

Slattery, M. (2003). Stigma. Key Ideas in Sociology (185-200). Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes. https://outre-monde.com/2010/10/22/platonic-myths-the-myth-of-the-metals/

Spivak, G. (1988). Can the Subaltern Speak? Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader, eds. Patrick Williams & Laura Chrisman. New York: Columbia University Press, 66-104.

Stockings, S. [Sophie Stockings]. (2013, March 26). Otherness in Film (Final). [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhnMv7DNsts&t=333s.

Welborne, B., Westfall, A., Russell, Ö, & Tobin, S. (2018). Visibly Different. In The Politics of the Headscarf in the United States (pp. 76-108). Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt1w0dd2b.9.