The Morality of Spin

Virtue and Vice in Political Rhetoric and the Christian Right

By (author) Nathaniel J. Klemp

Not available to order

Publication date:

01 March 2012

Length of book:

210 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781442210547

The Morality of Spin explores the ethics of political rhetoric crafted to persuade and possibly manipulate potential voters. Based on extensive insider interviews with leaders of Focus on the Family, one of the most powerful Christian right organizations in America, Nathaniel Klemp asks whether the tactic of tailoring a message to a particular audience is politically legitimate or amounts to democratic malpractice. Klemp’s nuanced assessment, highlighting both democratic vices and virtues of the political rhetoric, provides a welcome contribution to recent scholarship on deliberative democracy, rhetoric, and the growing empirical literature on the American Christian right.

Abstract
Introduction
PART 1: Existing Accounts
Chapter 1: Deliberative Democracy and Political Rhetoric: Rawls and Habermas on Rhetoric’s Moral Status
PART 2: The Moral Qualities of Rhetorical Speech
Chapter 2: When Rhetoric Turns Manipulative: Disentangling Persuasion and Manipulation
Chapter 3: From Theoretical to Actual Manipulation: The Christian Right’s Two Tiered Rhetoric
PART 3: The Moral Qualities of Rhetorical Context
Chapter 4: Contextualizing Rhetoric: From Contestatory to One-Sided Information Spaces
Chapter 5: Counter Cultural Christian Enclaves: Focus on the Family’s Anti-Contestatory Practices
Conclusion

Is it ethical for political operatives to say almost anything, no matter how outrageous, to get their way? What if those political operatives are religious groups that claim to be guided by biblical principles? The Morality of Spin moves beyond the usual news cycle discussion of such questions to give us an in-depth inquiry into the ethics of political discourse. I am especially impressed by the book’s rich understanding of democratic political theory as well as its close attention to the language of argumentation.