L'HYPERPOLITIQUE, UNE PASSION FRANCAISE - TECHNOLOGIES RHETORIQUES DE LA DOMINATION

Hyperpolitics ? Did I hear you say "hyperpolitics" ?
Man is meant to be a political animal. A Frenchman, on the other hand, is a hyperpolitical animal. Man is meant to be an animal endowed with speech. A Frenchman is a hyperspeech animal. The result of this crossover is the peculiar nature of French political society: we passionately love excessive political speech, while at the same time claim that we are reasonable, Cartesian and logical.
In France, politics is a dramatization of speech. That which is hyper, overdone and exaggerated instils confidence. We have developed such refined hyperspeech technologies that we have lost sight of their origins, how they work and what effects they produce. Hyperpolitics is the final product of speech machines – those which this book explores.
These technologies which produce hyperpolitics supply three major fields of action: the massive public displays of presidential rhetoric, machine assemblies for appealing to the public, the masses, and people, and speech gears mounted and lubricated by such tools as values and ethics management.
Understanding hyperspeech technologies requires disassembling the parts of this infernal three-headed machine, studying its components, grasping its tools and, with manual in hand, discovering by whom, how, why and for whom hyperpolitics so vehemently works.

Rhetoric historian Philippe-Joseph Salazar holds a Distinguished Chair in Rhetoric at the University of Cape Town (South Africa). Previously, he was the Dean and Director of the Programme in Rhetoric and Democracy at Collège international de philosophie (Paris).

Historien de la rhétorique, Philippe-Joseph Salazar est actuellement titulaire d'une distinguished chair de rhétorique à l'université du Cap (Afrique du Sud) après avoir été doyen et directeur de programme (« Rhétorique et démocratie ») au Collège international de philosophie (Paris).

Il a publié, chez d'autres éditeurs, An African Athens. Rhetoric and the Shaping of Democracy in South Africa (LEA, 2002 – http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/), Amnistier l'Apartheid (Seuil, 2004), Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa (New Africa Books, 2007) (http://www.newafricabooks.co.za/books_detail.asp?ID=682 ) et parmi son travail éditorial, on se reportera, pour illustrer deux autres champs d'application de sa réflexion sur la rhétorique, à François de La Mothe Le Vayer, De la patrie et des étrangers (Desjonquères, 2003) et à The Rhetorical Shape of International Conflicts (The Public, XII, 4, 2005).

Il est le lauréat 2008 du prix de la Fondation Oppenheimer (Oppenheimer Memorial - http://www.rhetoricafrica.org/awards.asp

Voir aussi : http://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=7040

Il co-dirige des projets internationaux sur la rhétorique et la politique en Hongrie, Norvège, Pologne, Roumanie, Suède et en direction de l'Afrique du Nord.