Kenneth Burke Language As Symbolic Action Summary

"Man is the symbol-using (symbol-making, symbol-misusing) animal, inventor of the negative (or moralized by the negative), separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making, goaded by the spirit of hierarchy (or moved by the sense of order), and rotten with perfection", this is definition of man presented in Kenneth Burke’s essay Language as Symbolic Action. Burke was a renowned philosopher and literary theorist, who in his work explored how mankind's use of language and symbols to communicate separated man from the rest of the animal kingdom. The final two clauses of his definition of man “goaded by the spirit of hierarchy and rotten with perfection” are particularly relevant to this paper. Burke’s assertion that mankind is drawn to order and status is evidenced by mankind's incessant need to establish titles signifying rank. Furthermore, every society exhibits some form of social stratification driven by status, race, ethnic background, religion etc. We often then see the establishment of a dominant and authoritative group and conflict emerges from the inherent inequalities such a system imposes.

While there is no denying that man's success and progress in the

The African American population is the second largest racial minority group in the country and is perhaps the most marginalized. Coates at times sounds angry in his book and rightfully so. Africans first arrived as slaves - beaten, battered, killed, raped and worked to death. Nearly four hundred years later, black men, women and children are still routinely beaten, battered and killed in spite of the supposed progress we have made during throughout those four hundred years. Violence is just a symptom of the real problem. Systematic racism is the most significant contributing factor to the poor and impoverished socioeconomic state of black communities in