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Sustainability  as  a  Rhetorical  God  Term  

Dale L. Sullivan (LSP 2009 Conference, Aarhus, DK, Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 10:30 – 12:30)

According to Pierre Bourdieu and Loic Wacquant, “cultural imperialism is a form

of symbolic violence.” They argue that the current “Newspeak” consists of a new

vocabulary cluster consisting of words like “globalization,” “flexibility,” “governance,”

“employability,” “new economy,” and “multiculturalism.” Terms once current in the

discourse of the Marxist left—words like “class,” “exploitation,” and “domination”—are

conspicuous by their absence (1). This new language, they say, presents itself as a

universal discourse (3) and is transforming the tenants of American capitalism into

universal common sense (2). Their diatribe against globalization and its accompanying

discourse turns the spotlight on the political dimensions of linguistic choices, especially

on the selection and articulation of powerful terminology.

Terministic  Screens,  Key  Words,  and  Ideologies

Kenneth Burke coined the phrase “terministic screen” to emphasize the

relationship between language and perception. He says that our terminologies affect our

perception in three ways: they reflect reality, select from reality, and deflect reality. In

other words, our language “directs the attention" (Language as Symbolic Action, 45).

Much of what we take to be an objective observation of reality is only “the spinning out

of possibilities implicit in our choice of terms” (46). These screens are made up of a

cluster of interrelated terms that constitute a perceptual stance. The same phenomenon

might be viewed and discussed with alternative terminologies, so that, for instance, a

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burdock plant might be perceived from poetic, ecological, botanical, or culinary

perspectives, each with its own characteristic cluster of terms.

Not only so, different terminology clusters may share key words, but these key

words often have different meanings within the clusters. As Raymond Williams explains,

it’s not just that shared words have different nuances; rather, they reflect different

valuations, different formations, and different “distributions of energy and interest” (9).

For instance, Williams is particularly interested in the term “culture” because he

encountered it being used in ways that implied entirely different perspectives. Terms like

culture, he says, are shared imperfectly; they are used in variable and often difficult ways

(12). Like Burke, Williams observed that these key words occur in “particular formations

of meaning—ways not only of discussing but of seeing many of our central experiences”

(13). They are “binding” words, indicating forms of thought within particular formations,

but they are also common, somewhat fuzzy words in the general vocabulary (13).

Williams’ concept of “meaning formations” is similar to Burke’s dramatistic

view of reality, in which people stage their actions based on a shared mythic world

reflected in their language. Marxist scholars often refer to these shared mythic worlds or

meaning formations as ideologies, a term that suggests they are deceptions foisted upon

the mass consciousness. Norman Fairclough defines ideologies as representations of the

world that “contribute to establishing, maintaining and changing social relations of

power, domination and exploitation” (9). These ideologies are expressed in discourses,

which are different perspectives on the world representing “possible worlds which are

different from the actual world, and tied in to projects to change the world in particular

directions” (124). In the field of rhetoric, Michael McGee argued that symbolists like

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Burke and Marxists have their separate blind spots. Symbolists ignore the political

dimensions of mass consciousness, and Marxists ignore the role of language in creating

ideologies. He, therefore, merged the two, claiming that human beings are not directly

conditioned to belief but to a “vocabulary of concepts that function as guides, warrants,

reasons, or excuses for behavior and belief” (6). Curiously, McGee does not cite

Raymond Williams’ Key Words: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, perhaps because,

even though Williams contributed to the Marxist critique of culture, he does not refer to

meaning formations as ideologies.

In this paper, I analyze the use of “sustainability” within competing ideologies to

show how these ideologies articulate the term “sustainability” and its cognates with other

key terms. Analysis of the hierarchical positioning of the term in a group’s internal

terminology cluster and in its public discourse shows that strategic equivocation may be

used to obfuscate ideological commitments.

God  Terms,  Charismatic  Terms,  and  Ideographs  

Although Raymond Williams’ discussion of key cultural terms is helpful in

identifying the importance and ambiguity of key words, Kenneth Burke’s discussion of

God terms and ideal terms provides a more elaborate scheme for analyzing terminology

clusters. Kenneth Burke discusses God terms in the context of his analysis of

constitutions, which he says serve as motivational grounds for of subsequent actions; they

are instruments “for shaping human relations” (Grammar of Motives, 341). Constitutions

are visions (344), frames (355), and maps that suggest “what coordinates we will think

by” (367). Whether they are written or oral (342), they are visions that motivate and

shape human action. Constitutions contain “ideal” terms, “against which there is nothing

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to be said” (351). They reside in the Platonic realm of ideal forms. Constitutions also

contain practical words, which reside in the mundane world. As one descends from the

universal, ideal terms to the worldly “practical terms,” promises contained in one ideal

term come into conflict with promises contained in another (349). Thus, a constitution

will contain a “spectrum of terms” descending from the ideal to the worldly. God terms

are not to be confused with ideal terms, for a God term “designates the ultimate

motivation, or substance, of a Constitutional frame” (355). So, as Burke points out, a

non-idealistic word, like “money,” can be a God term, as it is in the capitalistic world

view (355). Although Burke does not call this cluster of terms a terministic screen, he

does refer to different constitutions having different “idioms” (354). It seems clear that

his discussion here is a precursor to his discussion of terministic screens as world views

shaped by language.

Richard Weaver, who was influenced by Burke (Johannesen), also describes the

power of rhetorical terms, but he refers to “ultimate,” “uncontested,” “god,” and

“charismatic” terms rather than ideal and God terms. These terms overlap with Burke’s

system, but are construed somewhat differently. Ultimate terms, according to Weaver, are

“‘rhetorical absolutes’—terms to which the very highest respect is paid” (Ethics, 212).

This definition seems to indicate that Weaver had Burke’s notion of an “ideal term” in

mind, because ideal terms are terms “against which there is nothing to be said.” However,

Weaver also refers to ultimate terms as god (lower case) terms, which are those

expressions “about which all other expressions are ranked as subordinate” (212). This

definition seems to equate ultimate terms with Burke’s “God terms,” which “designate

the ultimate motivation of a constitution.” Weaver also discusses the “uncontested term,”

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which “seems to invite a contest, but . . . apparently is not so regarded in its own context”

(166). Weaver attributes the audience’s acceptance of the term’s use to their having been

indoctrinated, to their homogeneity (167). Thus, Weaver’s uncontested term is Burke’s

God term when it is used with a homogeneous audience who share an ideology. This

same term, which is held in high regard among insiders, could very well be contested in

an audience made up people outside the ideology. Weaver refers to a third kind of term

that seems to enjoy the same positive responses as ultimate and uncontested terms, but

which, in fact, are meaningless. He calls these “charismatic terms,” which he defines as

terms “of considerable potency whose referents it is virtually impossible to discover”

(227). They are words that have “broken loose” from their referential connections. In

other words, they are words that elicit wide connotative assent but that have been emptied

of denotative meaning.

Michael McGee complicates the landscape even further. Emphasizing the political

significance of key ideological terms, McGee says that rhetorical critics who analyze

ideological discourse should not focus on claims; instead, they should look at words like

“property,” “religion,” and “liberty,” because they are more “pregnant” than propositions.

These kinds of words, he says, “are the basic structural elements, the building blocks, of

ideology” (7). He names them “ideographs” because they contain an ideological

commitment and because the indoctrinated audience will react to them as gestalts. Thus,

McGee’s ideographs are the same kind of terms as Weaver’s “uncontested terms.”

Analysis of terminology based on these various conceptions of terms enables the

critic to find hierarchical relations among terms in a cluster. I summarize the terms here

to show how they are related to each other.

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Ideal Terms (Burke) Universal (or god) Terms (Weaver)

Platonic ideals, “against which nothing can be said.” Terms that elicit universal positive response.

Charismatic Terms (Weaver) Terms that elicit positive response from multiple ideological perspectives but have been emptied of their content.

God Terms (Burke) Terms at the hierarchical apex of an ideology; ultimate motivating terms within an ideology.

Uncontested Terms (Weaver) Ideographs (McGee) Ambiguous Key Words (Williams)

Terms that seem to invite contest but do not among indoctrinated audiences. Symbolic gestalts containing ideological commitments. Words that have different meanings within different meaning formations.

Equivocation,  Ambiguity,  and  Cooptation  

A common rhetorical strategy is to employ ideal or charismatic terms in order to

gain support for a policy or group. By flying the banner of one of these potent terms in

public rhetoric, the rhetor attempts to effect identification between an ill-defined ideal

and their agenda. Empty charismatic terms are easily appropriated. For instance, a year

after American Crystal Sugar began accepting Monsanto’s genetically-modified sugar

beets at their processing plants they launched a public relations campaign in which they

announced their pride in producing one-fifth of the country’s “pure, natural sugar.” Pure

and natural are charismatic terms which have no definitive meaning; instead, they have

an exceptionally broad range of meanings, and they have become fuzzy in popular

culture. Thus equivocation can be an effective rhetorical strategy.

Equivocation has been defined as an avoidance strategy and as a face-saving

strategy. When it is used this way, researchers emphasize evasiveness (Bull). When I

refer to equivocation, however, I mean the intentional use of ambiguous words to blur

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meaning. Eric Eisenberg has shown that strategic ambiguity, which, he observes, reduces

clarity, can be useful in building “unified diversity” (Eisenberg). Shirley Leitch and Sally

Davenport come to a similar conclusion in their analysis of the term “sustainable” in the

debate over GM technology in New Zealand: “the discourse strategy of strategic

ambiguity,” they say, “played a vital role in enabling the government to portray a

seemingly inclusive ‘sustainable’ future that captured most if not all of the multiple and

possibly competing perspectives” (59).

Granting that strategic ambiguity or equivocation may enable cooperation, in this

paper, I argue that it may also be used to coopt the cultural capital of a term in public

debate. Cooptation is the act of appropriating or colonizing. For instance, in Aili Mari

Tripp’s study the Ugandan women’s movement, she uses the term “cooptation” to

describe attempts by the National Resistance Movement in Uganda to create an

identification in the popular mind between the resistance movement and the women’s

movement. Similarly, Bruce Dickson describes “cooptation strategies” used by the

Chinese Communist party to draw in new elites with needed skills. He calls these people

“coopted actors.” In these studies, cooptation is the act of drawing in and subordinating

something that has cultural capital. “Sustainability” is such a term.

“Sustainability”  as  a  Contested  Term    

“Sustainability” is a term that has powerful positive connotations worldwide

(Leitch and Davenport, 47); however, it is in the process of changing from a God term

within an environmentally-sensitive agriculture movement into a charismatic term devoid

of content. As Alex Koutsouris says, “[sustainability’s] specific meaning and practical

applications are dynamic, largely unclear and highly contested” (240). Bradley Parrish

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agrees: “Sustainable development is a contested concept. It is contested because it is

complex and it is high stakes. The concept is complex because it addresses some of the

most basic concerns of the human condition—our wellbeing and our place in the natural

world” (15).

While environmentalists and organic farmers trace the roots of sustainability to

Aldo Leopold’s “The Land Ethic” and F. H. King’s study of organic farming in China,

Korea, and Japan, the term “sustainability” took center stage in world politics much later

when Our Common Future, the Report of the World Commission on Environment and

Development—the Brundtland Commission—was published. Although the commission

met in 1983, the report was not published until 1987. In this report, sustainability is

defined this way:

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present

without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own

needs. It contains within it two key concepts:

•   the concept of ‘needs’, in particular the essential needs of the world's

poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and

•   the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social

organization on the environment’s ability to meet present and future

needs. (http://worldinbalance.net/agreements/1987-brundtland.php)

This report glosses over implicit disagreements about the meaning of

sustainability within competing ideological perspectives, creating the impression of

“unified diversity.” However, the battle over the term sustainability, its ownership, and its

meaning soon surfaced. It is apparent as early as 1984 in Agricultural Sustainability in a

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Changing World Order, edited by Gordon K. Douglas. Most of the papers in this volume

were given at a conference at Pomona College in Claremont, California, in 1982. In “The

Meanings of Sustainability,” Douglas explains the grouping of chapters in the book. The

members of first group focus on population increases and the need to increase the food

supply. They advocate higher productivity and efficiency. The members of the second

group seek ecological balance. Members of the third group, alternative agriculturalists,

link sustainable agriculture with sustainable communities (5-6). Douglas seeks a

compromise position in his own definition: “Agriculture will be found to be sustainable

when ways are discovered to meet future demands for foodstuffs without imposing on

society real increases in the social costs of production and without causing the

distribution of opportunities or incomes to worsen” (25).

Although Douglas’s definition addresses the concerns of the three groups, it has

proven over time to have been unsuccessful in promoting a synthesis. Its failure is not

surprising given the incommensurable world views of the contributors to the volume. For

example, William Lockeretz advocates the use of petrochemical herbicides, claiming that

“agriculture has been made far more sustainable because of chemical fallow replacing

mechanical fallow” (80-81). Vernon Ruttan, another member of the agriculture efficiency

group, says that the conservation model of agriculture is not capable of keeping pace with

modern demands for growth in output (111). He advocates an “induced innovation

model,” which encourages technological innovation, especially in terms of mechanical

technology and biological-chemical inputs (119). This model also strongly encourages

rural peoples in developing countries to abandon “natural-resource-based” agriculture

and to adopt “science-based” agriculture (127). Similarly, Orville Freeman suggests that

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the U. S. model, in which the corporate private sector has been so influential, should be

spread around the world by extension experts (140-141).

In contrast to the efficiency group, the ecological group advocates care for the

environment. George Brown suggests that a stewardship ethic be adopted. Stewardship,

he says, is “the habitual tendency to use natural resources in a manner respectful of their

own beauty and harmony, that also conserves their esthetic and productive values” (148).

Wes Jackson, perhaps the most radical of the environmentalists, describes tillage

agriculture as a fall, similar to, if not identical with, the account of the fall in Genesis

(163). In place of tillage agriculture, he suggests that varieties of perennial grasses be

developed that can be harvested without tilling the soil every year. Miguel Altieri and

colleagues equate sustainable agriculture with a system that reduces energy use, restores

homeostatic mechanisms, and encourages local production of food (177). Members of the

third group, the agriculture and community group, share many values with the

environmentalist group, but they go further by including the well being of rural

communities in their definition of sustainability. Wendell Berry is frank in his

indictments of industrial agriculture, which he characterizes as “community-killing

agriculture.” It is the work, he says, of “the institutions of agriculture: the university

experts, the bureaucrats, and the ‘agri-businessmen,’ who have promoted so-called

efficiency at the expense of community . . . and quantity at the expense of quality” (221).

In this volume, we can see contrasting ultimate terms: “population growth,”

“productivity,” and “efficiency” on the one hand, “stability,” “ecology,” “resilience,”

and “community” on the other. It is not surprising, then, that “sustainability” continued to

be a contested term as these various camps developed their own agendas.

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The battle is still apparent in the 1992 issues of Agriculture and Human Values.

At this time and in this journal, the voice of the efficiency camp is subdued compared to

the voices of the environmental and community camps, which are in the ascendency. Carl

Esbjornson traces the modern concept of sustainable agriculture to the 1930s in America,

when the dust bowl “brought the science of ecology out of obscurity” (24). “Sustainable

agriculture,” he says, “restores the ancient earth stewardship tradition and recovers the

concept of agriculture as a cultural practice” (21). Max Pfeffer suggests that sustainable

agriculture grew significantly as a response to the farm crisis of the 1980s. It was seen as

an alternative farming practice that would reduce input costs by eliminating chemicals,

using natural fertilizers, rotating crops, and increasing tillage to eliminate weeds (8).

Clearly, by 1992, there was a well-established school of thought that defined “sustainable

agriculture” as an environmental and cultural alternative to industrial agriculture. Within

this meaning structure, “sustainability” has become a God term, the chief motivating

word within the terminology cluster.

However, in the same issues, some scholars note that the term “sustainable” is

still being contested. For instance, Kathryn Paxton George acknowledges that there is

little consensus about what the term means, and she lists the three competing views

described by Douglas a decade earlier: sustainability as food sufficiency, sustainability as

stewardship, and sustainability as community (48-49). Charles Blatz enumerates several

ways sustainable agriculture could be defined, including definitions that emphasize

sustaining production levels and definitions that emphasize sustaining the land. He makes

further subdivision within these categories. Those who emphasize productivity use

reductive practices (practices that reduce the land’s capability to produce) or

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compensatory practices (practices that bring in supplements to make up for nutrients

taken out). Those who emphasize sustaining the land use regenerative practices (practices

that enhance the land’s health). His article, therefore, implicitly suggests that an industrial

agriculture that depletes the land could be referred to as sustainable agriculture if the

focus is on sustaining production levels. Farming methods dependent on chemical

fertilizers and herbicides could also be considered a form of “compensatory sustainable

agriculture” because they compensate for the damage done to the land. Thus, Blatz still

acknowledges definitions of sustainable agriculture that are inconsistent with the

emerging dominant meaning. Paul Thompson speaks up for agriculture practices that

focus on productivity and criticizes the regenerative agriculture group. His critique of the

emerging sustainable agriculture movement is buried in his discussion “emic” and “etic”

views of sustainability. From the perspective of the farmer participating in an agriculture

system (emic—or insider position), sustainability has to do with maintaining production

levels. From an external perspective (etic—or outsider position), the farmer is part of the

system, and sustainability has to do with maintaining a viable system rather than output

levels. Thompson suggests that those who promote etic views of sustainability (who are

by definition outsiders) should be more “modest” because their view doesn't supply

norms that the farmer within the system is likely to adopt (14). Both farmers and

advocates of systemic sustainability, however, have “moral obligations to act responsibly

within a shared linguistic community” (15, emphasis added). Thompson, in this

statement, reclaims the term sustainability for productivity-oriented farming, rebuking

those who have appropriated or coopted the term to represent only systematic agriculture.

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Similar discussions continue into the new century. In 2003, Hugo Alrøe and Erik

Kristensen distinguished between weak and strong versions of sustainability. Weak

sustainability characterizes nature as robust and society as separable from nature. It

assumes that artificial inputs external to the local environment can be imported infinitely.

Strong sustainability, conversely, characterizes nature as vulnerable and society as

dependent on nature. Strong sustainability assumes that man-made substitutes used to

enhance nature will not be infinitely available. John Ikerd, in Sustainable Capitalism,

adopts the strong view, claiming that sustainable development is most commonly taken to

mean development that is “enduring, supportable, and livable” and that “meets the needs

of the present while leaving equal or better opportunities for the future” (45).

By 2006, however, there were signs that advocates of organic, regenerative

agriculture were beginning to recognize that the term “sustainability” was beginning to

lose its referential content. John Byrne, Leigh Glover, and Hugo Alrøe lament that in the

globalized economy, the word “sustainable” has become associated with “sustainable

development” rather than with “sustainable agriculture.” This framing of the term carries

with it the assumption that keeping pace with world population will require standardized

mechanization; increased reliance on inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, GMOs; and the

integration of transcontinental markets shaped by conglomerate agribusinesses (50-51).

They trace the roots of this meaning to Our Common Future, which I referenced earlier.

The report may have defined sustainable development as development that meets the

“needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their

own needs,” but it also stated that humanity has the ability to create a sustainable future

through a marriage of economy and ecology. This marriage, according to Byrne, Glover,

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and Alrøe, is now known as “ecological modernization” (52), an approach that favors a

“compensatory sustainability,” rather than organic farming and regenerative

sustainability. They go on to point out that this approach to sustainable growth is being

contested by organic farmers and indigenous peoples world wide on the bases of

ecological justice, a perspective that attempts to replace “commodity valuation” of land

with “commons valuation” of land (55). The current state of the battle over the term

“sustainable development” is further documented by Bradley Parrish, who suggests that

advocates of sustainable development fall into two camps. The first group adopts a

‘humans-and-ecosystems’ perspective, and the second adopts a ‘humans-in-ecosystems

perspective’ (19). Curiously, the insider-outsider dichotomy has flipped in this article:

advocates of industrial agriculture are now outside the ecosystem, whereas Thompson

had characterized them as being inside the production system.

This review of the term “sustainability” brings us up to date on the battle over the

term in the scholarly literature. Clearly, the competing camps have engaged in a tug-of-

war over the term at least since the early 1980s, with different camps being in the

ascendency at different times. The battle shows that competing definitions of

sustainability reside in ideologies, and that these definitions play a different role within

the agendas of these ideologies. The review also sets the stage for my analysis of how

supporters of industrial agriculture have recently used strategic ambiguity to coopt the

term “sustainable” to their advantage.

“Sustainability”  as  a  Charismatic  Term    

The story of how the industrial agriculture camp successfully coopted the term

“sustainable” in the upper Midwest of the United States could be told in several ways. In

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this version, the story begins with the 2009 Conference of the Northern Plains

Sustainable Agriculture Society (NPSAS), which took place on February 13-14 in Huron,

South Dakota. NPSAS is one of the oldest alternative agriculture societies in North

America. Originally named North Dakota Natural Farmers Association, NPSAS

describes the organization on their website.

NPSAS, a 30-year-old grassroots educational organization, has worked to:

•   advocate land stewardship and organic farming,

•   bring together farmers for education and advancement of sustainable

practices,

•   help Northern Plains farmers convert their farms to organic systems,

•   increase the region's land grant research in organic and sustainable

agriculture,

•   protect the integrity of the organic label,

•   promote healthy trade relationships in the organic industry, and

•   develop local food systems. (http://www.npsas.org/, accessed August

11, 2009)

Their website houses several position papers which make their ideological

perspective clear. In “Feeding the Village First,” they say:

Feeding the village first is a concept which suggests that local

community economies are healthiest when they are as self-reliant as

possible, especially where food and agriculture are concerned. Self-reliant

communities are healthiest because they are free to pursue their own

course, shaped by cultural norms which evolved in those communities to

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maintain the local public good. . . . Each local culture must be free to

evolve so that it can protect the unique ecology and public good of each

local community.

NPSAS is networked with other “sustainable agriculture” organizations. Fred

Kirschenmann is both a founding member of NPSAS and a distinguished fellow of the

Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. The Leopold Center

website says, “sustainable agriculture addresses the ecological, economic and social

aspects of agriculture. To be sustainable, agriculture can operate only when the

environment, its caretakers and surrounding communities are healthy” (What is

Sustainable Ag?). The Leopold Center directs readers to the USDA program, Sustainable

Agriculture Research and Education (SARE), which defines sustainable agriculture this

way:

The primary goals of sustainable agriculture include:

• Providing a more profitable farm income

• Promoting environmental stewardship, including:

-   Protecting and improving soil quality

-   Reducing dependence on non-renewable resources, such as fuel

and synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and

-   Minimizing adverse impacts on safety, wildlife, water quality and

other environmental resources

• Promoting stable, prosperous farm families and communities. (Exploring

Sustainability)

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Clearly, this group aligns itself with the community-based, regenerative

agriculture. Indeed, Wendell Berry has been the keynote speaker at NPSAS. Another

NPSAS position paper, “Defining Mission,” sounds as though Wendell Berry could have

written it. It indicts the land grant universities for their alliance with agri-business and

productivity-oriented agriculture and calls on these institutions to turn their attention to

research that supports the family farm and alternative agriculture.

The keynote speaker for the 2009 NPSAS conference was Karl Kupers, a farmer

and co-founder of Shepherd's Grain, a marketing group in the American Northwest. His

topic was “Marketing Sustainability.” Brad Brummond, from NPSAS, introduced him by

saying that sustainable agriculture is a “new land,” and once you have arrived you have to

“burn your ship.” Karl Kupers, according to Brummond, is committed to sustainable

agriculture, to saving family farms, and to providing information to the consumer about

where food comes from. Shepherd’s Grain website states that sustainable agriculture has

three main ideas: Environment health, socially just, and economic profitability

(http://www.shepherdsgrain.com/sustainability.htm, accessed August 11, 2009). Based on

Brummond’s introduction and on this statement, it appears that Karl Kupers and

Shepherd’s Grain share the values of NPSAS.

Kupers began his keynote address by saying, “I don’t think you can define

sustainability, but we can describe it.” After describing his buying, milling, and

marketing operation, he described his understanding of sustainable agriculture: it is not

commodity agriculture; it is not organic agriculture. Rather it is “no-till and direct-

seeding agriculture,” a definition he claims is recognized by the Food Alliance. Because

there is not a lot of consensus about the term sustainable, he went on, you have to

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understand that there is no one definition that fits all. You have to settle on a definition

for your self and then embrace that definition, understanding that customers will have

their own definitions. He then traced the beginning of the term “sustainable” to 1991,

when Low Input Sustainable Agriculture (LISA) emerged as an agricultural method.

Acknowledging that the term sustainable agriculture has proliferated and even become

political, he said that he has found it to mean ecologically sound methods, socially

accepted methods, and commercially viable methods. “Agriculture sustainability,” he

said, “has become the most important word in agricultural market today.” Kupers

continued discussing production methods that employ low-till methods (but he studiously

avoided reference to Roundup, a chemical produced by Monsanto that is used heavily in

low-till agriculture). He also described his marketing research strategies. By interviewing

shoppers in the organic section of super markets, he found key words:

•   Local

•   Traceable

•   Ecologically sound

•   Family farm

•   Economically viable.

His speech ended with a description of his marketing agreement with Wal Mart.

During the question and answer period, several questions came up that suggested

the audience had found Kupers’ use of terminology troublesome. He fielded questions

about whether or not multinational companies enhance community sustainability; he

defended troublesome alliances with companies like Cocoa Cola, Monsanto, and Wal

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Mart on the basis that they are now interested in sustainability; and he deferred to the

Food Alliance to defend the use chemicals in “sustainable agriculture.”

It became apparent that the “shared linguistic community” had encountered a

crisis. Kupers was using sustainability as an instrument to market products that many in

the audience would not recognize as sustainably produced. In other words, it would be

reasonable to say that he was coopting the organization’s God term, their chief

motivating term. Later, I asked Fred Kirschenmann, one of the founding members of

NPSAS, about the way the term “sustainability” was being used, sharing with him that

Hugo Alrøe had told me that he had abandoned the word in his work with the European

Union. Kirschenmann agreed that the word has nearly lost the meaning it once had in the

sustainable agriculture movement. He suggested that perhaps an emerging replacement

term would be “resilience.”

During the question and answer period, someone alerted the audience to a bill in

the North Dakota Senate, being promoted by the Keystone Alliance for Sustainable

Agriculture. This announcement surfaced, for those who were willing to follow up, a

political battle over the term “sustainable agriculture” that would have important

ramifications for farming in North Dakota. The Keystone Center describes itself as a

facilitator: “In a society faced with increasingly complex issues, we are proud to be a

leader in facilitating collaborative scientific and policy deliberations”

(http://www.keystone.org/about-us, accessed August 11, 2009). It also turns out that The

Keystone Center is affiliated with Monsanto’s external advisory council on

biotechnology, which works directly with Monsanto’s CEO and senior management.

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The Keystone Alliance sponsors a subgroup, Field to Market, which they define

as:

. . . a diverse, collaborative initiative involving producers, agribusinesses,

food companies, retailers, and conservation organizations. Field to Market

defines agricultural sustainability as meeting the needs of the present

while improving the ability to feed future generations by focusing on

increasing agricultural productivity while decreasing environmental

impact, improving human health through access to safe, nutritious food

and improving social and economic well-being of rural communities.

(http://www.keystone.org/spp/environment/ag-food-nutrition, accessed

August 11, 2009)

On the Field to Market website, the definition of sustainable agriculture appears to be one

that draws on definitions typical of the productivity camp, amended slightly to

accomodate the environmental camp. However, as their challenge statement below

shows, the key words in their terminology cluster are related to population growth,

efficiency, profit, productivity, food, and (at the bottom of the list) environmental health.

To meet the needs of 9 billion people in 2050, we must:

•   Increase efficient use of resources for profitable agricultural

production

•   Continue to increase overall productivity

•   Maintain and improve access to nutritious and safe food, and

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•   Maintain and improve environmental health.

(http://www.keystone.org/spp/environment/sustainability/field-to-

market, accessed August 11, 2009)

It isn’t surprising, therefore, to find that the terminology cluster in the North

Dakota State Senate Bill No. 2438 mirrors that of Field to Market. This bill was designed

to promote “sustainably grown” agriculture products. Under this bill, a grower can apply

to the state department of commerce to be granted the right to market a product as

sustainably grown if it meets the department’s established criteria for sustainability.

According to an early draft of the bill:

. . . "sustainably grown" means that a crop is grown using research-based

practices that result in:

a. Decreased tillage requirements;

b. Decreased soil erosion;

c. Decreased use of water;

d. Decreased use of chemicals;

e. Increased yields; and

f. Greater economic benefit to producers.

As is apparent, this definition promotes science-based agri-business. It mandates the use

of low-till agriculture, which does reduce soil erosion and water evaporation. However, it

implicitly requires the use of glyphosate (eg., Monsanto’s Roundup), a herbicide that kills

all plant life except those plants genetically modified to resist the herbicide. It could be

argued that this method reduces the use of chemicals, at least that it reduces the number

of chemicals being used. Whether or not low-till agriculture produces better yields or

22

provides greater economic benefit to producers is still a matter of debate. The final

version of the bill moderated the language slightly:

For purposes of this section, "sustainably grown" means that a crop is

grown using research-based practices that result in:

a. Increased efficiencies in soil and nutrient preservation;

b. Decreased reliance on tillage and other soil-depleting practices;

c. Increased efficiencies in the use of water;

d. Increased efficiencies in the use of other necessary and measurable

agricultural inputs;

e. Increased yield efficiencies; and

f. Greater economic benefit to producers.

Elements of the ammended language, “nutrient preservation” and “soil-depleting

practices,” appear to be minor concessions to the organic and sustainable community.

Even so, it is clear that the language of the bill still encourages farmers to adopt

Monsanto’s crop system and that it coopts “sustainability” as a charismatic term that has

been found to be effective in marketing. The final bill will signed by the Governor of

North Dakota on April 24, 2009 (http://www.legis.nd.gov/assembly/61-2009/bill-

actions/ba2438.html, accessed August 11, 2009).

Conclusion

This study has explored the term “sustainability” and its cognates using a

theoretical lens that combines Kenneth Burke’s terministic screens, God terms, and ideal

terms with Richard Weaver’s ultimate, uncontested, and charismatic terms. Raymond

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Williams’ discussion of key terms, Norman Fairclough’s definition of ideologies, and

Michael McGee’s theory of ideographs are complementary theoretical frames that enrich

Burke and Weaver by including a stronger emphasis on the political nature of

terminology. Together, these theoretical perspectives help to focus attention on the role of

terminology clusters in shaping perception, on the importance ambiguous contested terms

in shaping public discourse, and on the rhetorical strategy of coopting terminology to win

strategic advantage.

The account of the battle over the contested term “sustainability” during the last

thirty years reveals how competing ideologies have used the term and where they have

located it in their hierarchy of terms. This story shows that “sustainable” became a God

term, or ultimate motivating term, among those who advocated regenerative, organic

farming, but it also shows that productivity-oriented farming associated with agri-

business was reluctant to abandon the term even though it inhabited a less important

position in their terminology cluster. Instead of ascending to the status of a God term in

their terminology cluster, “sustainability” became an instrumental term that made it

possible to link industrial agriculture with sustainability.

Eventually, as we have seen, when the term sustainability became a charismatic

term in popular culture, it lost most of its denotative content, but continued to have

powerful connotative associations. It appears that as the term became more and more

powerful in the public sphere, the productivity-oriented camp seized the opportunity to

identify themselves with sustainable agriculture, coopting the term from the regenerative

and organic agriculture camp. Supported by giant agribusiness corporations, the

24

productivity camp has now succeeded in transforming “sustainable” into legal

terminology, at least in the state of North Dakota.

This study and the story of the contested term “sustainability” raises an important

theoretical issue. Although the theoretical frames used in this analysis were useful in

explaining what happened up to the time that the Governor of North Dakota signed bill

No. 2483, they offer no language to explain the level of cooptation that results in the

shifting of a term from public, contested space to legal status. It seems to me that we have

entered a new stage in the battle over the term, a stage that might better be explained by

investigating Bourdieu and Wacquant’s suggestion that cultural imperialism is a form of

symbolic violence.

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