{"title":"Reckoning with Tlatelolco: Arturo Rosenblueth and a Cybernetic Rhetoric","authors":"J. Izaguirre","doi":"10.14321/rhetpublaffa.25.2.0057","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This essay examines the cybernetic rhetoric of Dr. Arturo Rosenblueth, a cybernetician and prominent Mexican intellectual. Published in a journal reaffirming Mexico’s political image in the aftermath of the Tlatelolco Massacre in 1968, his essay offered a counter to one of the government’s rationales for the violence enacted against the movimiento estudiantil at Tlatelolco—the influence of el extranjero. Rosenblueth’s essay evinced a mediating path between complete disavowal of Mexico’s statist tendencies and support for the Mexican state in post-Tlatelolco Mexico. Yet, in invoking cybernetics as a rhetoric for public intervention in this moment of crisis, I argue that Rosenblueth’s use of cybernetics both empowered his proposals calling for an adjustment to perceptions of el extranjero and supported the survival of a strong Mexican state enacting violence against it. I conclude from my reading of Rosenblueth’s essay that the political possibilities of cybernetic rhetoric lie not only on the cybernetician’s ideological commitments or political context(s) but by a plasticity constitutive of cybernetics.","PeriodicalId":45013,"journal":{"name":"Rhetoric & Public Affairs","volume":"25 1","pages":"57 - 90"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6000,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Rhetoric & Public Affairs","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.14321/rhetpublaffa.25.2.0057","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Abstract:This essay examines the cybernetic rhetoric of Dr. Arturo Rosenblueth, a cybernetician and prominent Mexican intellectual. Published in a journal reaffirming Mexico’s political image in the aftermath of the Tlatelolco Massacre in 1968, his essay offered a counter to one of the government’s rationales for the violence enacted against the movimiento estudiantil at Tlatelolco—the influence of el extranjero. Rosenblueth’s essay evinced a mediating path between complete disavowal of Mexico’s statist tendencies and support for the Mexican state in post-Tlatelolco Mexico. Yet, in invoking cybernetics as a rhetoric for public intervention in this moment of crisis, I argue that Rosenblueth’s use of cybernetics both empowered his proposals calling for an adjustment to perceptions of el extranjero and supported the survival of a strong Mexican state enacting violence against it. I conclude from my reading of Rosenblueth’s essay that the political possibilities of cybernetic rhetoric lie not only on the cybernetician’s ideological commitments or political context(s) but by a plasticity constitutive of cybernetics.