Energeia, Kinesis, and the Neoliberal Rhetoric of Strategic Default

ABSTRACT Recently, rhetoricians have explored the potential of energeia to unfold new understandings of agency and highlight the mutability of rhetorical topoi. This article harnesses such potential to neoliberal rhetorical analysis, examining the “strategic default” debate that dominated the later foreclosure crisis. Tracing the constitution of a moralized binary distinction between intentional and forced default, I argue that the kinesthetic metaphor of “walking away” from underwater houses disciplines consumers while disclosing the latent potentiality for rational actors to abuse their power of choice. To counter this denial of agency, I draw possibilities for resistant practice from de Certeau’s theory of everyday life.