The rhetoric of <family values>: Scapegoating, utopia, and the privatization of social responsibility

Abstract

This article performs an ideographic analysis of the bipartisan political deployment of the slogan <family values> during the 1992 Presidential election campaign. The analysis shows that <family values> talk functioned during that campaign to scapegoat Black men and poor Americans for social problems. However, the <family values> ideograph also is invested with a gendered utopian narrative that makes its scapegoating less apparent and more persuasive. Ultimately, in constructing the family as the site of all responsibility and change, the rhetoric of <family values> privatizes social responsibility for ending poverty and racism.