Avatars, Icons, and Adversaries--Full Text of Vice President's Harris's Remarks at the Democratic National Convention

 

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 Vice President Harris has accepted her party's nomination to stand for election for the upcoming presidential elections. That is hardly news, the transition from President Biden's abandoned presidential campaign to the Vice President's endorsement by Party leaders thereafter has been well reported, and it would have been scandalous if the Vice President had not secured the nomination. 

That brought the events of the Democratic Party convention to its high point--the speech of the Vice President formally accepting the nomination. The text of the speech follows (via the New York Times) and is well worth a read. 

The speech is quite interesting as semiotics--that is a an expression of self creation for a community the embrace of the meaning of that self-creation  carries with it important political consequences--at least for the community. In a sense, though, the Vice President was not so much engaging in an act of self-creation as a form of re-invention. That was clearly not the point--as much as her political opponents might be tempted to use the speech strategically in that sense. Instead, it might be more useful--from a semiotic perspective--to understand the speech in the usual sense of seeking to create an avatar.  That is, a political candidate, running on the principle of democratic representation, must effectively undertake a process of reverse incarnation. That is the candidate must transform themselves from a carnate human being into a representative of something larger--of the polity that the candidate seeks to represent. The candidate, then, becomes not merely an avatar but also an icon. Where a divinity might take on human form--an incarnation from generalized representation to a specific human representation; the political candidate must seek to do this in reverse--to manifest themselves not as a single human but as a human whose humanity (or in the current parlance, whose "story") is representative of a larger, aggregated manifestation of the human condition, its aspirations, character and the like.

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It is worth considering the difference in this context. An avatar might be understood as the embodiment of the abstract, sometimes a divinity or divine essence (from the Sanskrit avatarana), sometimes of the soul or manifestation resident elsewhere. Since the 19th century in the West it has come to mean a ""concrete embodiment of something abstract." In one sense, and as a discursive trope now common in the United States, personal storytelling is a popular form of creating avatars.  The avatar--the storyteller--incarnates the lessons and history that preceded them in time and place and space.  They are the sum of that story and its manifestation in their acts and outlook.  Every person, then, is the sum of their story; and their story is a manifestation of the aggregation of their history and their lessons that can be drawn from and through the conscious perceptions of rationalizing tastes of the community into which the story is projected. The avatar, then, is at once a personal incarnation, but also one that is given sense by its connection to the expectations and emphasis of the community into which the story is projected. It is not the story that is important--but rather its manifestation in its physical form.

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An icon, might be understood as a specific form of avatar.  A closer consideration reveals its difference. Its etymology underscores both its richness as a concept as its difference from that of the avatar. The term derives form Greek eikon "likeness, image, portrait; image in a mirror; a semblance, phantom image;" in philosophy, "an image in the mind." If the concept of the avatar focuses on the personification of the realities built into the story manifested in the concrete form of the person, the concept of the icon focuses on the concepts behind the concrete image which represents it in material form. When one beholds an avatar one embraces the material as the embodiment of the immaterial; when one beholds the icon one embraces the immaterial through the concrete image which serves merely as a doorway to the immaterial. It is in those sense, in the 21st century that one can speak to avatars in the virtual realms of cyberspace and understand them as the manifestation of the person they now represent. In contrast, one understands the icon as the pictorial representation of the thing or action desired--file, program, web page, or command. It is not the image that is important--but rather the abstraction it represents. An icon sometimes embeds history--like the floppy disk icon that represents the function of saving data on a medium largely no longer in use. In this sense, the icon can retain skeuomorphic elements that imitate (mimesis) connecting symbol to archetype.

All political figures are both avatar and icon, and the Vice President's speech serves as an excellent example of the semiotics of the avatar and the icon in the political field.  The effort is not unique to the Vice President; indeed, its interest here is in the way it is invoked rather than that it has been invoked. The Vice President constructs her avatar as a composite of her upbringing and family life. These are semiotic objects (that she grew up as she did and within the overlapping identities which she invokes) that become signs--that is that signify both belonging and that serve to align her person (who she is as an individual) within the broad symbolism and significations of the context from out of which she emerges. These are not just personal stories but personifications of aggregated stories  that are meant to be both defining and a manifestation of significance, of who and what is meant to be represented by and through the avatar. a Here the tropes are grounded in identity and class. Avatars, though, are also objects. And they must be activated or moved around the space into which they are projected in the way that simulated avatars engage within their virtual worlds. The icon represents the programing or coded instructions that are written into the avatar and that projects the avatar's character and sensibilities toward tasks. Here the Vice President identifies the icon and its objectives--to bring to further fulfillment the coded operational objectives already developed from the Clinton Administration and acquiring its current instructions and goals in the new era of the Obama Administration, a set of coding for which the Biden Administration served as a faithful caretaker (see eg here and here). 

These are avatars and icons that draw their power from the fundamental nature of representative government--the candidate is both themselves and the incarnation of the represented.  To mediate there must be both a "self" and an abstracted self that represents the electorate (or at least enough of them to get elected). Likewise, they must construct themselves as icons--in the cyber sense; as the image that one activates to rune a program and reach certain goals (that was in effect the construction that Mr. Obama produced for the Vice President in his speech; see American Narrative Mimetics--"America’s ready for a better story": Former President Obama's Remarks at the Democratic National Convention). The Vice President is both the incarnation of the story of the ideal current ideal of the aggregated polity (her story) and a command function which when activated will move the nation forward along the lines of the program described.  The Vice President's self, then, is rationalized and projected through the perception of the self within its icon and avatar.

But every avatar must have its adversary. The adversary is the foundation of oppositions, the dialectics of which are the essence of the binary dialectics of good-bad; light-shadow etc.  One recalls the etymological origins of the term from Latin oppositus "standing against, The adversary is itself the incarnation--the avatar--pf opposition, that representaiton of what stands in the way, what blocks the path. The Great Adversary (etymology  from Greek Satanas, from Hebrew satan "adversary, one who plots against another," from satan "to show enmity to, oppose, plot against." Mr. Biden's remarks for example (Remarks by President Biden During Keynote Address at the Democratic National Committee Convention | Chicago, IL) illustrate the was that these fundamental rationalizations of collective perception are transposed into the performance of politics. 

And perhaps it is in this sense of the semiotics of opposition that one might understand the profound effect of the fundamental essence of opposition which sharpens the dialectics of political discourse, that shapes the mutuality of oppositional storytelling and the constitution of avatar and icon. It is in the shadow of the adversary that the profundity of the avatar and the command of the icon can be more clearly exposed ("Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour" 1 Peter 5:8). The adversary is the inverted mimetic of the avatar and the inverse of the icon's pathway.  AT the same time the Great Adversary is itself avatar and icon, a representation of a threatening other. The better defined the adversary, the clearer the adversary's narrative, the more precisely drawn the avatar and the ore clearly articulated the icon's representation.  The greater the adversary the more profound the opposing avatar and its icon. The way forward, as the Vice President and Former President Obama noted, requires the overcoming of the adversary, removing the opposition that blocks the path. The process of overcoming opposition, semiotically, reproduces purification rituals that once, long again, relied on the tropes of burning away impurity ("Thou hast trodden down all them that err from thy statutes: for their deceit is falsehood. Thou puttest away all the wicked of the earth like dross: therefore I love thy testimonies." Psalms 119:118-119)

Mimesis, though, produces an echoing effect.  The construction of the Great Adversary also requires its avatar and its icon. For the Vice President that incarnation of opposition--of standing in the way, is incarnated in the person of Former President Trump, to which a portion of the Vice President's remarks were directed. He is the avatar and a central element in the construction of a Great Adversary against which the greatness of the opposing avatar and icon can be sketched. This is not new to the Vice President--and carries over from the years long effort at constructing from out of the person of the Former President Trump both the avatar of negative-destructive opposition and the icon of the pathways to the dissolution of the Republic. And here the mimesis, Former President Trump applies the same measure to the Vice President with the polarities reversed. The discursive forms remain the same however, In this way collective discourse is possible around a shared set of meaning tropes. The contest is over the application of these fundamental tropes to the two candidates for office. 

And always in the background is the Stan in Job--the oppositional force that accuses and opposes, that tests and doubts, against which all things are judged. An oppositional force the principal responsibility of which is indeed to test and oppose. The object is rectification, which serves as the essence of the Vice President's remarks, and the foundation of discursive elements of the campaign that is to follow, one that acquires its discursive power when read against the discursive elements of the opposing collective for which the Vice President is cast in the role of adversary.

 

 

Full Transcript of Kamala Harris’s Democratic Convention Speech

The vice president’s remarks lasted roughly 35 minutes on the final night of the convention in Chicago.

 

By The New York Times

• Aug. 23, 2024Updated 5:55 a.m. ET

This is a transcript of Vice President Kamala Harris’s speech on Thursday night in which she formally accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidency.

OK, let’s get to business. Let’s get to business. All right.

So, let me start by thanking my most incredible husband, Doug. For being an incredible partner to me, an incredible father to Cole and Ella, and happy anniversary, Dougie. I love you so very much.

To our president, Joe Biden. When I think about the path that we have traveled together, Joe, I am filled with gratitude. Your record is extraordinary, as history will show, and your character is inspiring. And Doug and I love you and Jill, and are forever thankful to you both.

And to Coach Tim Walz. You are going to be an incredible vice president. And to the delegates and everyone who has put your faith in our campaign, your support is humbling.

So, America, the path that led me here in recent weeks was, no doubt, unexpected. But I’m no stranger to unlikely journeys. So, my mother, our mother, Shyamala Harris, had one of her own. And I miss her every day, and especially right now. And I know she’s looking down smiling. I know that.

So, my mother was 19 when she crossed the world alone, traveling from India to California with an unshakable dream to be the scientist who would cure breast cancer.

When she finished school, she was supposed to return home to a traditional arranged marriage. But as fate would have it, she met my father, Donald Harris, a student from Jamaica. They fell in love and got married, and that act of self-determination made my sister, Maya, and me.

Growing up, we moved a lot. I will always remember that big Mayflower truck, packed with all our belongings, ready to go — to Illinois, to Wisconsin, and wherever our parents’ jobs took us.

My early memories of our parents together are very joyful ones. A home filled with laughter and music: Aretha, Coltrane and Miles. At the park, my mother would say, “Stay close.” But my father would say, as he smiled, “Run, Kamala, run. Don’t be afraid. Don’t let anything stop you.” From my earliest years, he taught me to be fearless.

But the harmony between my parents did not last. When I was in elementary school, they split up, and it was mostly my mother who raised us. Before she could finally afford to buy a home, she rented a small apartment in the East Bay.

In the Bay — in the Bay — you either live in the hills or the flatlands. We lived in the flats. A beautiful, working-class neighborhood of firefighters, nurses and construction workers. All who tended their lawns with pride.

My mother, she worked long hours. And like many working parents, she leaned on a trusted circle to help raise us. Mrs. Shelton, who ran the day care below us and became a second mother. Uncle Sherman, Aunt Mary, Uncle Freddie, Auntie Chris — none of them family by blood, and all of them family by love.

Family who taught us how to make gumbo, how to play chess — and sometimes even let us win. Family who loved us, believed in us, and told us we could be anything and do anything.

They instilled in us the values they personified — community, faith and the importance of treating others as you would want to be treated. With kindness, respect and compassion. My mother was a brilliant, five-foot-tall brown woman with an accent. And as the eldest child — as the eldest child — I saw how the world would sometimes treat her.

But my mother never lost her cool. She was tough, courageous, a trailblazer in the fight for women’s health, and she taught Maya and me a lesson that Michelle mentioned the other night. She taught us to never complain about injustice, but do something about it. Do something about it.

 That was my mother. And she taught us — and she always — she also taught us, and she also taught us — and never do anything half-assed. And that is a direct quote. A direct quote.

I grew up immersed in the ideals of the civil rights movement. My parents had met at a civil rights gathering and they made sure that we learned about civil rights leaders, including the lawyers like Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley, those who battled in the courtroom to make real the promise of America.

So, at a young age, I decided I wanted to do that work. I wanted to be a lawyer. And when it came time to choose the type of law I would pursue, I reflected on a pivotal moment in my life.

You see, when I was in high school, I started to notice something about my best friend, Wanda. She was sad at school, and there were times she didn’t want to go home. So one day I asked if everything was all right, and she confided in me that she was being sexually abused by her stepfather. And I immediately told her she had to come stay with us, and she did.

This is one of the reasons I became a prosecutor: to protect people like Wanda, because I believe everyone has a right to safety, to dignity and to justice.

As a prosecutor, when I had a case, I charged it not in the name of the victim, but in the name of the people, for a simple reason. In our system of justice, a harm against any one of us is a harm against all of us. And I would often explain this to console survivors of crime, to remind them: No one should be made to fight alone. We are all in this together.

And every day, in the courtroom, I stood proudly before a judge and I said five words: Kamala Harris, for the people. And to be clear — and to be clear, my entire career, I’ve only had one client: the people.

And, so, on behalf of the people, on behalf of every American, regardless of party, race, gender or the language your grandmother speaks. On behalf of my mother, and everyone who has ever set out on their own unlikely journey. On behalf of Americans like the people I grew up with — people who work hard, chase their dreams and look out for one another. On behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on Earth, I accept your nomination to be president of the United States of America.

And with this election, and — and with this election, our nation — our nation, with this election, has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism and divisive battles of the past, a chance to chart a new way forward. Not as members of any one party or faction, but as Americans.

And let me say, I know there are people of various political views watching tonight. And I want you to know, I promise to be a president for all Americans. You can always trust me to put country above party and self. To hold sacred America’s fundamental principles, from the rule of law, to free and fair elections, to the peaceful transfer of power.

I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations. A president who leads and listens; who is realistic, practical and has common sense; and always fights for the American people. From the courthouse to the White House, that has been my life’s work.

As a young courtroom prosecutor in Oakland, Calif., I stood up for women and children against predators who abused them. As attorney general of California, I took on the big banks, delivered $20 billion for middle-class families who faced foreclosure and helped pass a homeowner bill of rights, one of the first of its kind in the nation.

I stood up for veterans and students being scammed by big, for-profit colleges. For workers who were being cheated out of their wages, the wages they were due. For seniors facing elder abuse.

I fought against the cartels who traffic in guns and drugs and human beings. Who threaten the security of our border and the safety of our communities. And I will tell you, these fights were not easy, and neither were the elections that put me in those offices. We were underestimated at practically every turn.

But we never gave up. Because the future is always worth fighting for. And that’s the fight we are in right now — a fight for America’s future.

Fellow Americans, this election is not only the most important of our lives, it is one of the most important in the life of our nation. In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences — but the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.

Consider — consider not only the chaos and calamity when he was in office, but also the gravity of what has happened since he lost the last election. Donald Trump tried to throw away your votes. When he failed, he sent an armed mob to the U.S. Capitol, where they assaulted law enforcement officers. When politicians in his own party begged him to call off the mob and send help, he did the opposite — he fanned the flames. And now, for an entirely different set of crimes, he was found guilty of fraud by a jury of everyday Americans, and separately — and separately found liable for committing sexual abuse. And consider, consider what he intends to do if we give him power again. Consider his explicit intent to set free violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers at the Capitol.

His explicit intent to jail journalists, political opponents and anyone he sees as the enemy. His explicit intent to deploy our active duty military against our own citizens. Consider, consider the power he will have, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court just ruled that he would be immune from criminal prosecution. Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails, and how he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States. Not to improve your life, not to strengthen our national security, but to serve the only client he has ever had: himself.

And we know, and we know what a second Trump term would look like. It’s all laid out in Project 2025, written by his closest advisers. And its sum total is to pull our country back to the past. But America, we are not going back. We are not going back. We are not going back.

We are not going back to when Donald Trump tried to cut Social Security and Medicare. We are not going back to when he tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, when insurance companies could deny people with pre-existing conditions. We are not going to let him eliminate the Department of Education that funds our public schools.

We are not going to let him end programs like Head Start that provide preschool and child care for our children. America, we are not going back.

And we are charting — and we are charting a new way forward. Forward to a future with a strong and growing middle class because we know a strong middle class has always been critical to America’s success, and building that middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency.

And I’ll tell you, this is personal for me. The middle class is where I come from. My mother kept a strict budget. We lived within our means. Yet, we wanted for little and she expected us to make the most of the opportunities that were available to us, and to be grateful for them. Because, as she taught us, opportunity is not available to everyone. That’s why we will create what I call an opportunity economy, an opportunity economy where everyone has the chance to compete and a chance to succeed. Whether you live in a rural area, small town, or big city. And as president, I will bring together labor and workers and small-business owners and entrepreneurs and American companies to create jobs, to grow our economy and to lower the cost of everyday needs like health care and housing and groceries.

We will provide access to capital for small-business owners and entrepreneurs and founders. And we will end America’s housing shortage, and protect Social Security and Medicare.

Now compare that to Donald Trump. Because I think everyone here knows, he doesn’t actually fight for the middle class. Not — he doesn’t actually fight for the middle class. Instead, he fights for himself and his billionaire friends. And he will give them another round of tax breaks that will add up to $5 trillion to the national debt.

And all the while, he intends to enact what, in effect, is a national sales tax, call it a Trump tax, that would raise prices on middle-class families by almost $4,000 a year. Well, instead of a Trump tax hike, we will pass a middle-class tax cut that will benefit more than 100 million Americans.

Friends, I believe America cannot truly be prosperous unless Americans are fully able to make their own decisions about their own lives, especially on matters of heart and home.

But tonight, in America, too many women are not able to make those decisions. And let’s be clear about how we got here: Donald Trump handpicked members of the U.S. Supreme Court to take away reproductive freedom. And now, he brags about it.

In his words, “I did it, and I’m proud to have done it.”

Well, I will tell you, over the past two years, I’ve traveled across our country, and women have told me their stories. Husbands and fathers have shared theirs. Stories of women miscarrying in a parking lot, developing sepsis, losing the ability to ever again have children, all because doctors are afraid they may go to jail for caring for their patients. Couples just trying to grow their family, cut off in the middle of I.V.F. treatments.

Children who have survived sexual assault, potentially being forced to carry a pregnancy to term. This is what’s happening in our country because of Donald Trump. And understand, he is not done. As a part of his agenda, he and his allies would limit access to birth control, ban medication abortion and enact a nationwide abortion ban, with or without Congress.

And get this. Get this. He plans to create a national anti-abortion coordinator, and force states to report on women’s miscarriages and abortions. Simply put, they are out of their minds. And one must ask — one must ask, why exactly is it that they don’t trust women? Well, we trust women. We trust women.

And when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom, as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law.

In this election, many other fundamental freedoms are at stake. The freedom to live safe from gun violence in our schools, communities and places of worship. The freedom to love who you love openly and with pride.

The freedom to breathe clean air, and drink clean water and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis. And the freedom that unlocks all the others: the freedom to vote. With this election, we finally have the opportunity to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act.

And let me be clear — and let me be clear, after decades in law enforcement, I know the importance of safety and security, especially at our border. Last year, Joe and I brought together Democrats and conservative Republicans to write the strongest border bill in decades. The border patrol endorsed it. But Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign, so he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal.

Well, I refuse to play politics with our security, and here is my pledge to you. As president, I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that he killed, and I will sign it into law. I know — I know we can live up to our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants and reform our broken immigration system. We can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border.

And America, we must also be steadfast in advancing our security and values abroad. As vice president, I have confronted threats to our security, negotiated with foreign leaders, strengthened our alliances and engaged with our brave troops overseas. As commander in chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world. And I will fulfill our sacred obligation to care for our troops and their families, and I will always honor and never disparage their service and their sacrifice.

I will make sure that we lead the world into the future on space and artificial intelligence. That America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century and that we strengthen, not abdicate, our global leadership. Trump, on the other hand, threatened to abandon NATO. He encouraged Putin to invade our allies. Said Russia could “do whatever the hell they want.”

Five days before Russia attacked Ukraine, I met with President Zelensky to warn him about Russia’s plan to invade. I helped mobilize a global response — over 50 countries — to defend against Putin’s aggression. And as president, I will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies.

With respect to the war in Gaza, President Biden and I are working around the clock, because now is the time to get a hostage deal and a cease-fire deal done.

And let me be clear. And let me be clear. I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself, because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on Oct. 7, including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival.

At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost. Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over again. The scale of suffering is heartbreaking.

President Biden and I are working to end this war, such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.

And know this: I will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists. I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong-un, who are rooting for Trump. Who are rooting for Trump.

Because, you know, they know — they know he is easy to manipulate with flattery and favors. They know Trump won’t hold autocrats accountable because he wants to be an autocrat himself.

And as president, I will never waver in defense of America’s security and ideals, because in the enduring struggle between democracy and tyranny, I know where I stand and I know where the United States belongs.

So, fellow Americans. Fellow Americans. I — I love our country with all my heart. Everywhere I go — everywhere I go, in everyone I meet, I see a nation that is ready to move forward. Ready for the next step in the incredible journey that is America.

I see an America where we hold fast to the fearless belief that built our nation and inspired the world. That here, in this country, anything is possible. That nothing is out of reach. An America where we care for one another, look out for one another and recognize that we have so much more in common than what separates us. That none of us — none of us has to fail for all of us to succeed.

And that in unity, there is strength. You know, our opponents in this race are out there every day denigrating America, talking about how terrible everything is. Well, my mother had another lesson she used to teach: Never let anyone tell you who you are. You show them who you are.

America, let us show each other and the world who we are and what we stand for: Freedom, opportunity, compassion, dignity, fairness and endless possibilities.

We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of the world. And on behalf of our children and our grandchildren and all those who sacrificed so dearly for our freedom and liberty, we must be worthy of this moment.

It is now our turn to do what generations before us have done, guided by optimism and faith, to fight for this country we love, to fight for the ideals we cherish and to uphold the awesome responsibility that comes with the greatest privilege on Earth: the privilege and pride of being an American. So let’s get out there, let’s fight for it. Let’s get out there, let’s vote for it, and together, let us write the next great chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told.

Thank you. God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you.