Jeremiads work through crisis fear, golden-age nostalgia, and calls to renewed action

Evidence

Modern jeremiads contain three basic components. First, they focus on fear and anxiety around a current crisis or the sins and actions of the people they believe are causing the crisis. Next, they contrast the current situation with an idealized vision of the past, demonstrating how turning our backs on our history is leading us down a dark path. They contend that losing sight of this history results in losing aspects of our collective identity. Finally, jeremiads call for repentance and renewal, highlighting how fear should motivate listeners to act. — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 339

Categorization

• DEFINE: Provides the three-part analytic definition of the jeremiad as a rhetorical form.
• XREF: connects to: Deep stories exert power precisely because they go unnoticed — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 143; Nostalgia for an imagined golden age drives resistance and fear — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 199; Nostalgia is an adjustment mechanism during crises — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 540

Broader Connections

• Nostalgia for an imagined golden age drives resistance and fear #corroborates (0.85) — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 199
• Nostalgia is an adjustment mechanism during crises #complicates (0.72) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 540