Definition:
The use of language to deceive others or to disguise the conditions of our social existence. See also:
Etymology:
Introduced by Kenneth Burke in A Rhetoric of Motives, from the Latin, "mystery"Examples and Observations:
- "[T]here is always the possibility of mystification, in the sense that language can always be used to deceive. . . . [R]hetorical analysis should always be ready to expose mystifications of this simple but ubiquitous sort . . .. But we are here asking whether there may be a profounder kind of mystification as well, implicit in the very act of persuasion itself.
"As the mystery of courtship is in the act of persuasion intrinsically, so also is there implicit in it the invitation to the mystification of class. We note such motives also in the ambiguously classlike relationships that figure in science, as the material of education involves classes of learners hierarchically arranged among themselves. Or there is the class of students as against the class of teachers. And there are classes of teachers, among themselves 'invidiously' ranked. Persuasion, thus roundabout, brings a mystery into science, into the very disciplines that are usually taken to be the opposite of mystification."
(Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives. Prentice-Hall, 1950) - "We [identified] democracy as the best form of hierarchy, because it minimized the power of priestly mystification which so often arises when authority is grounded in some kind of supernatural power. We admitted to a mystification of our own, namely that of reason in society. This, we argued, can be kept under control only when there is open, free, and informed discussion of action in society."
(Hugh Duncan, "A Sociological Model of Social Interaction," in Critical Responses to Kenneth Burke, ed. by W. H. Rueckert. Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1969)
Pronunciation: miss-teh-feh-KAY-shen
