Summary Of Thomas Burke's Attitudes Towards History

In Burke’s book, “Attitudes Towards History” he argues that the symbolic action of literature offers audiences a “perspective by incongruity” (225) on their own situations. Ultimately, Burke is saying that readers can draw conclusions and react to literature by creating judgements based on their own experiences. A perspective by incongruity is taking two ideas and creating something completely new by incorporating them with each other. Burke says that, “In this ‘imperfect world,’ no imaginative possibility can ever attain complete bureaucratization” (225). The world realistically can never create a true bureaucracy where each member of the middle class is satisfied with their living situation; however, if an author combines literature with
a bureaucracy, then he or she has the ability to create a perfect world with a completely functional bureaucratization. The perspective by incongruity that Macklemore’s “Same Love” has is combining rap and the supporting of gay rights to create something both beautiful and innovative. By combining two ideas that are almost complete opposites of each other, it allowed the song to inspire so many different people. Before Macklemore, no rapper had been able to successfully incorporate the supporting of homosexuality in their song writing. The leap of faith would have seemed foolish to many, but Macklemore made it work. He opened an entirely new audience to rap as well, which is incredible in itself. He had expanded the audience of the rap tradition with a single song. By rapping about gay rights,