Jeremiad Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

The jeremiad, a form of social criticism and political rhetoric, takes its name from the Jewish prophetic tradition, in which critics regularly arose to chastise the community for violating God’s commands and call it back to its most basic values. More generally, though, such rhetoric has appeared in all times and places, and is not unique to any particular religious tradition. In common usage, the term tends to be used to describe social and political criticism that decries the loss of important social values and longs for a simpler, more virtuous, or ethically superior past. Jeremiads identify a crisis in contemporary society, relate that crisis to a falling-away from fundamental values, trace out a process of decline from earlier virtuous generations (epitomized by founders or godly ancestors), and call for renewal and reform, to recapture the promise of communal life. Thus the jeremiad involves both social critique and historical memory.

The American version of the jeremiad draws heavily on the notion of America (later, the United States) as a “chosen nation,” with a special role to play in the unfolding of God’s purposes in human history. Early New England clergy employed this rhetorical form to understand how and why a host of social and even natural disasters—factions, dissension, Indian wars, crop failures—had afflicted their settlements. Jeremiads continued throughout the Revolutionary War (1775–1783) period, the Civil War (1861–1865), and even in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

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