Magic, Will, and Discourse: Rhetoric as Technology
Magic, Will, and Discourse: Rhetoric as Technology 1 David Worth University of Oklahoma Introduction This is the age of rhetoric. Persuasion, in both overt and covert forms, is everywhere. The drive to remake reality through influence, scientific and political influence in particular, gained a great deal of power with the Enlightenment and has been powerful since (Mickunas, 1992). This ability to exert will through language has been exploded by contemporary forms of communication. The proliferation of telecommunication, in the forms of mass communication and interpersonal communication in the for of telephony and the Internet, has increased the extent of this power greatly. This power is not only used to create and cultivate markets for capital in “The West.” This power is now used to influence and attempt to remake culture worldwide. While this is a broad conception of the rhetorical dimension of communication, it is at least arguable that influential communication is used for such purposes. If rhetoric is influential communication, then we can say that this is the age of rhetoric. In this essay I first outline a brief Gebserian theory of rhetoric that emphasizes rhetoric as a technology of influence. Second, I apply the theory to the communicative act of the destruction of the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon. In this section, I demonstrate why the message is likely to be misinterpreted as a piece of rhetorical communication in the traditional disputational sense and why understanding the message as communication on the magical level more clearly interprets the message as meaningful. Finally, discuss some implications of the difference between the two and the importance of getting the real message, as well as the implication that all rhetorical messages contain a magical dimension. A Brief Gebserian Conception of Rhetoric A condition of the concept of persuasion is separation. Measurement and division ensure the need to argue for one measurement over another. Opposition, clearly expressed in the mental rational structure of consciousness, is a condition necessary for disputation, and for the possibility of disputatively derived (constructed) knowledge. This is the product of the technology of rhetoric. Systems that rely on disputation in order to “find truth,” or exercise power are rooted in the idea of disputation as a technology. These systems pervade our civilization as well as others. In our own culture, the legal system, the knowledge– producing system (academics), and the political system are only a few of the many systems that share this assumption. Of course, the idea of truth as the right or 1 Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the International Jean Gebser Society, Athens, OH, 2001
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