officials' speeches.
Rhetorical interest in politics helps mark the shift from an age of authority to one of democracy. In goverment which emphasizes elected rule, an official must surface as an excellent speaker. Words in the modern age begin to serve as a kind of weaponry. For it becomes language itself which shapes convention. Here the use of political rhetoric feeds off of the ancient stylistic conventions of rhetoric. Most interesting is the observation that as we live within an age that focuses on ideas without symbols to back them, we are easier to manipulate. The high degree of manipulation is harder to detect. In an age which relied upon symbol, the content and force of the symbol was set and fixed for centuries. Words are less plastic than these old symbols. Political power is so vast precisely because it cannot easily be pinned down or determined exactly.
A Committed Realist in the Washington/Jefferson Tradition
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