"But words are words," right?

Dennis Baron’s “Web of Language” (http://illinois.edu/db/view/25), which should be on every rhetorician’s reading list, has this post (http://illinois.edu/db/view/25/17285?count=1&ACTION=DIALOG) in which he mentions that “wingnuts” like Michelle Malkin “make their living by redefining reality.” Dennis, as he always does, made me realize that I’ve been guilty of ignoring the power of words.
Though I cut my rhetorical teeth on Reagan’s “Star Wars” plan and matured in my practice in the age of spin doctors, I think I’ve nonetheless taken the approach of Shakespeare’s Brabantio, who says

"But words are words; I never yet did hear
That the bruis'd heart was piercèd through the ear."

As a teacher and writer, I’ve gone about admonishing others to pay attention to their words, drawing attention to the power of all sorts of discourse; however, I find that I still approach the really crazy talk of editorial newscasters as just that: crazy talk. Can’t harm me. Words are just words.

But the dualism here—that I would note and praise the power of discourse that underscores my own beliefs and aims while downplaying the effect of that which runs contrary—certainly isn’t logical. Or maybe that’s the point: words (and all symbols) only have power in so far as we give them that power. So while I can be moved by one argument, the opposing positions fall into the category of “sound and fury,” ultimately “signifying nothing.”

In the public sphere, however, that can’t be the approach of choice. For example, traffic lights are powerful symbols because we give them power: communal authority undergirds the traffic light’s role in our lives. As an individual, I may gleefully ignore the meaning and power of the traffic light. However, my choice in not giving meaning to the traffic light will result in my being at the mercy of those who do, and I may wind up taking a life (or having my own life taken) because others choose to believe and act upon a symbol, thus giving it power.

Similarly, it seems I cannot ignore the silliness of wingnut commentators who carelessly use their words (and they know it, too, as anyone paying attention to rhetoric in the post-Clinton, post-9/11 era knows it) to, quite deliberately, redefine reality. The rhetoric is cheap and simple: Demosthenes, cheap lawyer that he was, would be appalled at the gravitas with which political fun is had at the expense of economic and global necessity.

And so America has town hall meetings which are the very picture of incivility because some of the attendants came to learn, while others came to shout proudly the new reality they’ve been sold. We’ve done it to ourselves, I suppose, telling folks for so many years that “actions speak louder than words,” and that “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” such that when the Information Age hit us the first ones to realize that words are more than words were the ones who most quickly reached for the digital megaphones.


There's little that does more to emphasize the power of rhetoric than the wingnuts who have realized that their words really do redefine reality for millions of Americans every day. Of course, their immature insouciance is what moves their words from mere discourse to public danger.

I'm not sure what role professional researchers in rhetoric and technical communication should play in this ongoing game, or whether we'll quickly have our reality redefined into nothingness: so many of us are ivory tower elites, after all, with our heads stuck in the clouds.