In Burke’s A Rhetoric of Motives, I was struck by his pairing rhetoric with the control of society and communities.  When I thought about that concept it seemed completely logical, however, I had never given such a connotation to rhetoric before.  Burke describes what he calls the function of rhetoric.  In that description he identifies the main functions as those of persuasion and identification. However, I think that implied in those two functions is rhetoric’s ability to promote what Burke terms “social cohesion” (43).   He goes further to state that “the use of language as a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols” (43).  In other words, language and rhetoric, through the use of pulling on the communities collective acceptance of symbols, is able to sway that community toward societal goals.  The function of rhetoric to identify and persuade inherently lends itself to the control of societal rules and expectations.  Furthermore Burke’s notion of consubstantiality fits in with this notion of societal control through rhetoric because just as persuasion and identification exist intrinsically in the notion of rhetoric, so does rhetoric exist intrinsically with language and society.  Communities cannot exist without language.  Language is the basis for our rules, it governs all our interactions with other people.  Thus the purposeful use of language with the intent to persuade or identify has to have an effect on our communities.