“In the beginning was the word” that sparked the creation of language and its complex system of signifiers, an infinite loop expanding as new ideas breathe into existence. Burke calls the rhetorical use of these symbols magic; its practitioners, spellbinders. Certainly some validity resonates from his comment, for skilled orators “induce action in people” and create motion or change in our lives. With their words, they police as seen through the war on terror and assist like providing health care. Similar to magic, rhetoric persuades people to perform certain duties or actions for various reasons. The obvious example surfaces through this very post, as I have been told that higher education will broaden my understanding of literature and language; therefore, I write because I want this skill. Such a theory sounds simple; however, Burke claims that rhetoric is not rooted in the condition of society but in the essential function of language. Thus, language creates cooperation amongst individuals who by nature respond to signifiers. The inherent rhetoric of language then cannot be realistic in the same terms that logic produces; instead, the truth of language acts like proverbs where rhetoricians argue by “proving opposites”. It’s as though rhetoric sets out to prove what is too much or too little. Clearly, this example is filled with subjective opinions or what Burke  calls terministic screens. These filters abide in everyone, validating that which one seeks. To confirm a new discovery in evolution, one must use the terms of Darwinian science, yet this (or any) approach contains a double-edged sword. Our reality is shaped through the language of our beliefs, philosophy, field of study, religion, etc. One can witness this even in Plato’s Gorgias when he references the virtue of man’s spirit as the greatest reason not to commit injustice. Without mentioning religion, Plato gives authority to the belief in divinity or God in the religious sense. These terministic screens hark back to Hegel’s hermeneutics in the Chinese rhetoric we read last week. One always brings his or her biases (screens) when trying to comprehend new information. Ultimately, distancing oneself from the truth of a discipline and examining its language may offer a more accurate understanding of how it forms conclusions and on what grounds it makes these claims. Otherwise, any form of knowledge will always dictate our perception. After reading Burke, I am left with remnants of Foucault in my mind. Burke maintains that, “insofar as man is the symbol-using animal, his world is necessarily imprinted with the quality of the Symbol, the Word, the Logos, through which he conceives it.” In other words, our understanding (world) is understood only through the type of language by which we view it. How true, that are worldview has been formed through our terministic screen as English majors or scholars. Foucault says that history, including its truths and errors, inscribes itself on the body affecting generations to come. Our knowledge, beliefs, and very essence are formed from history’s scar tissue leaving us with the responsibility to examine how these aspects have been and continue to influence our world.