Abstract

Words Are Weapons provides an important guide to the rhetorical techniques and motivational force of the globally influential rhetoric that Philippe-Joseph Salazar names as “caliphal.” Salazar's focus on responses based in the rhetorical forms of the “appeal,” however, relies on an inaccurate conception of transcendence and on identity formation that is inadequately appreciative of the global mobility of humans. The central value of “passionate respect for others” should indeed not be totalized. However, the forms of rhetoric that are better for the times must be multilogic in order to forge the kind of social relations that will enable mobile global populaces to interact in relative peace to create new forms of art, philosophy, and eloquence, even as we struggle to learn to protect our global home.