Cult of the Kill: Traditional Metaphysics of Rhetoric, Truth, and Violence in a Postmodern World : an Interdisciplinary Study

Subscribing to the view that language is for humans much like water is for fish, this text underscores the importance of implicit understandings language users have of how language works. The work of Kenneth Burke focuses maximum attention on the problem of scapegoating and its deeply embedded motivational resources in language--resources Burke finds sufficiently potent and pervasive to disseminate across cultures what he refers to as a "Cult of the Kill." Burke's concerns with the problem of scapegoating and its links with "the negative" as an essential feature of language are found to overlap and contrast in significant ways with the work of Martin Heidegger and with postmodern, especially deconstructive, insights. By way of conclusion, the text addresses criticisms of deconstruction and sets forth, through a comparison of the views of Jacques Derrida and rhetorical theorist John Macksoud, a concise account of the "laws" and parameters of a postmodern understanding of language offering an inclusive strategy of evaluation.