말과 사물의 사이(Between Res et Verba)

Abstract

A short history of the western rhetoric oscillates between two poles of things and words. One kind of rhetoric asserts that language immediately reflect the world of things, language being a transparent window to the phenomenal world. This tradition, including Plato, Confucius, and linguistic realists and naturalists, admits no bar or gaping between the signifier and the signified. This language purports to be an all-powerful language of magic, hence vulnerable to be exploited and manipulated by political demagogues, tyrants, and idealists. We might call these pursuers of the language of things the "homo seriosus." On the other hand, the other kind of rhetoric claims that language is an autonomous artifact, apart from the world of things. To the Greek sophists and their contemporary descendents, postmodernists, language reflects itself as a self-sufficient system. Friedrich Nietzsche is the representative of this position par excellence. With Nietzsche language is at most a mobile army of metaphors, with any original, if there be any, meaning lost at the propound abyss of difference and repetition. We could name these men of the second tradition in rhetoric the "homo rhetoricus." These rhetorical men search for space and freedom in the distance and cleft between the signifier and the signified. They are linguistic anarchists in that they revolt against the rule of things. However, as Jupiter needs his Mercury as his transmitter, and even God his prophets to deliver his sayings, things are in need of signs to be represented in space and time. Homo seriosus at one extreme pole does not allow any divergence between things and words. He is Mr. Daddy Long-Legs of no laughter. Whereas homo rhetoricus at the other extreme pole defies against any trial at the unification of things and words because it gives no ground to play. He is Mr. Grasshopper of a fiddle and song. Tyranny and anarchism are not both good to live in. Hence pendulation and repetition, and difference and divergence by repetition are the trajectory we draw after in the traditions of language and rhetoric. The history of rhetoric is seen to be at once the history of politics and literature.