Sticks and Stones

Sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will fuck you up, too.

From Burke's PLF.
Social structures give rise to "type" situations, subtle subdivisions of the relationships involved in competitive and cooperative acts (293-4). But are these structures deterministic? (de-term-inistic). Do they determine our response?

In what ways are all situations rhetorical?

Not determinative, but presupposes the appropriate action(s). The situation itself provides modes of conduct and possible names for it. But the "situation" is made up of audiences, "places" (which are created by the people around them), "historical facts" (which are the perceptions of the people recording them). The situation is a container for action.