Rhetoric that Binds and Blinds

The Reith Lectures

• Episode: Rhetoric that Binds and Blinds
• Website: The Reith Lectures
• Feed URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00729d9/episodes/downloads.rss
• Duration: 00:42:42
• Published: 2004-04-21 10:00

In his third Reith Lecture, the Nobel Laureate, playwright, poet and political activist Wole Soyinka examines the power of political and religious rhetoric. Between God and Nation, and Sieg Heil, a complex set of social impulses and goals are reduced to mere sound. It is a potent tool that moves to vibrate a collective chord and displace reason. A willed hypnosis substitutes for individual will and the ecstasy of losing oneself in a sound-cloned crowd drives the most ordinary person to throw away all moral code and undertake hitherto unthinkable acts. Is the language of Political Correctness aiding and abetting its proliferation?