Friend or Foe?: Naming the Enemy

Taking the writings of Thomas Jefferson and David Walker as a starting point, this essay extrapolates a rhetorical theory of naming the enemy. In democracies, especially those built on Judeo-Christian traditions, bad character makes enemies enemies. However, as character is easily masked, the process of naming enemies is necessarily one of reading the signs. Thus, Jefferson focuses on his enemies' appearances, whereas Walker focuses on how his enemies talk. Because both means of naming the enemy are deeply flawed, democratic culture is perpetually in the process of negotiating its enemies as they are rhetorically named and unnamed.