Reconciliation—a rhetorical concept/ion

Abstract

What is reconciliation? A source of historical puzzlement and contemporary controversy over how to make history, this question asks after those words which constitute a beginning (again), that moment in which endless cycles of conflict give way to the hope for “unity in difference.” Concerned with the dynamics of its operation, the present essay contends that reconciliation is a rhetorical concept, a performance and norm of rhetorical practice that transcends violence less than it turns its historical justification toward mutual oppositions that call for(th) the character (ethos) of understanding. A challenge to both the logic and politics of identity, an opposing and relating of that which is held to be exclusive, reconciliation is thus difficult to define. From a reading of the concept's history, I investigate this definitional puzzle through consideration of how the substance of reconciliation appears within its potential, the capacity to open a time for expression, invent the grounds for speech-action, and abide in the risks that attend the power to name. To make new in relation, reconciliation's promise demands significant faith in the works of words.

Keywords:

• reconciliation,
• definition,
• identity,
• opposition,
• rhetorical concepts