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“fantastic construct of virtue,” only further objectifies the peril,
encouraging a military-technical, instead of political, solution for the
problem (Gold-Biss, 1994, chap. 1).
Of course, the intensity of the United States’ concern with
international terrorism increased exponentially with the attack of 9/11,
as did official rhetoric on the subject. Silberstein (2002) analyzes the
changes in political language that were produced by this event. Of
particular interest is the discourse that helped construct the nation’s
response as a declaration of “war on terrorism.” Speaking about the
attack, the president frequently employed a technique of “convergence by
divergence” in which he contrasted the positive traits, values, and actions
of Americans as a national community with an evil enemy outside the
bounds of decent humanity. Not only did this powerful rhetoric rally the
public, it strengthened the president’s position vis à vis the Congress in
preparation for seeking support from that body for decisive foreign policy
action in the days ahead. Finally, the president broadened this conflict
into the grandest possible polarity, calling it “the world’s fight. This is
civilization’s fight” (Silberstein, 2002, p. 13).
Convention