Rhetoric in the Culture

Rhetoric is in the culture, it seems, regardless of where one looks.

For example: How we understand the environment--and environmentalism--is highly rhetorical: is the environment a set of resources humans are entitled to exploit for the benefit of humanity; a place of nature we should steward; our home planet that we need to care for lest we threaten our own existence; a place where all creatures great and small are entitled to a social justice imagined but not totally informed by humans?

Or think about the rhetoric surrounding teachers: during the last four years particularly, teachers have been characterized as lazy, unmotivated to help students, in need of new tests to see how they are helping students. With the tragedy in CT, however, especially with teachers literally dying to protect children, the rhetoric seems to have changed. Teachers are now the trusted adults we want all children to have, as important for the safety they provide as for the learning they foster. A good question, to me, is whether that change will last, or whether it's just a momentary response to a specific incident. In order for rhetoric to change, of course, it needs more than one incident.

What examples of rhetoric in the culture do you see?