ABSTRACT
Whether we are engaged in the affairs of a firm, a nation, or a family, when we try to persuade one another about the “right” course of action, we set our arguments within images of a community whose members are capable of listening to our words and understanding our experiences, our fears, and our aspirations. Only within a community that sustains, legitimates, and disciplines practices does it make sense to “talk that way,” to believe that anything is worth knowing, or to invest our energies and passions in the expectation that our symbolic gestures will inform our deeds. Consenting, albeit often tacitly, to argue within an image, we create a world that shapes our speech.
