Writing for NYTimes.com, Robert Wright argues that hostile rhetoric can indeed incite violence—but the rhetoric he’s most concerned about isn’t the language of violence, it’s the language of otherness, of stigmatization.

….it doesn’t matter who Loughner got the [mind control] idea from or whether you consider it left wing or right wing. The point is that Americans who wildly depict other Americans as dark conspirators, as the enemy, are in fact increasing the chances, however marginally, that those Americans will be attacked.

In that sense, the emphasis the left is placing on violent rhetoric and imagery is probably misplaced. Sure, calls to violence, explicit or implicit, can have effect. But the more incendiary theme in current discourse is the consignment of Americans to the category of alien, of insidious other.

Wright mentions an incident I hadn’t heard of, in which California police stopped a man on his way to commit murder at the Tides Foundation, an obscure group railed against by Fox’s Glenn Beck, who called it part of a “Communist plot” to infiltrate American society.

Wright argues that, regardless of the mental state of Loughner and other potential assassins, the people dispensing the rhetoric bear some responsibility for what they do.

My own view is that if you decide to go kill a bunch of innocent people, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re not a picture of mental health. But that doesn’t sever the link between you and the people who inspired you, or insulate them from responsibility. Glenn Beck knows that there are lots of unbalanced people out there, and that his message reaches some of them.

Of course he does—can you imagine the mail he must get?

Part of today’s challenge, Wright adds, is that modern technology allows demagogues to engage in such fear-mongering and stigmatization with greater ease and with greater distance from the consequences. (Note Sarah Palin, who still hasn’t spoken to a reporter regarding the Arizona shootings, just responded on Facebook.)

So don’t Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch bear some responsibility here as well?

Wright says yes, and I agree: How those two sleep at night is a mystery to me. And yet, I’m guessing that they sleep very well…