When I was learning to read French, I discovered La Rochefoucauld, an epigrammatist and cynic.
>> Les passions sont les seuls orateurs qui persuadent toujours. Elles sont comme un art de la nature dont les règles sont infaillibles; et l'homme le plus simple qui a de la passion persuade mieux que le plus éloquent qui n'en a point.
>> The passions are the only advocates which always persuade. They are a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without.[0]
If we agree our age is dominated by marketing and propaganda, and if La Rochefoucauld was right that the passions never fail to persuade, I think we've found our age's totemic god: the passions.