[marginalia_nu]

That is actually exactly what I'm saying.

A message's ability to provoke some form of action is entirely dependent on its ability to create some form of emotion, be it fear and indignation or hope and optimism. The most effective rhetoricians are exactly those that are very good at producing those feelings. From Hitler on one side as the archetypal rabble-rouser; to MLK on the other end of the spectrum, who created profound optimism and hope. It isn't because of their syllogisms that they were convincing rhetoricians.

Merely knowing a fact is rarely sufficient to provoke action, unless that knowledge itself creates an emotion (an idea can have aesthetic value, for example).