Yes. I felt a bit stale too. Sometimes it makes sense to back away & then come back refreshed, or at least with a different set of preoccupations. Interesting that you should begin by bringing up aesthetic & ethical concerns. I just have a moment this morning & will say more later, but some of my students & I have been struggling with what happens once one recognizes the freedom of rhetoric. That is, language can be played so many way, but language is amoral. That is, there is nothing "in language" that prevents one from going on television & erecting a structure of monstrous lies. But at the same time, the rhetorical art allows us to not be bamboozled. More anon.