The Significance of Visual/Artistic Rhetoric

I think in this recent reading, the idea that caught me the most was the idea of visual culture. I have done some studies in both the visual arts and visual advertisements, and am certainly not unfamiliar with analyzing them and placing into a cultural or historical context. But the phrase visual culture gives a new meaning to it, even while studying the varied art movements, it never really occurred to me that art is an evolving, changing thing that is affected by various influences. I guess I just thought of art history as unique movements, rather than an interconnected flow.

Visual pieces as well as literature have a certain power to convey powerful messages about society without being blatant yet it still resonates with the viewer. It's what led the Spaniards to burn the Incas' quipus when they realized that they couldn't understand or control them or the information they conveyed, it was too dangerous to leave alone. This was hardly a lone incident, it reminds me about how in most dictatorships I've heard of, the artists and poets face as much danger of persecution as the politicians and intellectuals.

What helps create this power is, as the text borrows from Iris Rogoff, "visual images enable us with a new way of writing in which our objectivity (our knowledge of the world that is exterior to us) and subjectivity (our unconsciousness) intersect" (45-6). What makes visual images different than writing for one thing is how they are read, obviously we don't read an image like we read a book. In a way, visuals connect us, since there are likely some symbols that would be read in similar ways cross-culturally. They also breed potential connections, as the Incas and the Spaniards were able to connect and exchange culture a bit through their visual communications, whether it be letters or image.

However, the language of visual images is hardly universal. What also makes it tricky is that the same symbol can be interpreted differently by members of different cultures. Even colors can be seen differently between cultures. For example, take the symbolic meaning of colors in flags. Let's look at the color red: In the U.S. flag, red represents hardiness and valor. In the Chinese flag, the color red is seen as symbolic of the communist revolution. The red in the Canadian flag is seen as symbolic of sacrifices made during the World Wars. The red and white pattern of the Austrian flag is symbolic of a specific legend of Duke Leopold V. who was covered in blood after battle except for a stripe of white skin under his belt. So if these countries were to try to symbolize the colors of other countries flags in similar ways that the color is used in their own flags, there would be some confusion.

What is nice about visual culture is that they both provide a safe ground for a society to stay in, but are also flexible and changing enough to let other cultures affect it without diminishing it. It also provides a beginning to an "in" for studying a culture, a good introduction while you might still be learning the language and the specific quirks of that society. In any case, visual images, whether it be advertising, serve a specific historical purpose like the quipus, or even are just there to be art, preform vital roles in societies and shouldn't be ignored in rhetorical studies.

Questions:
1. What other forms of art/literature could you see as potentially rhetorical or culturally significant?
2. In terms of art and literature, besides advertising, what do you think has the most potential for rhetorical purposes?

Objectivity in Research of Foreign Rhetoric

If there's anything I learned from our recent reading assignment, is that rhetoric can be found and determined from anywhere and everywhere. It's a point definitely relevant to previous discussions we've had, from last week's discussion of "you should probably get to know the culture a little bit and step away from your own biases before trying to study someone else's rhetoric" to our questions throughout the semester of what is or isn't rhetoric. 

In a way, the way the chapters tell about how rhetoric in foreign cultures can be pieced together reminds me of a detective story. Anything and everything can be suspect (of rhetorical influence) and potentially related (to a single canon/set of canons), and if you can piece together each piece or story, perhaps you might find a pattern. The reading showed how many things can be used to cautiously piece together how rhetoric might work within a specific culture, from pottery, to specific people, to religious texts.

However, it is important to remember to be careful when putting these puzzle pieces together. As we discussed on Thursday, it is extremely important to leave your own biases and assumptions at the door when analyzing foreign rhetorics. Of course, the best way to begin to analysis is to get as close to the source and immerse yourself in the people and culture. The problem is that many of the examples being discussed are extinct cultures, such as the Incas or Native Americans for example, who it would be highly difficult, if not impossible, to find a legitimate representative for. 

The problem that I felt existed in the chapters we read is that while the people and items examined by the professors are technically able to lead to legitimate conclusions about how rhetoric might have worked in early cultures, it would also be too easy to place personal biases into that analysis. For example, when looking at the rhetorical figure of a historical figure such as La Malinche, one cannot be too quick to assign motive to her, or even to say the strategies she used would be common canons for her culture. After all, Confucious seemed to have his own ideas of rhetoric that varied a bit from other Chinese rhetoric.  

But what can be used to objectively analyze a culture of the past? In one of the articles we read last week, "Reflective Encounters: Illustrating Comparative Rhetoric," Mao talks basically about how reflective encounters may be the best way to objectively analyze a culture's rhetoric and its canons. As far as I can tell, we understood reflective encounters to basically boil down to analyzing rhetoric through a thorough understanding of language and surrounding culture, so that we can understand exactly how rhetoric canons work as if we were in that culture, rather than analyzing through western eyes.

 On Thursday we talked a bit about the Sapir-Worf hypothesis, which basically demonstrates how language can show what a culture perceives, values, and how they think. I think this actually relates a bit to what we discussed about reflective encounters, as well as to the current reading. By discovering what words are repeated or less stressed upon in a language we gain insight to how a society might think or value in a relatively objective way. 

Of course, all of the puzzle pieces are important. In order to understand and try to present from anyone's perspective we need to gain as thorough of an understanding as we can, whatever form of expression of that culture we might look at -- art, writing, debate, or a personal history. I'm just making the point that in the important quest to remain objective in this research, whatever we can learn of language should likely remain as a starting point. 

Questions: 

1. When hoping to find rhetorical canons of a foreign and now extinct culture, is there any additional suggestions you would make to look for? (texts, art, etc.)
2. Can you make any connections to the Sapir-Worf hypothesis and what is rhetorically valuable in our society today?

Comparative Rhetoric and also Confucius

So I ended up reading both articles, because I'm a bit tired and read completely the wrong article first. So I'll try to type up a response to both articles in this post. 

First, the article I was actually supposed to read: "Reflecting Encounters: Illustrating Comparative Rhetoric."

I found the evolution of rhetoric throughout history fascinating, from the unabashed "it's not like western rhetoric so they don't have rhetoric" to "let's analyze it by comparing it to western rhetoric" to the current movement of actually trying to study foreign rhetorics within the contexts of their own cultures.

The problem with the early studies of rhetoric is that they were trying to analyze rhetoric as a separate phenomena from the culture, when this was completely the wrong way to go. To use an example of Chinese rhetoric, the other article I read clearly states that, "it is impossible to overstate the danger of examining a work written in ancient China, such as the Analects, as if it were a work independent of its complex historical, cultural, or political backgrounds" (Ding 144). Rhetoric, as pretty much any other aspect of a culture, is an evolution that is affected by many outside influences, and can't be analyzed just in itself.

It is hard to try to completely understand a foreign culture without the bias that is the experiences the viewer has with their own culture. The powerful influence that Western rhetoric still has today still hinders the understanding of foreign forms of rhetoric. We do not necessarily give ancient Chinese rhetoric the same attention that we give ancient Greek rhetoric -- during my searches for non-Western rhetoricians I did not find much information that demonstrated the varieties in Chinese rhetoric, such as the differences between Confucius and the different set of Chinese canons, as we could easily find the differences between Plato and Aristotle. While a massive improvement has seemed to take place from when we first started to seriously analyze non-traditional forms of rhetoric, the fairly recent speech from Malea Powell and even our own class discussions show that the deficiency model is still strong in comparative rhetoric. 

In particular, I found the argument against seeking a sort of "universal rhetoric" interesting. It's similar to a conversation we had in my Anthropology class about language, and what we could potentially lose if we should ever develop a universal language -- while we would all be able to communicate and understand each other better, we would also be unintentionally burying the many years of history and culture that helped build up that language, whether that language be literal language or rhetoric. The question becomes what is more important, the roots of our histories, or mass communication.

And since I have no answer for that, I shall take the opportunity to make an uncomfortable segeway into the next article, the one I didn't have to read but accidentally did anyway: "Confucious's Virtue-Centered Rhetoric: A Case Study of Mixed Research Methods in Comparative Rhetoric."

I found it fascinating that Confucious felt that rhetoric should be based barely on words at all, but action. I initially thought the silence canon in Egyptian rhetoric was strange, but this takes the cake -- a rhetoric system that is basically "actions speak louder than words." In a way it makes sense -- the way Confucius thought about rhetoric, rhetoric wasn't for settling small disputes or elections, but establishing a long term rule and trust over people. or in the author's words, "its goal is not just persuasion but willing accommodation, submission, and obedience" (Ding 151). Perhaps it was largely because of the chaotic political period that Confucius lived in, for his ideas seem to settle around that you only get one chance to earn the people's trust, there's no reelections. 

Because of Confucius's strict ideas of rhetoric belonging to men of virtue, it seems that it could take literally a lifetime to build up enough character before becoming a man of virtuous enough conduct to earn public trust. Many political systems would be quite different if those who wanted to earn public appointments had to live by that system!

Questions:

1. Do you think trying to establish a universal rhetoric could be problematic to cultural traditions? 

2. What would a debate in Confucius style of rhetoric look like? 

Media, Entertainment, and Ancient Egyptian Rhetoric

Egyptian rhetoric is definitely very different from the rhetorics we've studied so far, but certainly sound in its ideas. However, with the way our culture and technology has evolved, it'd be quite difficult to execute in today's culture. I find interesting that the Egyptians see rhetoric as a form of entertainment, for not only does the rhetorical canons of ancient Egyptian rhetoric not fit well with our modern definition of rhetoric, but I would also say that part of why we wouldn't be able to employ Egyptian rhetoric into today's conversations is because of entertainment culture and mediums of today, especially television.

To explain, let's look at the Egyptian canons of silence, good timing, restraint, fluency of expansion, and truthfulness:

Fluency of expansion is likely the trait we'd be most likely to see in today's conversations, even if fluent speech today doesn't remotely resemble fluent speech of Ancient Egypt, which looked and sounded more like poetry than what we would consider speech today. But today's most eloquent speakers do share the trait of fluency, or at least to a certain extent. 

Truthfulness is also exists, hopefully regularly, in today's rhetoric, though I found it almost adorably naive the belief that truth is an absolute necessary for good rhetoric. While it's true that a truthteller will always be more ethical, there seems to be a belief that it will be known when someone is lying. The implication in the text seems to be that a liar will give themselves away somehow, be it with their words, manner of speaking, or body language, which is certainly a possibility when someone lies. However, a confident or rehearsed speaker could lie with ease, and I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to find videos of people lying with a straight face.

As for the remaining three canons, these are the ones that I feel that today's communication media and entertainment culture would make it impossible, or at least highly difficult, for them to exist as both debate and entertainment. This is primarily driven by time limits in communication media, primarily television, video, and radio, but there are even limits in text media too.

For examples, one of the remaining canons is the importance of silence and how it can be used as a rhetorical technique to either demonstrate the strength of your own point or the weakness of your opponent's words. While I was initially surprised to read about silence as a rhetorical technique, it now feels like an intuitive thing to do. 

However, in today's communication media there are often limits -- in television for example, when debates are televised whether they be on news shows or political debates, there's usually only a limited amount of time set aside for these debates. Therefore, staying still in silence seems like not a wise thing to do when you only have an hour for the debate and you have a list of things you want to say, which is likely primarily why so many televised debates are people trying to shout over each other. Silence is even more pointless in written mediums, for the weight of silence can really only be seen and heard in person, if a debate was portrayed in text, then it would just look like one person was dominating the conversation, rather than the other person deliberately holding their words.

Good timing and restraint also fail for similar reasons, though there is also another aspect that make these canons difficult in today's society. We're a nation that thrives off of sensationalism, even many news shows can't be a neutral presentation of news, and have to include silly gimmicks. While I think our society today appreciates the power of words as the Egyptians did, we are not cautious with this power, but rather take advantage of it to draw attention, whether it be good or bad. A careful, restrained politician rarely draws notice in the news, but on the flipside there's very little consequence for saying something silly and getting talked about for awhile. 

Restraint in particular is what drives the biggest distance today between rhetoric and entertainment. I really struggle to think of a show, reality shows in particular, that is careful, thoughtful conversation rather than people saying what appears to be the first things that pop in their heads. Again, in a nation that thrives off of sensationalism, someone who is careful with what they say and when they say it would be the furthest thing from entertaining to us, I think.

I do find it a bit sad that the canons of ancient Egyptian rhetoric are not seen more in our current culture, for I think it would be fascinating to see them executed. However, even if we didn't already have an existing attachment to the Greek canons, the way our culture, communication technologies, and entertainment industry has evolved make it unlikely that these canons will integrate themselves anytime soon. 

Questions:
1. The forms of rhetoric we follow in today's society seems to be closer to the Greek forms of rhetoric. Do you think developments in media, technology, and the entertainment industry has affected these Greek canons too? Why or why not?
2. Do you think rhetoric is still considered entertainment in modern day society?

The Hungry Blob that is the Influence of Western Rhetoric

An interesting theme that existed in both Powell and Villanueva's words was the idea of how the scholars who study the ideas and rhetoricians of Western rhetoric, even though they might have the best of intentions, seem to try to swallow up or ignore non-Western rhetoric/non-White rhetoricians, or, as Powell phrases it, as if they (non-Western rhetoricians) "need to be rescued by the pale extended hand of empire, as if they need our sympathetic civilizing influence" (Powell 402).

When Villanueva referenced the words of Frantz Fanon in a paper, the "resurrection" was seen as questionable by the rejecting editor, though the usage of the far more ancient Aristotle and Cicero went unquestioned (Villanueva 655). And Villanueva's rhetorical example of the credibility of a French philosopher vs. a Mexican philosopher comes to life in one of the stories told during Powell's performance speech, for a student was lectured by a scholar for not referencing the words of a French philosopher and theorist Focault in her studies of Chicana theory, for apparently their words were close enough where it seemed wrong to not cite Focault, even though the student simply didn't see him as relevant, despite the likely coincidental closeness of ideas (Powell 395).

We have all been guilty of this within our class, linking the rhetoric of the Aztecs and the Incas to Aristotle and Plato, even though it is not for sure that there is even any linear link between the two. On one hand it makes sense, since similarities can be easily pointed out, and the Greek rhetoricians form the majority of what we have been studying this semester.

However, the problem with this though is that we are unwittingly, with the best of intentions, contributing to the mindset that Greece and Europe in general is the home of rhetoric, even though there is enough evidence of other cultures forming their own rules of rhetoric with little to no influence from the Greeks. There are specific rules in Aztec, Chinese, and Native American rhetoric, to just take the examples, that have rules and patterns that are built specifically off of their own cultures, and thus can't really be linked to Greece at all. The higher use of poetic and flowery language in Aztec rhetoric, How ranking and hierarchy affects Chinese argumentation, to the use of story in Native American rhetoric, while you can conceivably still make links to the Western rhetoricians we've already discussed, it is clear that these conventions are built from rules and traditions of their own societies.

The problem with questioning these rhetoricians or feeling the necessity to link them back to Western rhetoricians is the implications that these rhetoricians are not strong enough, right enough, credible enough to stand on their own, even though their rhetorical strategies are certainly sound and have a long enough history and backing in their own cultures where you can't dismiss instances of academic argumentation within these cultures as purely accidental. Yet many of these rhetorics haven't received nearly the same amount of study as Western rhetoric.

The reasoning behind the title of this post is we've discussed of hegemony in class and how the greater power tends to swallow up smaller factions, until they are no longer seen as having really any credit or influence. Again, while I doubt scholars are intentionally doing this, by constantly trying to link the rhetoric of non-Western cultures to Western rhetoric, non-Western rhetoric is under risk of being swallowed up by the currently greater influence that is Western rhetoric, rather than the place it deserves alongside it as an equal. Though at least we have scholars such as Villanueva and Powell who are bringing up this topic, and will hopefully help to slowly, carefully, pry away non-White, non-Western rhetoric from the unintentionally consuming blob of Western rhetoric, and give it its own place in academic discussion.

Bias Towards Western Rhetoric, as Seen through Google

The main point of Villanueva's essay, "On the Rhetoric and Precedents of Racism" is to show that rhetoric is not a purely objective thing, there are many causes for subjectivity in rhetoric, and racism is an issue that, even if we are not aware of it, causes much subjectivity in rhetoric. Some of the subjectivity pointed out is regard to credibility, or more accurately what our ideas of credibility are as have been built from the past. We tend to give more credibility to philosophers who follow western thinking, as demonstrated with the analogy of a Mexican philosopher vs. a French philosopher.

Part of this is that Western philosophers tend to be more well known. The beginning of Villanueva's essay discusses non-European influenced rhetoric in Peru and Mexico. The article demonstrates that the Aztecs and Incas were capable of intelligent rhetoric that is not totally unlike our own rhetorical strategies, but until reading the article last week, I hadn't known that at all. On the flipside, even those who have never taken a philosophy or rhetoric class have probably heard of names like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The way our culture's research and education is currently focused, western rhetoric and philosophy definitely has an advantage over non-western.

Even Google seems to share a bias towards western rhetoric. The other part of our homework was to search for non-Greek, non-traditionally western rhetoricians. This proved to be a bit tricky. Let me demonstrate this: When I type "Ancient Greek Rhetoricians" into Google, the search results give me much about Greek rhetoric and specific Greek rhetoricians, and the first search result is a Wikipedia page with a list of 3 possible subcategories to ancient Greek rhetoric and 55 ancient Greek rhetoricians, including names we have seen in our readings such as Protagoras and Gorgias.

Now what happens when I change my Google search to "Ancient Chinese rhetoricians"? The first search result is the exact same Wikipedia page as the previous search. Never mind that I specified "Greek" nowhere in the search terms, the word rhetoric is so tangled with Greece that Google figured that must've been what I meant. The next search results, rather than offering specific Chinese rhetoricians, instead offer suggested articles under the helpful heading of "Non-Greek Rhetorics." After that, there were only a few links that could be useful. It took several attempts at narrowing my search down before I began to find truly useful info.

If you're thinking that this simply means Chinese rhetoric is just not at thing, this is simply not so. I have found a fair amount of articles and dissertations analyzing specific aspects of Chinese rhetoric, though with the exception of Confucius, very few names are mentioned. Still, this doesn't excuse the relative lack of research I found, on Chinese rhetoric, vs. the amount found on Greek rhetoric.

When we live in a digital age where the potential for so much information is at our fingertips, we sometimes forget that the information we are shown through technology is as subject to social and cultural biases as anything else, and our worldview can become limited through this ignorance. Creating equality in research and digital technology search results, including in issues discussed in Villanueva's essay regarding the relationship of race and ethos, is just one more bridge that will hopefully be crossed at some point in the future.

Finally, here are the articles I found on Chinese rhetoric and rhetoricians:

-Reading the Heavenly Mandate: Dong Zhongshu's Rhetoric of the Way (Dao)

- Cultural Factors and Rhetorical Patterns in Classical Chinese Argumentation

Also, this next link is a super long dissertation that I admittedly haven't looked into much yet, but it seems too interesting to not mention:

- A Comparison of Greek and Chinese Rhetoric and Their Influence on Later Rhetoric

Burke Introduction

The reading of Burke we did seems to focus a lot on motive, semantics, and how arguments can be differently framed. He reminded me of one of the Sophists we originally read about, Prodicus, who had a personal obsession with finding the exact meanings of words. Unlike Prodicus however, Burke seems to enjoy the ambiguity of language, or at least feel that ambiguity isn't something that needs to be completely eliminated, saying that "what we want is not terms that avoid ambiguity, but terms that clearly reveal the strategic spots at which ambiguities necessarily arise" (xvii). Basically, Burke is arguing that you can still have ambiguity in language, as long as the ambiguity or source of ambiguity is clear. 

Burke also speaks of three conventions in language that he called Grammar, Symbolic, and Rhetoric. The reminded me of Aristotle's three canons, Logos, Pathos, and Ethos; while they are not exact equivalents, they are similar. I had a bit of a difficult time understanding what he means by Grammar, since he doesn't seem to mean it in an identical way as we use it today -- in regards to punctuation and whatnot -- but rather as a something like facts or fitting exactly within the intended definition or rules of a convention. Something similar to how we see grammar today, but Burke's version seems to encompass a broader spectrum of language. After that, Symbolic seems to mean expression within language, and Rhetoric is of course equal to persuasion in language. As he points out though, the three often overlap. 

I thought Burke's point about how an argument or statement can be portrayed differently depending on the person looking at it, for example his example of how a portrait painter would see the body as an agent versus the medical man who would see the body as the scene of an action/motive, or the more interesting example of the counter-agent being a necessity for the agent. It's sort of an interesting continuation of the "revolutionary" (at the time) discovery way back, the idea that "on every argument there are two sides." What Burke is doing is explaining how both individual people can see a subject or argument differently, or how someone could intentionally take the ambiguity of an argument or statement and twist it into something completely different. 

So Burke's point is both a positive thing and a worrisome thing. On one hand, he helps to explain how someone with a different viewpoint isn't inherently wrong, but that there is enough flexibility in whatever word/title/subject that they see it differently. On the other hand though, you can get some pretty crazy arguments from this sort of thing. The reading used the argument how Judas and the crucifixion of Jesus was a necessity for the resurrection of Jesus and the salvation of mankind, therefore you could turn Judas into a positive sort of figure. In that way, you can make all kinds of positive arguments for various dictators and tyrannies of history, since some good thing likely emerged from them. You can argue that these arguments can be easily outweighed by negative points about the thing, and I can grant you that. However, less extreme versions of this argument could be interesting, you could take something bad but not as obviously bad, but again be able to twist it about and make it seem good -- war, questionable legislation, things like that.

It is good that Burke talks about this though, since he obviously didn't create this, this is a rhetorical device that has likely been used for ages. By bringing it into the open and analyzing it, we are able to consider this strategy and be aware of what it is, how it is used, and the moral/immoral potential of it. So regardless of the point Burke is making with his work (if he is making one), it is a good discussion to have.   

Questions:

1. What do you think Burke means when he talks about Grammar? Do you agree with what I said I think he means, or did he mean something different? 

2. Would it be ideal if we could strike all ambiguity from language, and every word/argument has one precise meaning we could all understand? What would be sacrificed for this total clarity? 

Cicero, Initial Impressions of De Oratore

This is just what I've gathered from reading the assigned Wiki articles, I could be completely wrong about all of this. D: Also, all quotes are from said Wiki articles.

So what strikes me as particularly interesting in Cicero's work, De Oratore, is that while the dialectic style is very similar to Plato's (aside from it being portrayed in a more novel-like format rather than a script format), it is not as clear as it is in Plato's works of who the "good guy" or "inherently right" person is. With Plato's works, it's pretty much obvious from the start that Socrates will be in control of the conversation at pretty much all times and is (according to Plato) always right. In De Oratore though, it is not quite as clear who the main protagonist is. I assumed for a good while that it was Crassus, as he was the one doing most of the speaking, and appeared to be filling a Socrates-like role as the wise instructor tutoring the younger students through dialogue. However, it appears towards the second half of the first book that it may actually be Antonious who may be the lead here, as he talks for a good portion of both the first and second book. But the nice thing is that while these men are debating, both of them appear to be portrayed as intelligent, and even those in smaller roles (with the possible exception of Scaevola) appear to be portrayed mostly positively, not quite as the straw men that Plato could be guilty of creating at times. 

We definitely see some very different veiws between Crassus and Antonious though, and I'll go into analyzing the two for a bit: 

So Crassus seems to hold some very Platonic views here, and reminded me a bit of Socrates with his overall humility, intelligence, with a hint of snark (though he doesn't seem to be quite the amusingly sarcastic jerk that Socrates could be at times). Crassus' view of the perfect orator seems as idealistic and impractically unrealistic as Plato's ideas of ultimate truth and knowledge -- sweet, well-meaning, but laughably unrealistic. Crassus feels that being an orator requires natural talent more than anything else, that being an orator requires "the subtility of a logician, the mind of a philosopher, the language of a poet, the memory of a lawyer, the voice of a tragic actor and the gesture of the most skilled actor" as well as also as natural gifts of "the ability to invent, richness in talking, strong lungs, certain voice tones, particular body physique as well as a pleasant looking face." Oh, and the perfect orator also knows everything. EVERYTHING. For can you speak of something you don't know about? 

Crassus seems to be an interesting blend of Plato and Aristotle, for while Crassus is, like Aristotle, more practical and forgiving of rhetoric and the rules for rhetoric he gives seem very similar to some of the ones Aristotle laid out, he also does support philosophy, have many larger, semi-distant from reality ideas, and seems to be a strong advocate for a moral orator (consideration of morality being something Aristotle left out during his long rhetoric book of "hey, here's this big book on human psychology and how to manipulate people"). 

Antonious on the other hand, seems to be far more practical than Crassus. While he clearly admires Crassus and supports most of his points, Antonious' views seem to be less extreme. He disagrees with Crassus' idea that an orator must know everything, and instead feels that he only need to be able to speak well on the subjects he does know. He does seem to be not as kindly inclined towards philosophy as Crassus, feeling that philosopher "pretends to know everything about everything," and that Plato's ideals were "very far from common life." 

Again, these two characters seem to be portrayed intelligently enough to tell who's going to end up "right" in this debate, or if a winner will even be picked. Reading what I have about Cicero though, I hesitantly feel that his views align more with Crassus, and that he will be the ultimate winner of the debate, but I am not positive about that. If nothing else though, I do approve of Cicero's seemingly lesser use of strawmen arguments. 

Questions:

1. Do you believe Cicero's personal beliefs align closer to Crassus or Antonious?

2. Do you believe that a person must know absolutely everything about a subject in order to speak/debate about it? Or is it possible to only know part of a subject, but still be able to speak knowledgeably enough? And is it morally wrong to speak of a subject that you don't fully understand? 

Poetry and Rhetoric

What I was really surprised about while reading Aristotle’s third book of The Rhetoric was how many of the elements he spoke of can be also seen as crucial parts of poetry, and indeed, he compared and contrasted these element to poetry quite a few times. With the exception of Plato hating both of them, I wouldn't think poetry and rhetoric would have much in common. However, Aristotle makes good points about how some of the crucial elements of poetry can be used in rhetoric, though in a different manner.

For example, in chapter eight, Aristotle talks about “prose rhythm,” the rhythm of delivery and finding a structure consistent enough to keep the listener both listening and understanding. Rhythm is also important in poetry, even in free-form, though especially so in more structured forms where syllables for each stanza are carefully measured, but it is a way to engage the listener’s interest in a way that normal speech or dialogue might not.  Now you don’t want that kind of measurement for rhetoric, for as Aristotle says, “prose, then, is to be rhythmical, not metrical, or it will become not prose but verse” (180). However, you want just the right amount of varied rhythm – varied enough for the speech to not become monotonous, similar enough so nothing sounds disjointed. Rhythm in speech, whether it be poetry or rhetoric, helps engage the listener and keeps them actively engaged during the delivery of the performance.

The element that surprised me the most in this book, but one that Aristotle mentioned quite a few times, was the use of metaphors and similes (which he considers to be basically the same) in rhetoric. I would generally consider metaphors, while useful in poetry and literature, too frou-frou for rhetoric; however, Aristotle makes some good points for their rhetorical use. While he does caution in chapters 2 and 3 against metaphors that are non-fitting or unnecessarily poetic (that could confuse or distract the listener), he also considers the metaphor a way to make your language or the spoken subject seem more impressive (Ch. 6), an important part of clever sayings (Ch. 10), and crucial to allowing your listeners/readers be able to see what is being discussed (Ch. 11). 

I'm actually taking a creative writing class this semester (the intro class, an experienced or skilled creative writer, I am not), so since that class is on our poetry section, it's interesting to compare and contrast how Aristotle speaks of metaphors in ancient rhetoric vs. how it's spoken of today in my creative writing class. Besides the obvious of how poetry is, in it's nature, preformed more artistically than rhetoric (in its vividness and use of abstraction), I feel that a main difference between poetry and rhetoric is that poetry's main purpose isn't necessarily to convince, but perhaps more of to make us think? Rhetoric tries to convince us of a specific point, while poetry is an illustration of a point, but I feel that generally poetry isn't used to drive a purpose home but to get us to consider something. 

It brings me back to our discussion of "is there such thing as communication that is not rhetorical in some aspect." I almost feel that poetry can apply for that, for while stories often have a point or moral, a poem doesn't necessarily have to, and often doesn't, but is pure abstraction. Not to say that a poem can't serve any rhetorical purposes, there are poems, good poems, that serve a larger purpose to make the reader see something from the writer's eyes (to do as Aristotle says, make the listener see the argument), but there are other poems that I'm pretty sure are simply pure abstractions. We've talked before about writing poems that even the writer doesn't necessarily understand what they're writing or why they're writing in, and will accept almost any interpretation of it. Thus it is inherently not rhetorical since the author is not trying to achieve a specific goal. I'd definitely love to hear any counter-arguments to that point though. 

Questions:

1. Do you think poems can be considered largely rhetorical or non-rhetorical? 

2. What do you think about poetic strategies in rhetoric? For example, the use of metaphors or Aristotle's suggestions of, "describe a thing instead of naming it: do not say 'circle' but 'that surface which extends equally from the middle every way'" (176), and "when mentioning anything ugly or unseemly,  use its name if it is the description that is ugly, and describe it if it is the name that is ugly" (177). Do you think they are good strategies for helping the audience see/understand your point, or too evasive and likely to be misused for deceptive purposes?

Aristotelian Argument - Example

So while browsing YouTube for some mood music to help pump me up to get the rest of my homework done, this video showed up in my recommended list. I had a feeling it would turn out to be relevant to our reading, and decided to watch.

Besides the interesting conversation we could have about the apparently very broad use of rhetoric big corporations use to reach an audience without the consumer even being aware of potential hypocrisies connected to their favorite brands, the reason it reminded me of our current Aristotle reading is I found it reminiscent to what Aristotle said about how to prove your opponent as unkind: "[w]e can also see how to eliminate the idea of kindness and make our opponents appear unkind: we may maintain that they are being or have been helpful simply to promote their own interest" (112). Here, the speaker is taking companies, brands, or campaigns that might be seen as respectable, and pointing out that they are also connected to companies/brands/campaigns that are less respectable or just polar opposite to the first, the drawn conclusion being that these companies don't care about their consumers, no matter how noble or caring their message or goal might seem, their work is just one of many ways to get money out of us. Thus, the speaker is able to use an Aristotelian form of rhetoric to turn these companies from seemingly kind to seemingly unkind.

Aristotle, The Rhetoric, Book I

It's interesting to compare and contrast Aristotle's views to the views we saw in Plato's works. Whether the views we see from Aristotle were thoughts Plato encouraged in later years, cultivated by an outside source, or developed purely by Aristotle himself, there are definitely distinct differences between what we read in Plato and what we've read in this first portion of Aristotle. 

The main difference is Aristotle's opinion of rhetoric. In Phaedrus, we did see some hints of "rhetoric might be okay, sometimes, maybe," but otherwise Plato was not too keen on it. Meanwhile, Aristotle has written apparently quite a bit supporting rhetoric, and supporting aspects of rhetoric that Plato would loathe. Plato would want discourse to be strictly academic and calm, but Aristotle seems to have a better understanding of human emotion, and how a strategic use of the various modes of persuasion can move people more effectively than a strictly academic argument. 

However, like Plato, Aristotle seems to hold rhetoric to a very high standard. He sees it as a way of defending truth from those that might obscure it, saying that what is true and just naturally stands out from what is not, so if something that is untrue wins over something that is true, it must be the fault of the speaker (22). Aristotle states that not being able to defend yourself with speech and reason as shameful, if not more so, than being able to defend yourself with your limbs (23). I think Plato and Aristotle would think alike on this, the main difference being one preferring the dialectic form of discourse while Aristotle is a fan or rhetoric. 

Also like Plato, Aristotle also seems to be not a fan of the sophists; the sophists so far have been only briefly mentioned, but it did not seem that Aristotle approved of them. You would think that with his support of rhetoric that he would welcome them, but it appears that, if I understand correctly, that sophists always are trying to achieve a moral purpose but might not take the same intellectual and knowledgeable route as a rhetorician (24). My guess is that because of this, Aristotle sees the sophist as more prone to deceit. 

I say this partially because this reading is vastly different from what I've seen so far when looking at the sophists. It seems that the main difference between Aristotle and the Sophists is the consideration of audience. It seems to me that the Sophists are more concerned on simply getting people to react in appropriate ways using the various appeals, but Aristotle wants to get understanding audience down to an exact science. Reading this text much of the time felt a lot like a text on psychology, for Aristotle was very concerned on what the masses would think and what would drive them to think or act. It's like Aristotle has taken the work the early sophists did, but has run with it and gone way deeper. 

Like Plato, Aristotle also seems to assign a deep moral meaning to rhetoric, with all of his talk on human nature, as well as going deep into what is good and just, and degrees between good, bad, and excessive. I'm definitely curious to see where Aristotle will take us, since it seems much of the next book also focuses on human character, rather than be a straight guidebook of "yo, this is how to get people to listen to you." I definitely wasn't expecting this level of psychological introspection from Aristotle, who I always heard was a big math/logic/science-y guy. 

Questions:

1. Do you think a deep understanding of social psychology is, as Aristotle seems to imply, necessary for rhetoric? Should it be necessary for rhetoric? Is understanding happiness and motive for example a necessity, or is a basic understanding of "what makes people tick" enough?

2. What do you think of Aristotle's idea of "things that are true and things that are just have a natural tendency to prevail over their opposites" (22)? Do you think this is largely true, or hopelessly naive? Are there specific subjects where this is more/less true?  

Phaedrus (39-68)

So around page 39, the tone of the dialogue shifts abruptly from “let’s use a metaphor of love to talk about seeking and conveying wisdom” to “let’s go straight up into rhetoric.” Towards the end of the dialogue, we also get into what Socrates thinks rhetoric is (or rather, should be), and also why he has disdain for the execution of speech and rhetoric as he knows it. 

One of the most interesting lines of the dialogue, I thought, was when Socrates called the power of speech “a leading of the soul,” (58) it makes sense, but I never thought of it like that.  We saw earlier in the text how serious a matter Plato considers the soul, so it makes sense that Socrates later gets into what he thinks an orator should be and just how serious a job it would be (56-58).

It seems that Socrates’ main criticism with speech and rhetoric is that the focus seems to be not on the truth itself, but on convincing others: “for, they say, in the law-courts no one cares in the slightest for truth about these things but only for what is convincing; and what is convincing is what is probable, which is what the person who means to speak scientifically must pay attention to” (59). The main point that Socrates seems to be making about speech in rhetoric in the last pages of the dialogue is that they are not about the science of delivering truth in a manner than any person can follow, but merely the science of being convincing to anyone.

Overall, I found Plato’s high, if unmet, standards for rhetoricians interesting, and I can’t help but wonder what it be like if they were actually applied to the rhetoric we see today. I’d call a lot of today’s rhetoricians, at least in U.S. culture, hardly advocates of truth and justice, but rather bordering on completely shameless in their quest to be convincing. Whether its politics or advertising, rhetoric is less about getting the facts out, and more about saying what you need to in order to convince. Advertisers for example will utilize sex and personal insecurities for the sake of sales -- beauty ads, anyone? Then we have the politicians who will take advantage of people’s real struggles to emphasize that they’re good. For example, in Rod Blagojevich’s impeachment speech, he had several supposedly less fortunate people that supposedly benefited from his actions as governor stand behind him for rhetorical impact (introduction of them starts at 5:45). Even President Obama, I have no specific videos, but if I remember correctly he will often tell stories of specific people he’s met for rhetoric impact. And pretty much all politicians wants that golden photoshoot of them helping the homeless or chillaxing in a bar and drinking beer with the "regular people," in order to make them look honorable or like a cool person.    Politics and advertising are only the surface of the debatably dishonest means that can be gone through to get a point or create an image; it can be applied to celebrity culture, news and opinion, law, and even job hunters who will doctor their resume or fudge answers to interview questions or those personality/scenario quizzes given. Even in class scenarios here at WSU, I've gotten frustrated with group members, whether we’re writing memos or advertising materials, who are often eager to ignore or hide the truth in order to further our agenda, which always feels frustratingly dishonest to me. However, such is the definition that rhetoric shaped as: primarily about convincing a large population. I have no problem with advertising, speeches, or two sides debating individual points, I just wish honesty was more largely emphasized in rhetoric. 

Questions:

1. What level of dishonesty would you be willing to engage in so that you can convince someone of something? Especially if it involves say advertising or a grade, an issue that might cause real consequences if your agenda isn’t achieved. Would you lie? Would you bring up examples that accent your point and ignore others that would take away from it? Would you just frame the not necessarily positive truth in a more appealing light? Or could you tell the complete and honest truth?

2. How different do you think society would be if rhetoricians were truly advocates of truth? Do you think there are any areas in society today where rhetoric is purely (or even mostly) used for delivering truth?

Phaedrus Introduction

Well, there's only so much that can come out of reading simply the introduction but it does give an idea of what the following dialogues will hold:

One thing I found interesting is that it seems there will be a difference in tones between Gorgias and what seems like will occur in Phaedrus. In the introduction, it says, of Socrates that, "on this occasion with Phaedrus, circumstances contrive to make him take the role on, and - as he says - his speech is 'forced to use somewhat poetical language because of Phaedrus'" (xix).   

At first I was surprised by this, because I certainly know Plato hates poets, and I wouldn't say Socrates' normal style that I've seen from Gorgias and other readings I've had from Plato involves poetical language. His usual style seems to be the one we saw in Gorgias: Primarily question-and-answer with the occasional longer speech, all the language being relatively simple and to-the-point. 

However, an important part of any rhetoric is knowing your audience, and from what I’ve gathered so far of the exuberant nature of Phaedrus, poetical language seems more suiting when engaging with a dialogue with him, or at the very least, mimicking the style of the speaker Phaedrus just saw will be more likely to keep his attention. Again, it’s hard to say much with certainty without reading beyond the introduction, but I predict that the nature of Phaedrus will be different enough from Gorgias/Polus/Callicles where this different style of dialogue may seem like a necessary choice for this opponent.

It’s an odd move for Socrates though, who prides himself for telling things straight (xix). For someone who doesn’t approve of the orators he debated against in the previous reading, changing your oratory style to match with your opponent or audience is the move of a rhetorically aware person. It actually seems a bit hypocritical for him to earlier call himself pretty much the one true statesman if he too is capable of conforming himself, or “pandering,” to an audience, in this case, Phaedrus. Thus occurs the dilemma we’ve discussed in class: for someone who is so against the Sophists and oratory, Plato and/or Socrates were actually, whether they knew it or not, quite brilliant in what they supposedly despised.

Questions:

1. Since Plato is obviously against the idea of oratory, do you think it’s hypocritical of him use moves that are clearly rhetorical in nature? Or do you think Plato had a different idea of oratory that is sufficiently different from the Sophists but still employs similar rhetorical strategies?

2. Do you think it’s possible to make a convincing argument without using rhetorical strategies or pandering in any way to your audience? 

Connections between Politicians, Morality, Happiness, and General Efficiency

In the first two dialogues that take place in Plato’s Gorgias, questions are raised about what role an orator plays, followed by questions about the responsibilities and morality of those in power, the orator, whether it is greater to be wronged against or cause wrong, and whether orators are responsible when a student or listener is lead astray by them.

I found the dialogue with Polus particularly interesting, particularly Socrates’ idea that the wrongdoer is more miserable than the wronged, especially if the wrongdoer is never punished. It pretty much took the entire length of Polus’s section of the dialogue to understand what the blazes Socrates was thinking with his premise, but I do agree that, in an odd way, there is some sense to it. While I am not an active wrongdoer myself (or at least, I certainly hope not), I can understand what Socrates means by the prolonged stress of avoiding punishment may be worse than the punishment itself. The parallel I face is more along the lines of the many times when I’ve avoided doing something out of fear or laziness (say homework, or calling someone), but when I finally got around to doing it, it turns out the fear or stress I put myself through was far worse than the thing I was avoiding. That seems to be the crux of Socrates’ argument for how a wrongdoer will suffer more than the wronged, for at least the wronged is also just in his suffering. I do question Socrates’ argument in the sense that it ignores the possibility of sociopaths who may truly have no knowledge or caring of the fact that they are doing anything wrong, but for the most part, I actually can see where he/Plato comes from.

Now to keep with my blog’s current theme of tying in rhetoric of the past with current politics:

Today’s equivalent of the orators of the past seem to be primarily advertisers and politicians. In the first dialogue with Gorgias, Socrates and Gorgias agree that the target audience for orators are largely the masses, rather than a specialist audience. And like the orators of the past, the primary aim of the two mentioned groups, politicians and advertisers, is to persuade, whether the point of persuasion is exactly “right” or not.

However, a similar problem exists in both of these fields: people are largely not held accountable for untruths or wrongs that are spread to the masses. That is not to say that they are without responsibility – advertised products do have to meet at least certain safety standards, and if caught, politicians have to deal with scandals and possibly eventually having to step out of office. But often it seems that the more powerful the party, the less likely they are to face the same consequence as if a non-powerful person committed the same crime.

Now to focus primarily on the politician, because that seems to be the closer parallel to the orator of the past: In U.S. politics today, it is difficult to be successful in politics without lying at least a little. One of the problems with the two party system as it exists today is that the box for each party is growing tighter and tighter as it seems people grow less likely to accept compromise. The problem is that people don’t generally think in exact boxes, but to get elected and to be successful, a politician has to pretend that they do. Between that and the obsession of staying elected, that seems to count for some of the epic flip-flops that made from government officials.

There is also the matter of happiness of the people. While the role of congressmen and senators and the like is to act as a mouthpiece for the will of the people, the happiness rate with the government seems to imply other things. A gallup poll conducted in early 2014 rates the approval of congress at 13%.  This is actually an improvement over an all-time low of 9% in November 2013, a month after the government shutdown. But the point is, with happiness ratings so low, a non-sociopathic politician would feel that the people are being wronged by their actions.

However, politicians are barely held accountable for this. Scandals are rather common among government officials, but upon being caught the punishment usually ranges from a few days/weeks of annoying media coverage to maybe actually having to step down from office, but rarely criminal charges. As for the general efficiency of our current government and the people who are being harmed by it, many people have accepted bickering, gridlock, ignorance, and nothing useful being accomplished as “business as usual” in Washington D.C.

Here lies the scenario I’m clumsily trying to lay out:

A) U.S. Politicians are vaguely attempting to function in a broken system.
B) Because the system is broken, very little that is good gets accomplished.
C) A non-ignorant, non-sociopathic politician (though I will accept that it is debatable if one exists) would realize that the people they were sent to represent are being wronged by the lack of good coming from them.
D) A politician may be miserable because of this, also assuming that they haven’t --
E) somehow gone mad with power somewhere, and are doing any activities that they would like to avoid finding out, which adds additional stress/shame/misery.
F) Misery brings the morale at the center of operations to a low, which leads to --
G) Nothing being done, and the cycle continuing forever. 

In conclusion, using Socrates’ argument I can make this argument for accountability of politicians in Washington D.C. Not only is it generally a good idea to keep an eye on people who sort of have power over us, but also for the sake of creating a not-completely-miserable work environment so that maybe something can get done.

My questions:

1) In terms of the tyrant especially, do you think that Socrates is right when he says that the wrongdoer is more miserable than the wronged? Why or why not?

2)Socrates says that the orator is a sort of pandering, a false equivalent to truth and righteousness, like how cookery can be a poor replacement for medicine, or beauty-culture a poor replacement for physical training (32-33). If the politician is the modern day equivalent to the orator of the past, what would be the modern-day, better alternative (in Plato's mind) to the politician? Would it still be justice, or something else?

The Effects of Early Sophism on Modern Democracy

Upon reading Harold Barrett’s The Sophists, I can definitely see how the rise of the Sophists and the birth of Western democracy are very likely closely related. I don’t know if we ever received an answer to our chicken-and-egg question of which came first (though it was implied that democracy did come first, or so it sounded like from the reading), but I can see how the mentality that the Sophists had can be related to the rise of the first democracies, and even how some of these ideas can still be seen today in modern democracies.

So I guess I’ll go on a bit here about the Sophists we read about, and how what they’re remembered for relates to modern politics/democracy:

First of all, Protagoras. One of his revolutionary ideas that apparently excited and inspired his students was that “on every argument there are two sides” (10). I admit, upon reading that part I was stunned for a moment that such a seemingly obvious idea could ever be seen as revolutionary. But it seems that arguments before had a stricter binary of right and wrong, as opposed to Protagoras’s idea that an argument is where “the ‘truth’ of one side will be tested by the ‘truth’ of the other” (10). Truth was suddenly no longer seen as iron-solid, but something that could be shaken by the truth of another. Such is today’s debates – no matter how many people will try to tell you otherwise, there isn’t really a clear-cut “right” party and “wrong” party in politics, but two parties pitting their truths against each other, with the voters left to decide which truth is the most sensible (or the least twisted, as the case may be).

Which leads to Protagoras’s other idea of “man is the measure of all things.” Like many during Protagoras’s time, I find his idea a bit of a struggle to understand – if I saw a tree in the distance that I mistook for a man, would that mean the tree was temporarily a man? Finer points aside though, the idea seems to bring about an idea of personal responsibility that is a necessity for democracy – the voter of today needs to use his personal senses to understand the reality that surrounds him, and try to figure out what people/solutions are best for dealing with that reality.

Gorgias, meanwhile, brought about style to rhetoric – not merely talking at people to persuade them, but using various appeals to win them to your side. In particular, mixing pathos with logos and ethos, the skillful use of emotion in debate. Even simply turning a speech into a work of artistry, using the balance of words and phrases, or invoking listener response to his pieces (for they seemed to be considered practically art in his time.) Certainly, we see this today, not just in political speeches that can invoke anything from stirring appeals of emotion to catchy, chantable phrases (yes we can), but really in any form of persuasion such as advertising.

Prodicus seemed to be a strong advocate for semantics, being able to invoke precise meanings of words, for Aristotle said he attempted to “assign to every term its own peculiar significance.” In today’s politics, we see the parallel with our obsession with every phrase within a speech, especially when an opponent or the media can get that one soundbite – in or out of context – that can make or destroy the original argument. I can’t think of any examples of the top of my head, but I’m sure there are examples too of a single word being up for questioning of “when he said it, did he mean this or that?”

Hippias – well, he just sounds like a hoot for one thing, with his pride in all of his handmade clothes and whatnot. But besides his love of variety and accumulating a wide array of skills and knowledge, it was apparently his memory that made him stand out, and his work on developing his students mnemonics and methods of retaining information. This is a trait less seen in modern society, in the era of teleprompters, notecards, and hastily scrawling things on the back of your hand. But there is sometimes a certain derision for politicians, particularly Obama in the recent years, who do rely on teleprompters in order to perform their speeches, no matter how fantastic. There seems to be this idea, at least within certain portions of the media, that if a speech isn’t memorized then it isn’t truly “from the heart,” but rather simply an orchestrated, possibly deceitful, argument that exists purely for winning support and no other reason (which admittedly is the reason of existence behind most/all arguments, but the idea is that the argument isn’t “from the heart” or worthy of memory seems to give a more cynical origin. Supposedly. The point is, that perhaps some of the media implies that it might be a good idea for modern politicians to take note of some of the mnemonics of old, to perhaps protect themselves from (some) cynical analysis.

Finally, Thrasymachus. Like Gorgias, Thrasymachus seemed to focus on the art of delivery, particularly in the rhythm of the delivery of his rhetoric. As noted earlier, we see this in today’s rhetoric not only in helping to create emotional or catchy appeals, but also just to help captivate an audience’s attention.

There is also the originally controversial idea that many of the Sophists shared, that law is a social construct, rather than natural rules from human nature itself that all of man feel compelled to obey.  The rise of this idea I would say is crucial for stressing the necessity of democracy, especially as we see it today. If law were truly only from human nature, then there would be no need to change them, and to do so would be purely madness. Unfortunately, we still see some who say changing the laws of old (the original constitution for example) would be madness. But as society changes, so too must certain laws as they grow quaint and outdated.

Thus, early Sophism laid much of the groundwork for early democracy, not only presenting the ideas of why democracy is necessary (how laws are a human construct, and how truth and reality can vary by person), but also some of the rhetorical strategies necessary to have debates and convince others that change is necessary. 

Finally, I guess I'll end with my two questions for the class (mainly so I can remember them for tomorrow, haha):

1. Going off of what I said about Hippias, do you think it is necessary to restore memory to current speeches and debates? On one hand, modern politicians have a lot to do and think about during campaign season especially, and I can see how trying to memorize every speech and debate strategy could be a hassle, and no one wants to be stuck on stage when you've forgotten what you want to say. On the other, it seems like modern media is trying to implement a narrative that a politician loses ethos when relying on outside sources (notecards, teleprompters, etc.). Should memorization be included again in modern rhetoric, or is the possible consequences of not memorizing easy enough to ignore?

2. There is still a pervasive idea in society that some laws are simply not meant to be touched (popular examples of today being the 2nd amendment in the constitution, and the idea of "traditional marriage" being disrupted by allowing homosexuals to marry). Do you believe that there is such a thing as an untouchable law, that is perfect the way it is? What is it, and why?