Monday, July 29, 2019

Rhetoric and Imagination

Even in earliest practices, rhetoric was synonymous with persuasion. Today, most still think about it this same way. To practice rhetoric is to engage in persuasion.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle adds to this when he argues that rhetoric is a counterpart to dialectic. That is, dialectic, a method of philosophy, engages in questioning statements of truth. Rhetoric, he claims, also engages in questioning statements, and in this sense it becomes a philosophical, critical discipline. The difference is this. In dialectic, we question whether or not statements of truth are absolute. In rhetoric, we question opinions, most of them having to do with issues of public policy, praise or blame, and legal guilt or innocence. The art of rhetoric is aimed at discovering the best opinions, and it is focused on opinions because they are what we have with most issues in the world.

Where dialectic is seen practiced among philosophers, rhetoric is seen in everyday life. The key here is that in Aristotle's terms, rhetoric is no long just persuading. It is also an art involved with observing what is persuasive with individual audiences. To the degree that philosophy seeks absolutes, rhetoric seeks to understand what persuades people in real, not ideal, settings.

Aristotle details three areas of interest. First, he notes that people are persuaded mostly by three things--by the character of the speaker, by emotion, and by reason. He also notes that the character of the speaker, or ethos, is most persuasive. In other words, when other good reasons are missing, our being persuaded will depend on our trust of the quality and character of the speaker. Second, rhetoric has to do with important issues we do not have absolute knowledge about. Third, rhetoric concerns opinions.

The importance of ethos seems especially relevant today. It suggests why we see so many personal attacks against public figures and politicians. These attacks are often effective, especially if a speaker can convince an audience that they really do face an either/or choice. In the terms of the old school, these are examples of fallacies--ad hominem attacks, that is, attacks "against the man," and devil terms. For devil terms, think "socialist." Think "Nazi." Think "Un-American," a term used to great effect during the Joseph McCarthy trials of the early 1950s. Think of all the attempts to characterize President Obama as a Muslim or not American. Rather than attacking policies, we attack the people who are detailing them.

Rhetoric and Imagination
The example of attacks against President Obama are especially malicious, and illustrative. The slur "Muslim" in this case becomes a devil term in the post 9/11 era, where it conjures pictures of extremist groups like the Taliban. It suggests wildly imagined scenarios of a terrorist in the White House without ever having to actually state such an absurd scenario. The scenario is absurd in that it can't be based on any policy or aspect of Barack Obama's character.

I recently was reminded of all of this when I saw a post on social media claiming that any Muslim in America who wanted to follow Sharia Law should be forced to leave our country, because they weren't really Americans. This deeply shocked me. I fear now for people of Islam who have just as much claim to the American experiment as any Catholic or Protestant believer.

Similar tactics have been used with the current president. The interesting difference, however, concerns that in this case, the people accusing him of fascist tendencies are pointing to actual policies, both with immigration and in his actions with the judicial and legislative branches, that seem to be a real concern for anyone interested in supporting constitutional democracy. With the former president, all they had were accusations about his birth certificate and, apparently, his name.

In both cases, with both men, these are examples of exploiting and arousing real, longstanding fears held by the American electorate. And both require imagination. While members of both groups susceptible to these fallacies would certainly claim that they are just basing their thinking on the evidence and being reasonable, they are in fact mostly driven by their rhetorical imaginations. In both cases, their imaginations are being engaged to conjure fear.

When this happens, we have in our public imagination moved beyond appeals to reason. We have debased character. And in making what remains of ethos the whole debate, we have moved into areas of bigotry, discounting whole groups of people on the basis of something like religion, which is protected by our constitution.

Of Realtors and Rhetors
Consider these less political but very real scenarios.

When we were selling our house in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 2001, our realtor went through our house and told us to remove most of our personal belongings. There needed to be empty spaces, she told us, so that prospective buyers could come in and imagine themselves in our rooms.

The important emphasis here was on getting prospective buyers to imagine themselves there.

Don Draper, of Mad Men, said as much when he noted that his company wasn't selling a product so much as a way of life.

These are commercial examples of rhetoric and imagination, of leaving just enough empty spaces for others to fill with their imaginations. And, in the old art of Rhetoric, as a counterpart to dialectic, these empty spaces would invite questioning and prodding. Is Obama really a Muslim? Is he really going to invite the Taliban into our country? Will Trump really become our first dictator? Or will other branches of government check him?

As the discourse of advertising--of appealing to a vicarious imagination in a few strokes--has become wall-to-wall in our thinking through TV and social media, we seem to have forgotten to question--ourselves, first. We have certainly become cynical about all claims. But we also seem to have become willing accomplices in undermining ourselves when we simply join the bandwagon and don't stop to question things.

This all leads to my main appeal: Never has the need to teach classical rhetoric been more serious than now. I know that I should advertise this by appealing to the rhetorical imagination--imagining a perfectly informed city square where reasonable people engage in questioning and elect the perfect candidates.

Such a realm has never existed, least of all in Ancient Athens. But the ancient art of questioning--and beginning that questioning with "Why am I personally so persuaded by this speaker? Is there something of flattery in this?"--should still be enshrined in all education--including vocational and technical education. The art of asking critical questions remains in the domain of the Liberal Arts, first named as liberal or liberating by Thomas Jefferson.

We need them now to be givens across the board.

Support your local rhetorician. 

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