What is Rhetoric?

So what is rhetoric? And why should you even know about it? Well rhetoric in simple terms is the persuasive use of words, either in writing or speech. Persuasion, although a great Jane Austin novel, in reality is quite complex. It is this complexity that I hope to be able to shed some light on. As with most things, the more we know about them, the better we are able to see, predict, and protect. I use this reasoning as my excuse for my terrifying encyclopedic knowledge of 20th century serial killers. I don’t want to be a victim so I’ve spent my life cataloguing all the behaviours and personality traits that go along with being a serial killer. I’m hoping by giving you a cursory introduction to rhetoric, I can help you keep yourself from being a victim of it when it is in the hands of those wishing to manipulate you or the truth.

The paperback Oxford English Dictionary defines rhetoric two ways. The second listing is what I think most folks default to when they hear the word: persuasive language that is empty or insincere. However, the first meaning listed is the accurate meaning: the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing. The second definition is the one most of us have in our minds due to decades or dishonest politicians and advertising. I can’t blame anyone for feeling this way. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries we haven’t been given much exposure to the more positive connotation of the word.

I don’t think I need to give examples of the insincere use of rhetoric, but maybe it would be good to point to some good examples of the positive meaning. Think of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a dream” speech. The language and orating capabilities of Dr. King are as moving today as they were when he first wrote them. JFK and Bobby Kennedy were also fantastic wielders of rhetoric for the good of society. Sadly, the ancient orators of the past knew that rhetoric could easily be manipulated for ill ends.

Aristotle, a student of Socrates, gives us the three main types of arguments to be used during persuasive speech, or writing as we more commonly us them today. Ethos, Pathos, and Logos are the foundation of rhetoric and each could have their own post dedicated to them, perhaps that will happen, but for now I’ll just give a quick overview. If you are anything like me, when I first heard these terms discussed, I could see easily why our modern interpretation of rhetoric is the nasty one. In order to persuade the audience (hearer or reader) the speaker should take from each of the three. However, it is easy to slip into using the one that is either easiest for you to write, or more likely the one that has the greater persuasive affect on the audience.

So, lets start with Ethos. Ethos is the way that a speaker defines themselves to be trust worthy, ethical, moral, educated, etc. Once a speaker has laid the ground work to show they have the credentials the audience wants, it is much easier for their speech to change minds. I’ll skip over the middle one and jump right to Logos. Logos is the use of facts and logic to show the audience that the speaker’s perspective or opinion is the correct one. This you’d probably see used in a court room by lawyers in closing arguments. It is the basis of scientific and scholarly debates. Unfortunately, Logos has been too heavily relied upon since the Enlightenment. This over reliance has led those who lean on it to become patronizing and at least appear to be judgmental of any audience that doesn’t fully grasp the concepts being discussed. This over reliance is what has lead to the destructive over use of Pathos. Pathos is meant to use the emotions of the audience themselves to do the work of persuading. Think a coach in a dressing room at half time getting the team amped up to go out and win the game. In this context, it isn’t so bad. Sadly, there have been multiple times throughout recent history where the excessive use of Pathos has lead to violence, regressive policy, and out and out hatred.

On top of the three main means of persuasion I just talked about there are pitfalls to rhetorical speech and writing. These pitfalls are referred to as logical fallacies. LogicalFallacies.org defines a fallacy as “a misconception resulting from flaw in reasoning, or a trick or illusion in thoughts that often succeeds in obfuscating facts/truth.” Obfuscating here, meaning to hide. There are way more fallacies than the three means of persuasion, so I won’t go into them all in this post. What I will do is provide a link to LogicalFallacies.org. You can then click around and learn about any of them you’d like. I’ll focus on the fallacies that I’ve noticed are prevalent in political speech and internet trolling. I think those are probably the ones you’ll encounter the most and hopefully that means this will be helpful for you.

Burden of Proof

This fallacy turns the burden of proof from being on the person arguing to the person they are arguing against.

At great example of this is Christian apologists. Apologists will often claim that because something is not impossible, therefore you cannot without a doubt prove it didn’t happen, that it did indeed happen. Christians are not the only people who use this fallacy. Many have used it in regards to UFOs, paranormal events, and false accusations of varying degrees.

Ad Hominem

This fallacy is about attacking an opponents character as a way to undermine their argument. Usually, what is being attacked may be true, but it does not have any bearing on what is actually being argued.

I’ve heard ad hominem attacks lobbed at people for various things. Atheists will often use the fact that their opponent is religious to say that their argument is invalid because a person of faith can’t believe in scientific fact. These two things are not mutually exclusive, but the atheist is trying to make that claim.

No True Scotsman

This fallacy attacks the purity of an ideal or standard in order to dismiss issues within an argument.

An example of this is “Canadians all love maple syrup and skiing” which is countered with “I’m Canadian but I don’t ski and I prefer peanut butter on my pancakes.” The response of “Well a REAL Canadian loves skiing and maple syrup.” An imagined “real” Canadian is created to dismiss the flaw in the original statement regarding Canadians and their love of skiing and maple syrup.

Strawman

This fallacy purposely misrepresents an argument in order to make it easier for the opponent to attack it.

Both the left and right in politics use this one all the time. Statements like “Anyone who would vote conservative doesn’t believe women should be able to work outside the home. Women can’t vote conservative or they must believe the same.” or “leftists only care about hugging trees and giving free drugs to addicts. You can’t trust a leftist to run for any political position.”

Personal Incredulity

This fallacy is what people rely on when they decide that because they do not fully understand something or it is too complex of a topic it is therefore untrue. I think this has probably had the most negative effects on society as a whole. For whatever reason in the past 20 years, I blame the internet, folks have stopped trusting experts and instead trust their own feelings or a simpler but wrong explanation for a non expert.

I’m sure you can all come up with a ton of examples off the top of your head here, but my least favourite is flat earthers. Almost all flat earthers I’ve encountered on the internet and in real life do not understand how physics, specifically astrophysics, works and have decided that it obviously isn’t actually true that we live on a spherical earth and that there are other astrological bodies outside of earth, the sun, and the moon. I don’t mean to say that I do understand physics, again especially astrophysics, but I also don’t really understand how I can type on this keyboard right now and the letters show up on the screen. Or how I can send a text from Canada to the UK and my friend gets it as if they were in the next room. What I do know is that there are many things that I don’t know personally, that are very real, and extraordinarily useful to me.

I wish I could end this with “So now that you know about these things everything is going to be so much better and people will be reasonable again”. However, I think it is more likely that having this information will help you to wade through people’s perspectives and allow you to see when someone is trying to use a persuasive method that is either a fallacy or relying far too much on ethos, pathos, or logos.

References:

Logical Fallacies: https://www.logicalfallacies.org/

Oxford English Dictionary, paperback 7th edition.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-rhetoric/#PersThroCharSpea