Rhetoriticans think they're running this show

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How did something go from a noble plank of the Greek core curriculum to being something that seems to just act to obscure the truth and hinder peace and understanding?

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 21:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Am I expected to answer this?

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 21:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes, great Spenceres.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 21:48 (twenty-two years ago)

guy called in to sports radio here complaining about the ru-TOR-ic surrounding the vikings' shitty season.

― g--ff (gcannon), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 21:53 (twenty-two years ago)

God, I'm so glad we don't have to memorize speeches of the great orators any more.

If we did though, who would we study for modern rhetors? Mark S.?

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 21:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Gallia est omnis divisa en partes tres

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 22:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Fromage, Vin, and Tits

― TOMBOT, Wednesday, 4 February 2004 22:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I liked France better when it was Gaul (you know, before they sold out).

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 22:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Rhetoriticians, sp. (!)

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 22:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Rhetoricians?

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 22:10 (twenty-two years ago)

That looks better, but I guess Tim Booth didn't think it scanned as well.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 22:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Did anybody get the joke? anybody?

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 22:46 (twenty-two years ago)

No, but shouldn't it be 'in partes tres'?

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 23:56 (twenty-two years ago)

you're right. but that wasn't the joke...

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 23:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Has it got something to do with rhetoric being divided into three subdisciplines?

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 5 February 2004 00:01 (twenty-two years ago)

sorry Nick I'm being lame. I was referring to my first post which I thought was a zinger! but nobody commented and I felt so alone.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 5 February 2004 00:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Do you really think no one got the joke?

― Dan I., Thursday, 5 February 2004 00:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I was under the impression that Ned didn't get it since he answered with "yes."

― martin m. (mushrush), Thursday, 5 February 2004 00:23 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm now welling up with tears of joy.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 5 February 2004 00:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Dammit I'm trying to make a Greek philosophy joke and you people get all Latin on my ass.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 5 February 2004 00:25 (twenty-two years ago)

OMG, Ned went over all our heads!

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 5 February 2004 00:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Ned your Hellenistic ways are blorking my spoogins

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Thursday, 5 February 2004 00:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't know Latin so I figure that saying stuff like that will make me look smart.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Thursday, 5 February 2004 00:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Nedster Noster, sanctificetur nomen tuum.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 5 February 2004 00:42 (twenty-two years ago)

FIAT SPENCER

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 5 February 2004 00:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Woo! Latin! (For Mac users, but the rest of you can backtrack to the main page.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 5 February 2004 00:57 (twenty-two years ago)

This was actually a serious question but I don't know how to get it started.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 5 February 2004 10:07 (twenty-two years ago)

It's already finished.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 5 February 2004 14:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Curiously, the top thread on an ILE search for 'rhetoric' is when did IDM become to dance what undie is to hip hop?

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 5 February 2004 14:28 (twenty-two years ago)

The original question is interesting, but I'm wondering if you're exalting the idea rhetoric's charter?

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 5 February 2004 18:35 (twenty-two years ago)

should be the idea "of"

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 5 February 2004 18:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Rhetoric always worked both ways, since it's just a system used to prove things based on assumptions. If the assumptions are fallacious, then the conclusions will be even if all the laws of logic are followed.

Somewhere along the line rhetoric got a negative connotation, probably because politicians a) abused it and/or b) didn't follow it's rules correctly. (Search: Nixon's "Checkers Speech") In the context of philosophy/logic, I think it's still used to good end.

― martin m. (mushrush), Thursday, 5 February 2004 19:00 (twenty-two years ago)

N, did you meant to ask how come current usage of the word “rhetoric” can mean "The art or study of using language effectively and persuasively" as well as "Language that is elaborate, pretentious, insincere, or intellectually vacuous"?

For what I could gather from philosopher Michel Onfray, Plato with his hating for the sophists is to blame for that semantic slipping into a negative connotation. He chosed to make them his ennemies because cheapshots was the best way he could think of to discredit their philosophy that was a threat to him because proposing the opposite of his stuff: they were populist, democratic in their teaching, realist instead of idealist, not rich so they couldn't afford to spit on cash, they were for the resolution of desires instead of working to repress them. They were "nomads", going from city to city and apparently they were the "rock stars" of their time, immensely popular so they had more cash than some aristocrats so it's plausible that plato's jealousy came from these elements too.
One of the major dis is to say they were working on form and not matter , they were teaching to show off in society and in debates but had no theoritical consistency but it's not true their philosophy was subversive and a threat to plato's taste for hyerarchy in the city because political relativists, they were giving means to the people from the street to access representative functions traditionally belonging to aristocracy.
Platonician way of philosophy triumphed so their historical portrait was written by that guy. Sophists deserved better than that and many philosophers think they are due for a reparation, to restore what they were really about.

― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Thursday, 5 February 2004 19:07 (twenty-two years ago)

rhetoric=theory of figures.

― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Thursday, 5 February 2004 19:17 (twenty-two years ago)

That's interesting, thanks. I don't know much about all that at all - I was just aware that rhetoric once held an exalted place in Greek civic life. Lately, I've grown so sick of point scoring approaches to arguments that I have grown anti the whole idea of rhetoric (certainly the 'persuasive' part of the 'effective and persuasive' definition, anyway). Also, of course, rhetoric as a political tool, with Nuremberg rallies being I suppose the extreme of that, seems such an untrustworthy thing. But my thoughts weren't very cogent so I thought I'd ask what other people thought.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 5 February 2004 19:28 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think rhetoric is about proving things from assumptions - that's logic. Rhetoric had completely different rules for Athenians. For instance, an argument can be made either by opposing the person you are arguing with, or by attempting to convert the person into sharing your point of view. The choice of whether to build your argument from outside their frame of reference or to begin by quoting them and working your way into a different position - these are questions that rhetoric systematises.

― run it off (run it off), Thursday, 5 February 2004 23:07 (twenty-two years ago)

(I'm so sick of the scoring points approaches to arguments too, N.)

Rhetoric is one of the three components of 'Law'.

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 5 February 2004 23:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I have a real hatred of obvious rhetorical devices. Blair uses them all the time. In his address to the nation when we went to war, he used that listing three words/phrases in sequence to sound dead profound trick *four times* (transcript here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2870581.stm).

Another of his favourites seems to be setting up a false opposition and then knocking it down. So he'll say something like "We have a choice: either modernise the NHS, or destroy it" even though no one has suggested destroying it (I stole this observation off William Hague btw).

If he's not going to bother telling the truth, the least he could do is get a decent speech writer. A politician with a good command of the art of rhetoric can be really impressive - but it has to seem natural and not contrived.

In debates about anything really important though, I'd much rather see people express ideas with clarity and precision rather than just trying to out-rhetoric everyone else.

― Cathy (Cathy), Friday, 6 February 2004 10:20 (twenty-two years ago)

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