A Response to Aristotle

With his essay On Rhetoric, Aristotle argues that an audience's opinion of a person should not affect the way they receive that person's argument. The problem with this argument is that in many cases, the audience's prior opinion shapes their response before the speaker even steps on the stage. It is part of the subconscious- usually we don't even know that we're biased about what we're hearing. When you see a supermodel hawking the newest brand of soap, you don't think “I want that soap because that hot person uses it.” Instead, the effect of the beautiful person pushing the product works on a subconscious level. Good looking people simply put us in a better frame of mind than would, say, someone less attractive. This frame of mind in turn makes us more receptive to whatever product we're being sold. We start to associate good looks with that brand of soap- again, not on a conscious level, but in our subconscious.

Now, it's true that a person can overcome this tendency with a strong attention to what they're hearing. If you realize what the speaker is doing, and you admit that you have pre-existing feelings changing your judgement about their words, you can account for this fact; you can consciously ignore your feelings and focus on the logic of the speaker's argument. However, this takes a lot of focus and work to do. You can't just sit there and zone out, staring at the TV. You have to think about what you're hearing; look at what your feelings on the issue are, and then decide if those came about because of the logic of the speaker or the subconscious influence of your previous opinion of them.

So if you happen to be the speaker, how do you take all this into account? I would argue that depends highly on the context. For example, if you're outlining your latest breakthrough in electrodynamic quantum theory to a room full of professors and MIT students, you can be pretty sure that the audience is going to be thinking about your argument. They're probably active listeners that know about the topic already, and have an interest in breaking down your logic and actual argument instead of just writing you off without listening. However, if you're designing an advertisement to broadcast during a 3 minute break in the Superbowl, you can be pretty positive of the opposite sort of audience. The people watching your masterpiece are going to be excited about the game, probably slightly tipsy, and in no mood to think logically and deconstruct your advertising methods. In this case, their pre-existing thoughts on your company, as well as the subconscious suggestions you give them in the ad (hot women in bikinis, sports stars, people partying and smiling, etc.) are going to have much more of an effect, since the viewers aren't on the lookout to avoid such pitfalls.

I would argue, then, that as a listener we should accept Aristotle's argument, and do our best to separate our preexisting opinions of the speaker, as well as subconscious cues from their presentation, with the logic and validity of their actual argument. However, if we're the ones speaking, we much take all of this into account. We have to realize that we will never have an audience that is completely immune to such things. They may be more or less susceptible (such as a room full of scientists vs house full of beer drinking superbowl viewers), but in all cases there will be people listening to you that are swayed by things like prior opinion and subtle ploys to change their emotions.

Creating a "fitting" response

A general question when writing a paper or speech is: How will my audience respond to what I have to say? The normal answer is hopefully: The way in which I want them to.

When President Obama and his writing staff sat down the past few weeks to get ready for the State of the Union Address, I am sure they were all worried how the American public were going to respond. Some writers will just ignore their audience and hope that what they have to say is persuasive enough. However, this seldom works out. The biggest way to make an audience respond to you is to say what they want to hear. In Obama's case, he had to get the message across that what he did this first year worked. After watching the State of the Union tonight, it seems his way of showing that he has done a good job is to point out small successes, blame President Bush for things that are going badly, and humor.

I feel that these always seem to be a good way to write persuasively. The person delivering the speech or writing the paper wants to over emphasize any success that has occurred. In Obama's speech, he seemed to use correlation and causation as the same thing. He also celebrated the fact that the recession is ending and that Wall Street is doing better thanks to the bailout, but only quietly mentioned the $1 trillion that was added to our national debt.

To blame someone else is a great technique. If the other person is wrong, and the only other option is you, then you must be right. This also happens if someone screws up before you, you can blame them for your shortfalls. This was part of the theme in Obama's speech. Which yes, President Bush does have blame for part of our current deficit and economic situation. So, on one hand the Obama is right to mention President Bush's shortfalls. However, when being persuasive, one must use some hyperbole. To blame someone more than needed can get those who are unsure to sway to your side, and get those who agree with you to get even more excited about the issue.

The last way in which I will talk about rhetoric situations is using humor. No one has ever gone wrong with making a joke. Ok, that may not be true, but lets run with it. Humor is a good way to keep people involved in the event. If you feel people slipping away or disagreeing with you, make a small joke that does not harm anyone. This will cause almost everyone to laugh (hopefully) and be in agreement with the speaker. It breaks tension, and it allows people to forget about the bigger picture for a second. Obama did this a few times in his speech tonight. He joked that Michelle Obama "embarrasses easily" and that he was hoping to "get some applause from the Republicans" when talking about tax cuts. These are harmless quips that show the speaker or writer is still human and not superior. It is a pretty good strategy in my eyes.

Overall, there are many different ways to approach rhetorical situations, and the three I have mentioned seem to work out very well.

The Information Reputation

People, the national ethos, rely on reputation as a measure of authority.

If someone has a reputation for honesty, you trust them to tell the truth. If someone has a reputation for greed, you suspect them of trying to swindle you. If you are the President, your reputation carries a lot of authority and the actions you take/speeches you give greatly impact the lives of the national audience.

This power, like all power, can be ultimately beneficial or harmful. As a President or a celebrity, what you say and do makes the magazines: people read about you, judge you and your message, and behave according to their conclusions about your rhetoric.

If this means Oprah raises a million dollars for breast cancer because people trust her three-decade-long campaign for human betterment, maybe reputation is a good thing. After all, authority encourages us to behave well, be civilized, model ourselves after people we have high opinions of, etc. However, reputations are slandered every day, both for real and false reasons. Scandals, secrets, bad photos, and rumors—these are not just the crafts of grocery store magazines. These things happen to nearly every man and woman in the spotlight.

In this way reputation is double-edged; a good man with a great idea may be written off as a scoundrel and a bad man with egocentric goals may be seducing the masses. Reputation should be considered along with his rhetoric because an ungenerous tax cheat is not a good authority to listen to about something like balancing a state budget or fighting for funding.

But take it with a grain of salt.

Manipulation, which is very related to publicity (and therefore to reputation as well), is also an aspect of rhetoric that can serve to persuade. Pathos is easily interpreted as manipulation—showing commercials of the children with flies on their faces both shows us someone else’s true reality and manipulates our worldview with the goal of loosening our purse strings. But audience is also manipulated by public opinion. Is that a good thing? In the case of the Africa commercials it saves lives (whether it is ethical or not is temporarily irrelevant). The point is that reputation is also a form of manipulating the ethos of the audience, which means that reputation can also lead to good or bad ultimate ends. Manipulating an audience’s frame of mind is observed on almost every liveTV show (women crying on the Tyra Banks show, laughing on Ellen, raising their hands and giving money on the late-night Christian revival channels). The important judgment call the audience must make is whether the orator is someone who’s opinion is worthy of listening to/”taking to heart.”

The rhetoric is as important as the rhetorical situation and the credibility of the speaker. As a society, the majority of us measure the credibility of speakers by their reputations (are they leftwing or rightwing? do they give to charity? do they tell the truth on their shows? are they informed? is their show/text/speech believable? does it matter to me? do I admire that? and so on…). And many times it is accurate—we know that Jerry Springer’s opinion is not something we put stock in, and we know that Courtney Love’s views are about as helpful as Lindsay Lohan’s.

Why? Because we see these people at their moral worst. They are in rehab, they are in it for the money, their million dollar donations do not dent their multimillion-dollar bank accounts or even pass through their own hands. Other people handle these celebrities, these celebrities’ accounts, and these celebrities’ reputations. Publicity, which is very related to reputation, can expose or distort a truth.

We need to be informed of people’s lives and lifestyles in order to decided if their example is one that we respect and support. If they succeed in winning our approval, they become a legitimate authority. Even in class, we saw John Stuart use satire and comedy to sucessfully gain public sympathy and put an end to “Crossfire.” As he challenged the real newspeople in an intelligent, pragmatic way he earned/strengthened his reputation as a man who gives his honest opinion and a man who represents the national voting mass.

Information is power, right? It has the power to build or destroy, inspire or dishearten, improve lives or damage lives. Reputation is simply information about a person’s character and status, which is powerful. The bigger the reputation (the more well-known someone is), the more power they accumulate. For good or bad, this information gives the reader a lens through which to judge these celebrities’ rhetoric.

It is up to the audience to be wary of motive and thoughtful of the future, and for this the audience should judge a speaker’s reputation. Unfortunately the message itself is inadequate proof of a good, logical message or a poor, weak message. Who says it is nearly as important as what is being said. We may be sometimes blinded in judging a celebrity, but we would be even more blind to judge the message without knowing the context, source, or end of any rhetoric.