Rhetoric - 2

We started out by looking at a number of linguistic rhetorical techniques that cannot in and of themselves be considered good or bad (or, more specifically, informative vs. manipulative), especially since they are nothing more than the cost of entrance to any political discussion, argument or debate. 

Whether you are entering the political process to change the world or line your pockets, if you cannot frame your points in an interesting and engaging way, you will never get the attention of friend or foe.  So just as the ability to write well is the first step to becoming a famed novelist (or even an unknown but good one), writing and speaking in a way that engages an audience is not a moral choice but a necessity.

But there are other rhetorical techniques that require their users to make ethical decisions, sometimes difficult ones, because of the persuasive power of these techniques (regardless of the quality or sincerity of the content they are used to present).  To illustrate what I’m talking about, I’m going to focus on a set of rhetorical devices that deal with how one acknowledges opponents and their arguments. 

One rather infrequently used technique, called dirimens copulatio, simply involves mentioning opposing facts in your own arguments, not to counter them but to demonstrate the speaker’s awareness that two sides of an issue exist.  An example of this might include “In international politics, there are rarely right and wrong answers or black and white situations.  Which is why there are many legitimate criticisms of the choices my administration has had to make.”

A far more frequently used technique is procatalepsis, which also acknowledges an opponent’s position but does so in order to anticipate and counter it in advance.  Statement such as “My opponent claims that I have been too eager to engage in war when peaceful alternatives were available.  To which I would respond, what alternatives are open to us when the nation is attacked?” or “Critics will call my spending plans wasteful and irresponsible.  But who is acting irresponsibly, someone trying to move the economy forward or someone saying “No” to every proposal to put people back to work?” are both examples of procatalepsis. 

The power of this rhetorical tool is that it allows you to define your opponent’s arguments in your own terms and to provide a rebuttal that your opponent must react to when he or she would have preferred an attack that put you on the defensive.  And even if that opponent manages to successfully reframe the point and respond successfully, he or she has lost the benefit of surprise and novelty inherent in being first to present a line of criticism. 

I haven’t found a name for a third (and extremely popular) technique of using the support of members of your opponent’s group (political, national or ethnic) to bolster your own cause.  I first encountered this in the 1980s in the form of a bumper sticker that read “Another Democrat for Reagan,” and since that time cross-overs from the opposing party taking center stage has become a standard feature at party conventions.

This technique sends out several powerful messages:

* That one’s opponent and his or her ideas are so far outside the mainstream that even his own party/group does not support them

* That you, while officially representing your own group or party, actually represent everyone (or mostly everyone)

* That your broad acceptability (and your opponent’s lack thereof) is so obvious that even people who should be your opponents are attracted to your banner

You can probably see right away how any of these techniques can be easily abused.  For example, if you are presenting an opponent’s position (either to acknowledge or anticipate and counter it), it’s all too easy to present a distorted, inaccurate or even parody of your opponent’s real positions (both to make their criticisms look ridiculous and give you an easier  - and self-serving - set of criticism to reply to).

And if you are making the case that people who would normally support your opponent really support you, this can’t be done (honestly, anyway) by inflating the importance or small numbers or trying to present an unrepresentative fringe as mainstream.  The example of such abuse that I’m most familiar with (and keep in mind my bias on this issue) is the critical role Jewish voices play in anti-Israel politics, all in an attempt to create the impression that hostility to the Jewish state (no matter how egregious and irrational) cannot be labeled as an example of hate directed towards a minority group since members of that minority participate and even lead such attacks. 

But if using these techniques dishonestly in a cinch, using them honestly presents serious challenges since an effective counter-strategy against procatalepsis (for example) is to declare that any interpretation an opponent puts on your positions is illegitimate (even if the user of this technique is characterizing an opponent’s arguments completely accurately while anticipating and preemptively rebutting them).  And, all too often, including opposition points of view in an argument represents nothing more than an attempt to appear to be even handed to a wider audience while simultaneously doing everything in one’s power to avoid actual legitimate debate.

This is a particularly important dilemma in our saturated media age when members of this wider audience may only hear or see snippets of a particular debate edited to fit the needs of a newscast or (more sinisterly) the TV commercials created by one of the campaigns.  And in a world of partisan blogs and web sites dedicated to spinning every word spoken by every candidate, how can a Presidential campaign ever involve genuine debate vs. the generation of quotes and catch phrases for the media maw?

There is no simple answer to these questions, but it is worth pointing out that political debate has always taken place with a wider audience in mind.  When Roman leaders verbally duked it out in the Senate a couple of millennia back, they understood that they were not just trying to win out over their immediate political debate partner, but to convince the Senators in the audience (and the public at large) regarding the rightness of their positions.

Today, mass media, editing software and spin machines complicate the relationship between debaters and audiences, but we can still hope that enough leaders (and follower) grasp the notion that the most powerful resource one can bring to debate is that unique form of integrity called ethos.  And while political power can be won through trickery and abuse of rhetoric, ethos can never be earned in such a manner.

Primaries

“Gaffes” and “Brainfarts” seem to have become the watchwords of recent weeks in this primary season as Republican hopefuls like Herman Cain fumbled questions on current foreign policy issues and Rick Perry “locked up” during nationally televised debate.

Within the context of the ongoing primary, critical thinking tools can be trained on any of the individual candidates, subjecting various tax plans (for example) to a review to see if premises lead to conclusions, unpacking the rhetoric of individual candidate’s opening and closing debate speeches (or, perhaps, applying the Principle of Charity to even those candidates who embarrass themselves on national television).

Alternatively, one could look beyond the rhetoric, clashes and slip-ups that have gone on over the last several months and realize that the Primary itself has an ultimate essence: to winnow a large group of candidates down to just one. In which case (and regardless of the details) the institution of the Primary is (so far, anyway) adhering perfectly to its nature.

Given non-stop coverage of the campaign, it’s particularly tempting to focus attention on the sources of our premises: the media which today consists of partisan and non-partisan newspapers, radio stations, television and cable news networks, some of whom make attempts at objectivity while others proudly proclaim their biases (or hide them behind claims of balance and fairness). With the advent of the Internet, pocket video cameras and stalkers hoping to create media events by capturing a candidate in a blunder (such as a “makaka moment,”) the media becoming the message will certainly occupy an important place in this discussion over the coming year.

But for now, I’d like to focus on one player in the Primary equation that may not be getting the media exposure of the candidates: ourselves.

After all, it is we who react to this or that Primary gaffe or misstatement, often through the partisan lens of forgiveness if we lean Republican or ridicule if we lean Democrat. But stop and consider for a moment how any of us might react if one of the candidates (in either party) took a long pause after being asked a question about a particularly complex matter, looked up and said “You know, that’s a very good question about a very difficult and fast-changing subject. And I would be doing everyone a disservice if I spoke about it without having learned enough to speak intelligently. Let me spend some time reading up on the matter and consulting with those who know more than I do, after which I’ll give it some careful thought and present you an answer worthy of that name (with appropriate qualification of what I and any of us still might not know).”

Such a response (which is what we hope to hear from someone who may not have all the answers on any conceivable subject, which is all of us) would immediately end a Presidential candidate’s career, branding him with such death-dealing epitaphs of wishy-washy, egg-heady or the dreaded indecisive.

But the alternative to such a public demonstration of critical thinking is not becoming omniscient and immediately decisive on all matters (including issues with unfolding unknowns). Rather, it is to give the appearance of knowing enough to have a say on any issue of the day, an appearance often gained not by careful thought and study, but mastery of certain rhetorical techniques, frequently achieved through professional training on skills such as how to perform on television, how to interact with (and play to) audiences during debates and interviews, and so on.

And remember that the audience these speakers are playing to is us, a public that would react with hostility to someone admitting that they may not know something (or may not know enough to make an immediate decision), preferring the appearance of knowledge and wisdom that we simultaneously know most likely lacks substance. And to highlight one last irony, we actually want our leaders to be careful and thoughtful after they are elected; to surround themselves with experts and perform considered analysis before making hard decisions. It is only before they are elected that we demand immediate answers and demonstrations of on-the-spot decision-making (often on murky or even trivial matters).

So the next time we feel the urge to react smugly to a gaffe by a politician we oppose, or excuse an onscreen error by someone we support, it might be worth considering what role we play in a system that rewards those who can convince us that they are someone they are not, able to deliver something we may not necessarily even want once the election is over.