“…Two kinds of
language: on the one hand, language that faithfully reflects or reports on
matters of fact uncolored by any personal or partisan agenda or desire; and on
the other hand, language that is infected by partisan agendas and desires, and thereforecolors and distorts the facts which it
purports to reflect. It is use of the second kind of language that makes one a
rhetorician, while adherence to the first kind makes one a seeker after truth
and an objective observer of the way things are” (Fish 124).
Sometimes when I
read articles, certain words or phrases catch my eye and remain on my mind
throughout the duration of my reading. From the above quote, can anyone guess which
words or word phrase piqued my interest? Sadly for my academic ego, my
attention rested not on profound, meaning-laden words such as “rhetorician” or “truth,”
but on the simple phrase, “the way things are.” Even more humbling is the fact
that upon reading the phrase, my thoughts turned immediately to the 1995 film “Babe.”
{Hopefully
everyone has seen this movie, but in a nutshell, the entire plot centers around
a pig learning how to herd sheep like his master’s sheepdogs. The other farm
animals are skeptical at first because they have accepted the way things are (a phrase repeated often), and Babe the pig is
drastically challenging the standards of normalcy.}
I encountered
the "way things are" phrase early on in the reading, which resulted in my divided focus on the
topic at hand and childhood memories watching “Babe.” Hence, I’ve decided to
indulge in my odd fancy of drawing incongruous parallels between two subjects
by incorporating “Babe” into my discussion about rhetoric.
According to
Fish, some people view rhetoric as “the art of fine speaking…all show, grounded
in nothing but its own empty pretensions, unsupported by any relation to truth”
(123). Fish also quotes Socrates saying, “There is no need for rhetoric to know
the facts at all, for it has hit upon a means of persuasion that enables it to
appear in the eyes of the ignorant to know more than those who really know”
(123). I tried to read past the negative (and later, sometimes positive)
connotations of rhetoric in Fish’s article to arrive at my own working
definition of rhetoric: a means of persuasion—whether written, spoken, or
visual—based partly on the skill of the one employing it, and partly on the
opinion of the audience receiving it. Of course, the concept of rhetoric delves
much deeper and eventually leads to questions concerning ethics, truth, God,
and reality. Such a discussion is too overwhelming for a single blog post and
its author. Rather, I’d like to focus on the two pillars, so to speak, of rhetoric:
presenter and audience.
The Socratic
view evaluates rhetoric in terms of style and appearance. We’ve all met people who
use clever or sophisticated language to appear intelligent, whether on a test,
in an interview, or in company of elitist erudita. Why do people do this (and
why would I pop off an uncommon vocabulary word)? Answer: we trust intelligence. If an orator
were to convince us of his superior IQ, we would give more credence to his
words, and therefore become easy subjects for persuasion. The presenter of
rhetoric must find a way to earn the audience’s trust, and one technique is
condescending snobbery. For example, in the movie “Babe,” Duchess the house cat
nurses a grudge against Babe, so she tries to dishearten Babe by persuading him
of his vulgar existence. Duchess is a cruel, soft-spoken know-it-all who
skillfully wields rhetoric toward her own malicious purposes. Babe is at once
taken in by the cat’s lofty speech and deceptively sweet demeanor.
The success of
rhetoric may be due in large part to the skill of the rhetorician, and yet that
rhetoric’s effectiveness also heavily depends upon audience perspective, as I’ve
mentioned earlier. This statement may sound redundant, but consider a situation
where the presenter may have very little eloquence or skill. For example, one
scene in “Babe” depicts Fly the sheepdog persuading Babe to use more aggression
when herding the sheep. At first, Babe protests because the sheep are his
friends. Fly replies to the effect that sheep are “stupid” and “inferior.” The
dog is blatantly straightforward with her prejudice, and yet Babe eventually
complies anyway. In this case, the effectiveness of Fly’s rhetoric (for that is
what it is—language “infected by partisan agendas and desires”) was due not to
high-brow speech but to Babe’s perception of Fly’s authority and knowledge.
At the end of
the day, my line of thinking left me pondering a metaphoric chicken-or-egg
question: Who really makes rhetoric so effective—the presenter or the audience?
I suppose one’s opinions on this might be directly related to the topic of who
should take more responsibility for perception (the perceived or the perceiver).
Sadie, I'm impressed with your ability to link these seemingly disparate ideas in this unique way. The references to Babe are of particular interest to me. Presenting the cat, Duchess, as a rhetorician juxtaposed with Fish and his introduction expounding about Belial funneled down to the cat, Behemoth, from the Master and the Margarita in which he played a subversive role heavily laden with rhetoric. This calls to mind the strange way in which cat's are vilified in our culture, but this is no place for that. I'll try to stay on point. You mention the orator's use of sophisticated language to establish credibility, but I understand that kind of language to have the same capacity for detriment as it has for success. In fact, I think the use of highfalutin language might be patently misplaced. If an audience were so naïve as to concede to a rhetorician's will based primarily on his sophisticated language, the audience would likely concede regardless of the language. Whether they failed to understand the language or not is irrelevant. The absence of critical thought would propel them into agreement.I guess that--the ability to persuade while hiding the appearance of persuasion--is precisely what makes the rhetor so insidious. I'm straying from your main point which is to say that intelligence establishes credibility, but it sent me on an analytical tangent. Another key issue brought on by overly-sophisticated language is it creates a divide between the audience and rhetor. There may be critical thinkers who simply lack a large vocabulary who won't receive the message. Then again, that might be exactly what the rhetor wants, elimination of critical thinkers. Hmmm The last thing I want to point out is that the two babe examples bear striking resemblances to fallacies. The first I would call an ad hominem (attack on character) and the latter an argument by authority. It's fascinating that we can deconstruct practically any work regardless of the degree to which it is "academic."
Sadie,
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed with your ability to link these seemingly disparate ideas in this unique way. The references to Babe are of particular interest to me. Presenting the cat, Duchess, as a rhetorician juxtaposed with Fish and his introduction expounding about Belial funneled down to the cat, Behemoth, from the Master and the Margarita in which he played a subversive role heavily laden with rhetoric. This calls to mind the strange way in which cat's are vilified in our culture, but this is no place for that. I'll try to stay on point.
You mention the orator's use of sophisticated language to establish credibility, but I understand that kind of language to have the same capacity for detriment as it has for success. In fact, I think the use of highfalutin language might be patently misplaced. If an audience were so naïve as to concede to a rhetorician's will based primarily on his sophisticated language, the audience would likely concede regardless of the language. Whether they failed to understand the language or not is irrelevant. The absence of critical thought would propel them into agreement.I guess that--the ability to persuade while hiding the appearance of persuasion--is precisely what makes the rhetor so insidious. I'm straying from your main point which is to say that intelligence establishes credibility, but it sent me on an analytical tangent.
Another key issue brought on by overly-sophisticated language is it creates a divide between the audience and rhetor. There may be critical thinkers who simply lack a large vocabulary who won't receive the message. Then again, that might be exactly what the rhetor wants, elimination of critical thinkers. Hmmm
The last thing I want to point out is that the two babe examples bear striking resemblances to fallacies. The first I would call an ad hominem (attack on character) and the latter an argument by authority. It's fascinating that we can deconstruct practically any work regardless of the degree to which it is "academic."