Whether or not
you are a country music fan, if you’ve been in Montana long enough, you may
have come across the song, “Watching You” by Rodney Atkins, which is dedicated
to that phenomenon of a child’s tendency to copy whomever he looks up to. Even
though I don’t normally listen to country, I immediately thought of this song
after reading these words: “we show the student whom to copy, and to copy in
such a way as to strive with all possible care to attain the most excellent
qualities of his model” (320). Antonius (who I think is speaking) adds that in
the process of copying someone else, people will also easily pick up that other
person’s faults (such as the boy in the video picking up his father’s swear
words). I agree with him, and I don’t think this caution should be taken too
lightly, even though it does seem common-sense.
Look at the
activities or skills in which people commonly what to excel: sports, business,
art, music, etc. Those who “make it to the top” in those areas do so by
imitating the masters. Basketball players watch hours of footage from professional
games; businessmen study the history and organization of successful corporations;
artists learn the brush techniques of famous painters; musicians memorize the
solos of expert performers. Even in our class, we sought to imitate different
Aristotelian examples and the style of Gorgias’ “Encomium of Helen.” Yet
throughout our copy-cat endeavors in rhetoric, we are bound to pick up
practices that are probably less than ideal. However, I don’t know exactly what
those might be yet, or even perhaps what to watch out for. What do you think
are the aspects of rhetorical technique or theory that we might want to guard
against?
Sadie, I always enjoy your posts because you seem to be able to take classical rhetoric- something I naturally lean away from- and put it in such simple terms. As a reader, I really appreciate the clarity you provide.
ReplyDeleteI think with the Cicero reading, the exemplary aspect is contingent on Cicero's own self-inflation (see 'Cicero the Snarky Scholar' post). We discussed it briefly in class, but throughout his text we see lots of moments where he seems to think that he is the best of the best, and the characters in his dialogue don't hesitate to reinforce that mindset. If this is the case, then isn't he hipocritical for not learning by example and idolizing someone else's theories instead of his own? Just something to think about.
In regards to your final question, I too am not exactly sure how to answer it. I think maybe it's not an element of classical rhetoric that we should 'guard against' but rather, one that may just have lost it's meaning in the exchange of time?