Although Cicero presents a wide range of rhetorical
topics that could be easily discussed, one in particular stood out to me: “Now nothing
in oratory … is more important than to win for the orator the favor of his
hearer, and to have the latter so affected as to be swayed by something resembling a mental impulse of emotion,
rather than by judgment or deliberation” (p.328, Column 1). The more I am
around other people, the more I realize that they are emotional wrecks,
meaning: they use their emotional judgment with regards to everything.
Logic seems to rarely enter the minds of readers when their emotions are
involved in decision-making. This does not necessarily mean that they will make
bad decisions, but I do believe they can be easily persuaded. According to the
internet (which is always reliable),
Plato stated “All learning has an emotional base” (Plato). If so, which I believe
it is, the audience’s emotions may be one of, if not the most important aspect of oratory.
I realize that ethos and logos are very important and can
have powerful effects of persuasion upon an audience, but I do not believe they
are always the most effective. For example: in science writing, there are many
articles written by scientists
themselves and others written by science writers.
The articles written by scientists
usually contain a specific jargon, rarely understood by the public majority;
the ones written by science writers usually
dumb-down their work and add a special flare of emotional tidbits to excite
their readers. The first usually effects other scientists greatly, due to the
use of logos and ethos; the second, full of pathos, has the ability to effect
nearly all readers.
To further illustrate this topic, Ed Yong, a writer for
discover magazine, adds:
Whenever I compile my list of
weekly links, I usually end up with more articles from mainstream news sources
than I do from science blogs. When I do link to blogs, I tend to go with those
written by professional journalists and science writers than those written by
scientists. That’s not a reflection on the quality of their writing. I do it
simply because I write this blog for a general audience and I want to direct them
to material of a similar type. And a lot of science blogs can be far too opaque
for the average reader (Ed Yong).
This example does not go into complete detail about pathos,
logos, and ethos—but it does portray the effect jargon has on an audience. In
fact, jargon might be the main factor that keeps pathos from affecting the
audience.
When reading your post, Mitch, I kept thinking back to the philosopher who emphasized logos as the highest good (Aristotle, within 'Rhetoric', Kate informed me last class). I went back and looked; he talked extensively about the importance of ethos and pathos, but thought in an ideal world logos would be or should be enough to sway an audience to a particular point. Ethos and pathos are 'extraneous', 'human', or 'flawed', in other words, akin to the dark horse of Plato's chariot.
ReplyDeleteAristotle would likely see the scientists no one is paying attention to in your post as resembling philosophers aiming for the highest good, reaching to persuade through the logic of the facts alone. The laypersons less affected by 'facts' or the jargon you talk about might be considered 'lesser' or 'more base' in Aristotle's eyes.
Yet it also raises the question: if the logic is "too opaque" for someone to grasp, does it count as logic? Can simplified or 'written-down' facts be unbiased and remain specific enough to still count as factual logic that might hold up to Aristotle's elitist view? Or is even the scientific jargon a form of 'dumbing down' or subjectifying the true logic of an issue?