Quintillian, A Hero of Our Time, Wizards First Rule

The classical rhetorical concept, frequently ascribed to Quintillian, that morality plays an important role in good rhetoric is an optimistic and encouraging thought.  Unfortunately, the concept of the perfect rhetor as a “good man speaking well” is total B.S.  It would be lovely to think that all evil people with immoral agendas would totally bomb every time they stepped on stage, but there are too many examples to the contrary to believe this.  Look no further than Adolf Hitler.  One of the greatest orators of modern history is one of the evilest.  Consider the reputation of the modern law industry.  The upholders of justice are commonly seen as liars.  My father was a defense attorneys for many years and he effectively defended cases for people he knew were guilty. It’s why he abandoned to start his own business.  It’s nice to think that all things being the same the better man “will prove the better orator.”  I simply believe, despite Quintillian’s weak arguments dissolving Demosthenes and Cicero of guilt, that it’s not true.

Two books come to mind in considering this topic.  The first is a A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov. It is a counterargument to Quintillian’s premise that the minds of immoral people will be clouded by guilt when attempting good rhetoric.  Lermontov’s book is an exploration into the mind of Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin, the most recklessly unapologetic immoral character I’ve ever had the (dis)pleasure of experiencing.  For fun I’ll provide one example that is merely a warm-up for our “hero’s” later misdeeds.  My memory’s not perfect, but the gist is that Pechorin steals a prize horse, trades it to a man in exchange for his sister, keeps her captive for a full year essentially as a sex-slave, gets tired of her, casts her out into lands of a rival tribe who kill her, and then he kills her father to make sure he doesn't uncover anything.  At the end of it all he blames a cruel fate for granting him an unfulfilled life in which he cannot stay interested in a love for any long period of time. He plays manipulative schemes on others for amusement and then blames fate and walks away.  His lack of a conscious is astounding and enviable. He just really, really, really doesn't care about being terrible.  Pechorin is a criticism of the Russian aristocracy in the 1830s that did nothing good with their wealth, complained of the boredom and lack of fulfillment in their lives, and played petty games of courtly manipulation.  These people, slightly less terrible versions of Pechorin, are real.  They're out there.  And they don't care if they're being terrible, and their guilt plays no role in muddling the reasoning behind their oratory.

The second book, Wizards First Rule by Terry Goodkind, concentrates on a theme I now realize is very much a rhetorical theory. The wizard’s first rule is: people are more inclined to believe a falsehood than a truth if the lie is something they want to hear, or are very afraid to hear.  A little understanding of human psychology and bit of skill for manipulation can have people believing radical things.  Consider “the war on terror” that began after 9/11.  We were told there were weapons of mass destructions that were a real threat to us. We were told there would be a stunning victory to resoundingly avenge all the innocent deaths.  Of course, we found no WMDs and such clear cut victory has eluded us as we still fail in creating any real kind of lasting peace.  But at the time of 9/11 these were the things we wanted to hear and the things we were afraid to hear, and so in November 2001 according to Gallup polls, 89 percent of the population was in favor the war.