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Summary Political Rhetoric
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Samenvatting Political RhetoricPracticalities
Lectures will be recorded
Written exam
● Analysis of a speech (classical rhetoric)
● Knowledge question(s)
● Insight question(s)
● Applied question(s)
Lecture 1: Introduction to political rhetoric
The importance of political rhetoric
No politics without persuasion
● Ex. Send an email to our local mayor to change something in our street
● Reason: uncertainty → this makes persuasion so important
Persuasion by speech vs. persuasion by force
● Voluntary decision to be convinced by the other person / identification by the person
who persuades you
● Violence → ex. fight in my war and if you don’t obey, I put you in prison
Persuasion is a symbolic process in which communicators try to convince other people to
change their own attitudes or behaviors regarding an issue through the transmission of a
message in an atmosphere of free choice.
Democracy is distinguished as a form of governance by the extent of persuasion relative to
coercion.
The fundamental political skill?
What is rhetoric?
Greek: ‘retoriketekhne’
● Rhetor = speaker
● Tekhne = art
Studying rhetoric = learning the practical skills of persuasion
● Learning the techniques (ex. which kind of arguments are the most promising)
Studying rhetoric = studying the persuasiveness of speech
Not limited to spoken word (oratory)
● Written word
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, ● Visuals that you include in the background when you are speaking
Political rhetoric
Many areas in which the persuasiveness of messages is studied
● Ex. marketing, law (criminal court), organization studies, cultural studies, …
Persuasion in the political realm
● Not limited to politicians
● Many people can organize a demonstration, find a audience and try to convince
others
● Ex. Steven de Gucht (Covid times)
● Ex. Emma Watson (gender equality)
Warm-up exercise
“Most famous persuasive speech in history.” | Martin Luther King - I have a dream
● Activist leader of civil rights movement
● August 1963
● March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
● 100 years after Emancipation Proclamation (Lincoln)
● Do you find it persuasive?
● Elements which you think makes the speech persuasive?
○ Credibility as a person
■ Who he is
■ Displaying eloquence, expertise, reason
○ Arousal of emotion (metaphors)
■ Ex. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until
justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
○ Convincing arguments
○ Use of rhetorical devices
■ Ex. repetitions, allusions, rhyme
○ How he speaks
A diverse research field?
Different backgrounds, different questions
● Linguistics (ex. rhetorical figures)
● Psychology (ex. emotions vs. the cognitive)
● Political science (ex. questions of power → who can speak and who is not seen as a
political figure)
● Communication science (ex. mass media)
Each with their own terminology & research methods
Difficulty: they don’t always talk to each other
This course: eclectic approach
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,Reminder of today
Reading: Handbook by James Martin (Chapter 1 & 2)
1) Is rhetoric a bad / dangerous thing?
● Roots of the debate: classical thinkers / political theorists
● Explanation by Martin: political vs the political
2) Situating rhetoric
Rhetoric, a contested notion
Words often associated with rhetoric: “mere”, “empty” → rhetoric is contrasted with reality
Association with danger
● Ex. Divisive political rhetoric a danger to the world, Amnesty says about Donald
Trump
● Rhetoric can contain false information
● Can people be persuaded of anything? → violence, misinformation
● At the same time: no democracy without free speech? → everyone is allowed to
express their opinion
Rhetoric was central to ancient democracy
History:
● Greece, 500 BC
● From aristocracy to democracy
○ Demos = people
○ Ekklesia = assembly
● Highly participatory system
○ Status of being citizen comes with obligations
● Rhetorical skills were important → ex. when you were accused of something, you
had to defend yourself in court
● Teachers: sophists → instructed people into the techniques of persuasiveness
○ Sophos = wisdom
○ Ex. Gorgias, Protagoras
● Culture of oral transmission
First classical thinker - Plato
Rhetoric is empty and dangerous
● It can persuade most people of anything; a ‘rudderless boat’; “sophostries” (trics to
convince people of things that are actually not true)
● Can do bad instead of good (death of his mentor Socrates)
Belief in one moral “truth”
● Allegory of the cave
3
, ● Only a small elite can see it as what they really are (concepts in their pure form)
● There is one big truth, but only a few of us are given the capacity to see the truth. all
the other citizens don’t have it.
“The Republic”
● Society should be based on reason
● Strict division: philosopher-kings, guardians and traders
Ideas were later criticized (ex. Popper)
● Defense of very totalitarian system
● You defend only a few people should have all the power, because they are better
than the rest
More sympathetic reading: argument for alternative type of rhetoric (dialectic: if you have a
conversation where you want to persuade people, than you have to come to the best
solution)
● Technocracy today (rhetoric would be empty and dangerous)
Aristotle
Student of Plato
More positive reading of rhetoric
● Man is a ‘political animal’
● ‘Good life’ is living in accordance with community (vs. Plato: natural state)
Rhetoric complements philosophical reasoning
● How should the best case be put, given the argument, evidence, audience?
● Best case is not always clear → sometimes there is uncertainty
“The art of rhetoric”
● He builds a systematic classification of techniques that are used in rhetoric
● Which kind of arguments that you can make, etc.
Disclaimer: exclusive notion of ‘citizen’
● Importance of ‘enthymeme’
○ Technique where when you make an argument it is not fully based on logical
premises but you somehow assume that your audience already shares some
knowledge with you.
● Degree of permitted disagreement is limited
Cicero
Great orator of the Roman world
Treatises on rhetoric (ex. “De Oratore”)
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