Talk Like an (Ancient) Egyptian

 So, the concepts of Egyptian rhetoric really stuck out to me this week. Particularly, the canon of truthfulness was striking, especially in conjunction with the ideas of post-truth that we thought through last week.

Egyptian rhetoric values truthfulness greatly, and Fox writes that it is definitely the most important of the five canons. It is considered the ultimate because fact alone should be enough to persuade audiences. Telling the truth gives you the greatest ethos. Post-truth, though, doesn't value reliable information, and we seem to live in a nation that operates largely under the post-truth umbrella. 

To make the ancient Egyptian rhetoricians proud, I want to illustrate these points with examples, since that's a major way that they showed how rhetoric functions.

We saw this in the Rudy Giuliani video from last week, and we see it on a daily basis from our country's so-called "leader." In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, we see how facts are twisted and manipulated, not given full understanding. People suddenly seem to think that the 94% of people with underlying conditions that died from COVID-19 didn't actually die from the virus. Check out Hank Green's TikTok about it (excuse the language): https://www.tiktok.com/@hankgreen1/video/6867210198168243461?_d=secCgsIARCbDRgBIAIoARI%2BCjy4PmnU61iMvmUlpb2G8J0xhWh%2BDZBJ%2BV4ESPU0flXtyC8MKM9NAR8FjNohsBDQdLXAn1%2FqmfYYeD%2FcQnsaAA%3D%3D&language=en&preview_pb=0&share_item_id=6867210198168243461&timestamp=1598930988&tt_from=copy&u_code=dab69jh25gm937&user_id=6782366172396323845&utm_campaign=client_share&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=copy&source=h5_m

Another important aspect of ancient Egyptian rhetoric is how they do not differentiate between public speaking and personal conversation. This seems like a practice that would be useful to adopt in the United States. Elected officials need to be held to a higher standard. Our politicians shouldn't be able to brush off talk of assaulting women with some half-baked excuse about "locker room talk." They can though, and they do.

While ancient Egyptian rhetoric is severely lacking, we are seeing plenty of ancient Aztec and Greek traditions. Aztec rhetoric values authoritative speaking highly. The President has built his following off of this: he is brash, rude, politically incorrect, and unafraid to say racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, misogynistic things. He says them with such a total disregard for other people, and he comes across so aggressively that some people respect him for it. They see the authoritarian attitude and they hear the "law and order" preaching, and they go with it. The ancient Aztec rhetoric is effective for them.

For others, the Greek rhetorical aspects are the most effective. Herrick writes that "Greek orators were characteristically quarrelsome and emotional, inclined to bitter personal attacks..." We can see this again and again through Donald Trump's attacks on people via Twitter, in press briefings, and in interviews. He is particularly fond of giving people nicknames to try and belittle them or tarnish their reputation (like Sleepy Joe, Crooked Hillary, Pocahontas... the list goes on). But Herrick continues, and so does Trump: "... [they were] highly resentful of such attacks on themselves, but tolerant of verbal fights by others."

Trump cries about "fake news" every time he gets called out on being wrong. He makes wild claims about the liberal media being totally against him. He refuses to accept that he is wrong. And in terms of tolerance, he seems to lean more towards the tolerance of white supremacists and domestic terrorists. It's not just verbal fights he supports--it's physical violence, too. It ties back to the firm "law and order" image he tries to project. We saw it when he ordered troops to Portland. We saw it when he didn't condemn Kyle Rittenhouse for shooting 3 people and killing 2 in Kenosha, WI. We saw it in his holding children in cages at the border. We saw it in his administration lifting the moratorium on the death penalty.

Realistically, too, we can see where feminist rhetorics ties into this, and why it's so important. The nation is being run in the old, male, Western tradition. And while that tradition has its time and place, now does not seem to be the time. Our country is crumbling. Division grows deeper every day. Now more than ever, we need a leader who behaves rhetorically in a feminist way. We need someone who is multiculturally competent. The old stuff isn't working anymore (and arguably, it was never working for large portions of the population), and it's time for something new.

“Miss, for a Dollar, Name a Woman!”

Since it is the beginning of the semester, I thought it might be nice to start my post off with some humor before digging into more serious stuff. So, the title of this blog post is based upon the iconic Billy on the Street moment in which Billy Eichner asks a random person to name a woman—any woman—for a dollar, and they hilariously struggle to respond. This moment, though not necessarily meant to have a bigger meaning, can nonetheless be used to symbolize the way women have been forgotten all throughout academia’s history, leading to the present day in which women still fight to be heard. This is of course true in the field of rhetoric, just as we read in Herrick’s book. As such, I made a low-quality meme just for our class. Enjoy:

 

   That being said, it is of course not just women as a broad category who have had their voices silenced—people of color (and, especially the intersection of these identities, women of color) have also not been given an equal spot light. Additionally, people with disabilities, working class people, people without access to higher education, and a hundred other types and combinations of identities have been hindered in participating in academic spaces because of the pervasive patriarchal, capitalist, and white-centered culture. So many opinions and theories are missing simply because only very few people have the privilege of contributing to the conversations which build up our widely-accepted theories of rhetoric.

   Thus, it is nice to begin this semester by highlighting some of the knowledge produced by such people. So far, we have briefly touched on feminist rhetoric and rhetoric from countries such as ancient Egypt. These views on rhetoric differ from the commonly accepted theory of western rhetoric by placing emphasis on qualities such as co-creation, respect, and a lack of aggressive persuasion. I think that modern rhetoric could benefit from considering such concepts.

   As I understand it, rhetoric, at least as is commonly used in the US, is heavily based in the act of persuasion. When asked what rhetoric is, the students in my intro to rhetoric course in 2018 responded, “the study of persuasion.” Similarly, when I took a communications class on persuasion in 2019, rhetoric was something we discussed frequently, assuming the two always went hand in hand. Not everyone agrees that rhetoric is or should be inherently persuasive, however; Sally Miller Gearhart wrote in 1979 that persuasion, and by extension everyday rhetoric, is an act of violence, as it forces the viewpoints of the speaker onto the listener. The alternative rhetoric which should be studied and practiced, then, is one which values and nurtures both parties in a co-creation process (Herrik 278-279).

   Ancient Egyptian rhetoric took a similar approach. This conceptualization of rhetoric was not focused solely on the merit of the ideas in the argument, but rather, the speaker’s character and the process by which they shared their thoughts. To them, ethos was “not an adjunct to proof, as it is in Aristotle, but is itself a form of proof” (Fox 16). So, without trustworthiness, a rhetor could not persuade another no matter how great their other forms of proof. This led people to pursue “good timing, restraint, fluency of expression and above all truthfulness” (16).

   Though these two views of rhetoric are from different places and times, they both bring valuable considerations to modern rhetoric. For example, from feminists such as Gearhart, speakers can learn better how to communicate in ways which are more welcoming and respectful. This could be beneficial for the masses because a greater culture of empathy (which Gearhart may call a culture of femininity—I personally don’t want to gender characteristics like empathy here, though) could form. In such a culture, the shouting matches we see on TV in the news could become calm discussions focused on finding a compromise rather than picking a side. This could completely change many people’s perceptions of politics and debate, and in doing so, change how every day people communicate with one another.

   From the ancient Egyptian thinkers, we can learn more about our own responsibilities as speakers; for example, how we might build up our characters first, and attempt to persuade others only once we are confident that we are wise enough to responsibly do so? If more people turned inward before speaking, perhaps there would be less fake news and other modern-day problems which cause conflict in our collective pursuit of identifying right and wrong. Thus, both of these forms of rhetoric could, at least in my opinion, can greatly improve how we operate as communicators today, both in the media and in personal conversations.

What other ways might modern rhetoric be improved by viewing opinions outside widely accepted theories? I did not really mention any of the other countries we read about, so does anyone have any thoughts of how they might apply those theories of rhetoric? 

References:

Herrick, James A. The History and Theory of Rhetoric: an Introduction. Routledge, 2018.

Fox, Michael V. Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric , Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring 1983), pp. 9-22