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×tamp=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.
Without getting into too much political ideologies, I enjoyed reading about your comparisons to Ancient rhetoric and rhetoric today. I feel like it is sometimes hard to focus on and understand how things were done back then because we are so focused on how we live today, so to pull comparisons from the two different eras is a tough thing to do because, culturally, society was so different compared to then and now. We do live in a society of dishonesty, which disobeys the most important canon of truthfulness, so I believe it is important to focus on how rhetoric can be used to better the society that we live in today. Although we may never use rhetoric in the exact way that Ancient Egypt and other civilizations used it for, I think rhetoric can be used to progress our society forward.
ReplyDeleteGood post! It's interesting to compare the United States’ current rhetorical climate to that of ancient Egypt, especially in terms of “honesty.” The idea that truthfulness was taken so seriously seems almost foreign now; no politician’s tongue is connected to their heart, as the Egyptian rhetors would criticize. I think that the other cannons are also heavily disregarded by American politicians right now, specifically “silence” and “restraint.” Social media has done quite a number on these two things, giving the president a platform to easily speak to the masses at any time he pleases (and he does—a lot). Trump just can’t seem to restrain himself on his twitter account, one of the best examples I can think of is when he (a 70-something-year-old man) publicly made fun of Greta Thunberg—a teenager—in front of his more than 80 million followers. I would say it’d be fun to see an ancient Egyptian rhetor go up against the president in a debate, but I don’t think the rhetor would even have to speak to make him look like a fool.
ReplyDeleteI see what you did in the title https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/200/399/7cb.jpg
ReplyDeleteAs I read through you post I began to consider exactly how much Ancient Egyptian rhetoric was based on truth. So I'm thinking "why don't we [dominant US culture] seem to care about the truth?" And it seems to me that the entire Egyptian system of rhetoric was based on the idea that their magistrates knew the truth. The way you conduct yourself is all to make sure that the people who judge you don't have any reason to be confused. Probably the closest thing we have to that is the Supreme court, but if they were absolute we would never have to worry about good rulings being overturned or have to work to overturn bad ones. Without that absolute, people are forced to decide for themselves; and that's a process that too many people simply outsource to randos. I don't really know where I was going with that thought, but there it is.
Anyway, neat post. I'm not certain why you included the line "[. . .] ancient Egyptian rhetoric is severely lacking[. . .]" when only paragraphs ago you claimed a desire to make the practitioners of that rhetoric proud, but what do I know. . . further inspection suggests that you may mean ~"Egyptian style rhetoric isn't really practiced today"~ but I am left without certainty one way or the other.
great post! the concept that rhetoric can have different prioritizes because of the culture is super interesting, as an anthropology major i wanna know more about this and why! why the US doesn't seem to care as much about the truth than what the predominant rhetoric can do for the majority is fascinating and horrible; my nana who was a teacher told me once that some people write about the truth because it is important, and some people write about what the "truth" can do for them
ReplyDelete