Social Rhetoric: Humanity’s Dream, Humanity’s Nightmare, Humanity’s Reality

Please allow me to introduce myself; I’m a woman of tropes and schemes. I’ve been around for a long, long years; moved million man’s soul an faith. And I was round when Cicero had his moments of art and death. Made damn sure Quintilian preached the value of sophrosyne. Pleased to meet you. Have you guessed my name? But what’s puzzling you, is the nature of my game. From the forums to the assemblies, from the courts to the pulpits, and from the newspapers to the Reddits, by art of logic and emotion I wield the sword by which I move man’s souls. I was loved by Homer, and exhorted in the Hesiod. From Corax to Thunburg, I am invention and style. I am the great persuader. I am rhetoric. My journey has been long. My names, many. My kinds are those of logic, ethics, and emotion. I am the great persuader. I withstood the changes of time and space, riding on the back of humanity’s technology. My advances and retreats parallel the evolution of language and medium. As I change, I am not diminished. I transcend previous mediums and once again, advance into the unknown. I am humanity’s dream. I am humanity’s nightmare. I am humanity’s realty. I will persevere. I will thrive. I am social rhetoric. 

I am “the art of leading souls,” (Plato, 2002, 262b), and I’ve been around for a long, long time. I am ageless. I have not changed much over millennium. I have evolved with humanity, brought along with the tides that swept the masses along with their innovations and their schemes. Whether as a tool or a sword, my appeals hold the same power to influence and my form stays true. My styles have resonated over the ages. Now, I still offer discord and devise, or strategy and syllogism. Historically, my power and privilege was overwhelmingly limited to the realm of the elites: the educated, the wealthy, the powerful, and the people who controlled technology. For the first time in human history, the ability to communicate with the masses parallels or surpasses the ability of the elites and has effectively brought me back out into the streets. “If the mass media—newspapers, radio, and television—may be said to have moved people ‘inside,’ the social media, so called, serve to mobilize, and may bring them ‘outside,’ again” (Katz, 2014, p. 454). Technology has continually advanced our means of communication; most recently from movable type to mass production of print media, radio, television, and the internet. As Marshall McLuhan said, “The Medium is the Message” (McLuhan, 2013), and through time and space, my appeals hold power. Anyone with the means may wield my power with skill, or with ineptitude, even within the limits of a 280-character Tweet. 

I’ve been used, my elocutionary sword one of tolerance and vengeance, supremacy and violence, disinformation, and infodemics. I am the great persuader. I’ve been used, my tools the means for justice and awareness, peace and ideology, social justice and political gain. I am the great persuader. But what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game. Right and wrong, justice and injustice, sorrow and joy, are my kinds. I am the great persuader. That is the nature of my game. In the last century, notable orators such as Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler moved people’s hearts and minds through the innovation of radio and film, while advertisers leaped onto the radio bandwagon to sell products by promoting culture to a previously unheard of breadth of distribution. Mass distributed photography and print advertising raised awareness of the atrocities of war, and sold a smoking culture. Pop culture perpetuated patriarchy through images of the happy homemaker, Disney princesses, and the culture of beauty. Mass media promoted feminisms by publishing rallies, opinions, and lyrics. Print media became the fourth estate, offering a means of holding politicians and societal institutions to account, while political backers purchased the medium and the power. The art of persuasion continues to be the nature of my game, for vice or virtue. I’ve been around longer than Christianity, undefeatable. The past century has allowed me to travel the mediums of language and communication with increasing ability to move the message. The mediums are now vast, a limitless and unconquered wild west of cyber-mediums. The means to wield the power of persuasion among the discursive social media of the 21st century is infinite. Humanity’s dream. My power is the means to move the minds of man, and humanity has created the ability for all to move my words beyond any previously known or unknown. 

I’ve been used, my sword one of vice and virtue, honour and dishonour, conflict and alliance. I am the great persuader. I’ve been used, my tools the means for the righteous and the just, corruption and awareness, policy and pain. I am the great persuader. But what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game. Authority and testimony, cause and effect, divisions and degrees, are my topics. I am the great persuader, and that is the nature of my game. But, who holds my persuasive power of rhetorical argument, and their ability to move masses, is not mine to determine. Dignitas, bonum, utilitas, right or wrong, truth or lies; ethics has always been in the hands of humanity. Any bindings of ethical restraint are moot, an illusion, as ethics has always been the purview of humans and defined by the subjectivity of the audience. Socrates suggested to Phaedrus that it is ‘possible for someone to be an expert at gradually getting people to change positions” (Plato, 2002, 262b), but rhetoricians are not responsible for knowing all there is to know about a given subject. Really, all I need to know is my audience in order to persuade them to change positions. 

For millennium, my ethics were debated, a double-edged sword of holding the power, and ethics of power. Is it the gun, I ask, or the hands holding the gun that wield power? If the power of persuasion is rooted in knowing one’s audience, it is now in the hands of any with the means to purchase it. What happens to the ethical responsibility of a rhetorician, if indeed there truly ever was such a thing, when anyone hoping to persuade now has the ability to purchase all the information they need? To know their audience, intimately, and arguably beyond any previous knowing in human history. The minds of any audience — likes, interests, families, economic status, education, race, political and ideological leanings — are available freely or for purchase. Humanity grasped the immediate gratification of mass media and pop culture with the zeal of a person in the desert grasping for a handful of pond water, despite its potential for taint. Like that thirsty person, however, few considered the persuasive affects being delivered on the back of the messages, or now care that the cultural and intellectual sustenance provided by our unlimited access to the internet is giving away all that can be known about us. This is humanity’s nightmare. The ethical responsibility that lies within my power of persuasion belongs to individuals who enjoy the conveniences and liberties of free speech, potentially ignoring personal detriment. Misinformation, disinformation, infodemics - all are subject to proliferation by both the legitimate and the so-called rhetoricians of social media, who now have unprecedented means to target an audience more effectively than any previous period of history. #COVID19AB (https://twitter.com/hashtag/Covid19ab?src=hashtag_click) moves thousands today, persuading and dissuading by the moment. Algorithms identify individuals’ likes and dislikes, race and racist leanings, ideological and political beliefs, financial status, mental and physical health, gender identification, and even, at times, their DNA. People willingly provide these in-depth snapshots of themselves, enabling persuasion to be finessed to the point of leading sheep to slaughter. I am the great persuader. The nature of my game remains the same, but the field of play has changed. 

By Tweet, Trump or Trudeau, the theatre now transcends historical trucks to triumph or trounce. I am the great persuader. My means is available to all. Regardless of personal ideology, the determinator of an appeal’s ethical integrity and power to persuade is entirely subjective. Skilled rhetoric will persuade audiences who are drawn to a particular ideology like a magnetic to steel, but is humanity now bound to the allure of unlimited media? Is humanity blind to the impact of the message on society? The medium I now ride allows me access to the minds of my audience. The medium allows me to move among the publics and the politics with extraordinary ease. Any may wield my power, for good or evil, or with skill or ineptitude. I am rhetoric. I am the great persuader. I’ve been around for a long, long time, and I will continue to persevere through the next millennium. I am social rhetoric. I am humanity’s reality.

References 

Covid19 Alberta (#Covid19AB) Tweets (Twitter hashtag) Retrieved April 11, 2021, from https://twitter.com/hashtag/Covid19ab?src=hashtag_click 

Katz, E. (2014). Back to the Street: When Media and Opinion Leave Home. Mass Communication & Society, 17(4), 454–463. https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2014.914228 

McLuhan, M., & Gordon, W. T. (2013). Understanding media. [electronic resource] : the extensions of man. Gingko Press. https://library.macewan.ca/full-record/cat00565a/7315577 

Plato. (2002). Phaedrus. OUP Oxford. https://library.macewan.ca/full-record