Rhetoric Review

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September 1999

  1. Constructing essences: Ethos and the postmodern subject of feminism
    Abstract

    (1999). Constructing essences: Ethos and the postmodern subject of feminism. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 82-91.

    doi:10.1080/07350199909359257
  2. Toward a grammar and rhetoric of visual opposition
    Abstract

    Traditionally, has played a central role in how classical rhetoric defines, conducts, and structures both its subject matter and its methods.' The subjects of [rhetorical] deliberation, writes Aristotle, such as seem to present us with alternative possibilities (1357a). These alterative possibilities, structured as opposites, precede-as well as proceed from-the study of rhetoric. For example, stasis theory assumes that people find themselves opposed, actually or potentially, to other people in their interests, desires, and motives and that they require the means, or method, to clarify this opposition even as they seek to move beyond it toward consensus. To provide these means, stasis theory posits a heuristic set of categories-of Being, Quantity, Quality, Place, for example-designed to help disputants identify and evaluate the issues in any given case, chiefly by establishing the relative merit of the oppositions underpinning the contested issues: Only those cases whose points of conflict are sufficiently clear-i.e., are well formulated and resting on sufficiently common grounds-should go forward for debate and adjudication. Equally, opposition plays a key role in structuring the canons of rhetoric and, consequently, in structuring rhetoric as both a theoretical and a practical art. Within the canon of inventio, for example, we find appeals to the advantageous paired with the disadvantageous, possibility with impossibility, guilt with innocence, praise with blame; within dispositio, we find confirmatio paired with refutatio; within elocutio, we find a whole range of figures-from epanalepsis to antimetabole to isocolon-capable of pairing terms into stylistic antitheses; and, finally, within memoria and actiopronuntiatio, we find a spectrum of normative terms marked, at either extreme, by pairs such as natural and artificial, open and closed, high and low, and the like. Clearly, opposition is one of the key terms, if not a governing principle, of classical rhetorical theory and practice. But what of its role in contemporary rhetorical theory? In the critical analysis of visual, rather than verbal or written, texts? In images that seek identification rather than overt persuasion?

    doi:10.1080/07350199909359258
  3. Learning from the past: Rhetoric, composition, and debate at Mount Holyoke College
    doi:10.1080/07350199909359255

March 1999

  1. Pirates, seducers, wronged heirs, poison cups, cruel husbands, and other calamities: The Roman school declamations and critical pedagogy
    Abstract

    Since classical times, rhetorical education has been concerned with training in the civic functions of discourse-with young people to talk about public issues responsibly and articulately. And unsurprisingly, those who study and teach rhetoric have often faced public scrutiny and have been compelled to defend their pedagogical and philosophical views. One current battle over the public function of rhetorical education centers on the politically charged writing pedagogies that emerged in our discipline during the early 1990s. These approaches, commonly dubbed radical teaching or teaching, and whose most prominent advocates include James Berlin (Rhetoric), Patricia Bizzell (Academic), Susan Jarratt (Feminism), and Mary Louise Pratt (Arts), reject the notion that college writing courses should be ideologically neutral spaces dedicated to nurturing students' individual expression. Rather, these scholars hold, rhetorical instruction should prepare to deal critically with the arguments they encounter in the dominant culture and empower them to produce texts that resist those values. And thus, they argue, writing instructors have an obligation to cultivate in an appreciation for progressive political values, a sensitivity to injustice, and an ability to debate divisive issues-skills best developed through confrontational classroom exchanges. The range of practices these scholars advocate includes asking to engage with texts written from perspectives vastly different from their own (Bizzell, Academic 283-84), to debate heated questions in class (Jarratt 118-19), and to adopt a critical stanceoften the teacher's own-toward mainstream ideologies (Berlin, Rhetoric 3637). Yet despite its lofty goals, critical has faced criticism on multiple grounds. Opponents like Maxine Hairston decry the very goals of such pedagogy, charging that it puts dogma before diversity, politics before craft, ideology before critical thinking, and the social goals of the teacher before the educational needs of the students (Diversity 180). More recently, Stephen

    doi:10.1080/07350199909359247

September 1998

  1. Rhetorical style and the formation of character: Ciceronian ethos in Thomas Wilson'sArte of Rhetorique
    Abstract

    (1998). Rhetorical style and the formation of character: Ciceronian ethos in Thomas Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 93-106.

    doi:10.1080/07350199809359233

September 1997

  1. John Witherspoon's normalizing pedagogy of ethos
    Abstract

    (1997). John Witherspoon's normalizing pedagogy of ethos. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 58-75.

    doi:10.1080/07350199709389080
  2. Aristotle'srhetoric,dialogism, and contemporary research in composition
    Abstract

    This essay had its origin in my reaction to the claim, repeated in a number of essays by prominent scholars in composition, that Aristotle's theory of rhetoric was a dialogic one.' My response to such claims was and remains one of disbelief. As I examined the essays in which this view was advanced, I came to see that the evidence in support of it depended on related interpretations of Aristotle's concept of the enthymeme advanced by Lloyd Bitzer and John Gage. But in my view whether or not one accepts this controversial understanding of the enthymeme, it does not license a reading of Aristotle's Rhetoric as genuinely dialogic. As I reflected on what I now regarded as the immediate cause of a misinterpretation of Aristotle's Rhetoric (the misappropriation of a controversial interpretation of the enthymeme), I realized that this case had implications for how we, in rhetoric and composition, relate to and use our past. To establish my argument, I must show that important scholars in composition have claimed or implied that the theory Aristotle advances in the Rhetoric is dialogic, that this claim is obviously (not merely possibly) false, and that the evidence compositionists cite in support is derived not from the Rhetoric but depends on a misunderstanding of the implications of Bitzer' s and Gage's interpretations of the enthymeme. Then, having made this argument, I will trace what I regard as more general methodological implications of the misreading of the Rhetoric. Arguments that Aristotle's theory of rhetoric is dialogic have been advanced by Andrea A. Lunsford and Lisa S. Ede, John T. Gage, Gregory Clark, and Richard Leo Enos and Janice Lauer. In each case the claim is advanced in support of a more general effort to reconcile Aristotle' s theory with modem perspectives on rhetoric. The burden of Lunsford and Ede's thesis, as reflected in their title, On Distinctions between Classical and Modem Rhetoric, is to prove that Aristotelian rhetoric is closer in its theoretical assumptions to modern rhetoric than is generally thought. The view that Aristotle's theory is monologic is among the mistakes they address. They maintain that despite what we have thought in the past, Aristotle' s understanding of the rhetorical transaction is dialogic: Far from being 'one way,' 'manipulative' or 'monologic,' Aristotle' s [presentation of] rhetoric provides a complete description of the dynamic interaction between rhetor and audience, interaction mediated by language, the goal of which is not a narrow persuasion but an interactive means of discovering meaning through

    doi:10.1080/07350199709389079

March 1997

  1. Romantic rhetoric and the rhetorical tradition1
    Abstract

    There has been little room for the British Romantics in the study of rhetoric because it is generally agreed that they did not concern themselves with it, but their influence upon academic culture and upon the relationship between literature and rhetoric is a central concern for contemporary studies of rhetoric, composition, and literature.2 Rhetoricians and critics divide Romantic British discourse into the rhetoricians and the poets. Rhetoricians study Hugh Blair, George Campbell, and Richard Whately while theorists study philosophers, critics, and poets such as William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Wordsworth. Some substantial efforts have been made to include the literary Romantics in our discussion of rhetoric. Don Bialostosky's recent work, Wordsworth, Dialogics, and the Practice of Criticism, for example, gives us a reading of Wordsworth from a dialogical perspective, and in the past rhetoricians of such stature as Kenneth Burke (see Blankenship), I. A. Richards, and Ann E. Berthoff have included Coleridge and Wordsworth in their theories of rhetoric and composition. Still, in the main, rhetoricians regard the British Romantics with distrust.3 the surface the distrust is well earned. The term rhetoric had pejorative associations for the Romantics. Although their philosophical views about rhetoric may be traced to Plato, their belief that rhetoric was a secondary and fraudulent art was the product of a longstanding academic and ecclesiastical debate over the virtues of Ramist rhetoric, where logic afforded the composer the means of thinking and rhetoric afforded the composer a way of presenting those thoughts.4 In this view rhetoric was mechanical, and once the organic experience of creation was over, what was left to the rhetorician was merely gesture or mere rhetoric. The British Romantics' distrust for mere rhetoric led them to write about discourse rather than rhetoric. Coleridge, for example, uses the term method, a term usually associated with Descartes in philosophy and with Ramus in rhetoric, when he writes about rhetorical acts. However, throughout his works, he not only demonstrates a substantial understanding of the history of rhetoric but also includes well-known principles of rhetoric in his method. In his Essays on the Principles of Method, he argues that method is a habit of considering the relationships among things, specifically either their relations to each other, or to the observer, or to the state of apprehension of the hearers (451). Thus, although Coleridge argues against the sophists in On the

    doi:10.1080/07350199709359221
  2. The composition course and public discourse: The case of Adams Sherman Hill, popular culture, and cultural inoculation
    Abstract

    American intellectuals and educators are dismayed by crisis in public discourse. With Jurgen Habermas and others, they worry over of public sphere and a degeneration in rational-critical debate. Cultural critics often contrast contemporary public discourse with what seems to be America's golden age of public discussion: nineteenth-century America, before culture industry or late capitalism, before professionalism, before TV, before mass media or multimedia.1 The usual suspect is modern communications technologies, specifically TV. According to Neil Postman, we should deeply lament the decline of Age of Typography and ascendancy of Age of Television (8). Televisual media, he argues, has eroded public's span and shriveled its capacity for rational thought. Looking to Lincoln-Douglas debates, he maintains that Americans' verbal facility and attention span would obviously have been extraordinary by current standards (45). The citizenry has declined, he argues, because citizens watch TV and no longer read: almost every scholar . . . has concluded that process [of reading] encourages rationality, while televisual logic short-circuits rational thought in favor of slogans, images, mere stories-in short, entertainment.2 The late Christopher Lasch, in The Revolt of Elites, blames not only television for making argument a lost art but also undemocratic leanings of intellectuals and academics. How far we have fallen, he argues, from Golden Years of nineteenth century, when serious public argument was practiced by both citizenry and media. In those days newspapers (Lasch singles out Horace Greeley's New York Tribune) were journals of opinion in which reader expected to find a definite point of view, together with unrelenting criticism of opposing points of view (163). The beginning of decline (the nadir of which he hopes we are presently experiencing) began in progressive era, when intellectual leaders preached 'scientific management' of public affairs.... They forged links between government and university so as to assure a steady supply of experts and expert knowledge. But they had little use for public debate (167). Academics and

    doi:10.1080/07350199709359220

September 1995

  1. Review Essays
    Abstract

    Eugene Garver. Aristotle's Rhetoric: An Art of Character. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994. xii + 325 pages. Helen Fox. Listening to the World: Cultural Issues in Academic Writing. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1994. xxi +161 pages. W. Ross Winterowd. A Teacher's Introduction to Composition in the Rhetorical Tradition. Urbana: NCTE, 1994. 130 pages. Marcello Pera. Discourses of Science. Translated by Clarissa Botsford. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. 250 pages. Pera, Marcello, and William R. Shea, eds. Persuading Science: The Art of Scientific Rhetoric. Canton, MA: Science History, 1991. Perelman, Chaïm, and L. Olbrechts‐Tyteca. The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. Trans. John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 1969. Planck, Max. Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers. Trans. F. Gaynor. London: Williams and Norgate, 1950. Simons, Herbert, ed. The Rhetorical Turn: Invention and Persuasion in the Conduct of Inquiry. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1990. Haig Bosmajian, Metaphor and Reason in Judicial Opinions. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1992. Fredric G. Gale, Political Literacy: Rhetoric, Ideology, and the Possibility of Justice. Interruptions: Border Testimony(ies) and Critical Discoursed). Albany: State U of New York P, 1994. Austin Sarat and Thomas R. Kearns, eds. The Rhetoric of Law. Amherst Series in Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought 4. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1994.

    doi:10.1080/07350199509389060

September 1994

  1. Giving good reasons: Environmental appeals in the nonfiction of John McPhee
    Abstract

    Within his substantial body of nonfiction, there is, I think, no single metaphor that better describes John McPhee's relationship with his readers and his subjects than does the title of his third collection of essays. 1 Giving Good Weight, the lead essay in the collection of the same name, is an account of greenmarkets in New York in the 1970s. As one of McPhee's subjects tells us, the markets were planned mainly as 'a natural answer to a twofold problem': loss of farmland in the metropolitan area and a lack of 'fresh, decent food' in the city, but it was hoped that, with the right attitude and a little luck, they would also start conversations, help resuscitate neighborhoods, brighten the aesthetic of the troubled town (34). It is characteristic of McPhee and crucial to our reading of the essay that the perspective we are given on the interaction between buyers and sellers is both McPhee's own and, to a large extent, that of his principal subjects. Characteristic, because McPhee consistently takes the side of those about whom he writes in his nonfiction; and in this case, he has done so quite literally: as the essay opens, the author is standing on the greenmarketers' side of the table, selling vegetables, discovering first-hand how it feels to face the urban hordes, who slit the tomatoes with [their] fingernails, excavate the cheese with their thumbs, pulp the nectarines and rape the sweet corn (3). Crucial, because in taking the greenmarketers' perspective, McPhee establishes an identification that has important consequences for our reading of the entire essay. They are good people, these greenmarketers honest, hardworking, and committed to what they do-and McPhee's ethos benefits from his respectful and respected association with them. The governing metaphor captures the essence of the piece and of McPhee's ethos in almost all of his nonfiction. Giving good weight: apart from its prominent post as title of the title essay, it is a phrase used only three times, yet it reverberates throughout one's reading; or more accurately, it galvanizes all the unspoken responses one has to the varied themes that play across the essay. To good weight means, literally, to be generous when selling produce, to give three-and-a-quarter pounds of tomatoes for the price of three. But it also means, not only metaphorically but actually, the fostering of human fellowship and trust-the forging of an almost palpable bond through an act of commercial generosity. When customers find out that a young teacher selling

    doi:10.1080/07350199409359180
  2. Reconsidering sophistic rhetoric in light of skeptical epistemology
    Abstract

    The latest rehabilitation of the sophists, begun by Hegel and carried out with increasing dedication during this century (see Crowley, Enos, Guthrie, Hunt, Jarratt, Kerferd, Poulakos, De Romilly, Schiappa, Untersteiner), has improved our understanding of rhetorical theory and history. Despite, and in some ways because of, the nebulous quality of what they have left us, the sophists have become important primarily because they predate Plato and Aristotle and thus would seem to offer at least a fragmentary glimpse of rhetoric prior to its hypostatization in the classical period. The traditional thinking is that Platonic and Aristotelian rhetorical theory disciplined the sophists' extravagant practices, substantiated their unsubstantiated claims, and transformed their dithyrambic, mythic, magical, poetic discourse into a logical, rational theory of argumentation. In other words, Plato and Aristotle transformed mythos into logos; thus they were the fathers of rhetoric insofar as rhetoric was a respectable techno for the production of reasonable discourse. The philosophers rejected sophistic rhetoric on the grounds that it had no philosophical foundations from which its principles could be logically derived and safely taught. Thus they set about constructing a sound, philosophically based rhetoric by linking it carefully to, while dividing it just as carefully from, absolute knowledge (episteme). In both the Platonic and the Aristotelian rhetorical schemes, episteme provides the limits of rhetoric. In the Platonic case, absolute knowledge is a prerequisite for the application of rhetorical lore-one must employ dialectic in the service of absolute truth before one may use rhetoric to disseminate the truth (Phaedrus 265-66). In the Aristotelian case, rhetorical lore must be based on the first principles of persuasion, but must be employed when knowable matters are discussed-the closer one gets to fundamental principles, the further one gets from enthymemes, and thus the further one gets from rhetoric in the direction of scientific knowledge (Freese 1359b). If knowledge provides the limits for rhetorical theory and practice, then, in Platonic and Aristotelian terms, without both knowledge and a theory of knowledge, systematic rhetoric is impossible. This is why they dismissed sophistic rhetoric on the grounds that it ha(d) no rational account to give of the nature of the various things which it offer(ed) (Gorgias 465) and that it presented not an but the results of an art (Forster 183b). Because

    doi:10.1080/07350199409359174

September 1993

  1. Generative semantics: Secret handshakes, anarchy notes, and the implosion ofethos
    Abstract

    Ethos is generally associated with individual rhetors.1 Certainly that's association Aristotle had in mind when he recorded most influential usage of term (Rhetoric 1356a). But there is ample warrant for moving to a broader level-the level adopted in this paper, a case study of outrageous of a group of generative linguists on cusp of sixties and seventies. There is ample warrant for identifying not simply with specific individuals in specific orations but also with identifiable communities. In ordinary language, for instance, has always been far more communal than individual: Ethos.... [ 1.] The characteristic spirit, prevalent tone of sentiment, of a people or community; 'genius' of an institution or system (OED, 1933 reissue) . And it has a similar sense among our academic neighbors-in literary criticism, where books have titles like The Ethos of Restoration Comedy (Schneider); in sociology, where books have titles like The Ethos of Hong Kong Chinese (Siu-Kai), or, more famously, in Merton's discussion of general ethos of science (268). Coming closer to home, consider Augustine's notion of a Christian ethos, which presupposes that rhetor stands for group values (De Doctrina 4.27-29). Consider similarly presupposing admonition of George Campbell about influence of party-spirit (97). Consider Black's above-epigramitized talk of patterned commitments and stylistic proclivities, which, as Halloran tells us, is essentially projection of to communal level (Black 85; Halloran, Molecular Biology 71). Elsewhere, Halloran tells us more: the word has both an individual and a collective meaning. It makes sense to speak of of this or that person, but it makes equally good sense to speak of of a particular

    doi:10.1080/07350199309389030

March 1993

  1. Ethosas location: New sites for understanding discursive authority
    doi:10.1080/07350199309389009

March 1992

  1. Imagination, cognition, and persona
    Abstract

    The essay has three parts, with the first two introductory to the third. The first part explores the ideas of several modem philosophers about imagery and imagination and their relationship to language and communication. The second part reviews contemporary theories of mental imagery and verbal processes as derived from empirical studies in cognitive psychology. The final section synthesizes the ideas of the philosophers and psychologists and relates them to the rhetorical concept of persona, with examples. The examples I will use in the final section will deal with imagery in composing exposition, specifically argument and persuasion. The processes of imagery and imagination involved in depicting character and action or composing vivid description, while interesting in their own right, are more obvious. Donald Murray cites numerous poets and fiction writers who testify that imagery is not only the motivation but the vehicle of their composing (Write 59-60). To show that imagination is basic to all composing, I will avoid the narrative and poetic and steer into realms where demonstration is more subtle.

    doi:10.1080/07350199209388971

March 1991

  1. Women's ways of knowing/women's ways of composing
    Abstract

    When Mary Belenky, Blythe Clinchy, Nancy Goldberger, and Jill Tarule published their book, Women's Ways of Knowing, they essentially waved red flag before loyal disciples of William Perry's developmental scheme. These researchers question the Perry model because, while its methodology allowed for the incorporation of interviews with female subjects, its conclusions were based only on data from interviews with males. Belenky et al. argue that Perry's research might indicate that women conform to the male pattern, but the research strategy itself was deficient in its ability to uncover developmental patterns which more accurately describe the female experience. What Perry may have been measuring, Belenky et al. argue, is the process by which a relatively homogeneous group of people are socialized into and make sense of system of values, standards and objectives, specifically, how Harvard University promotes and encourages relativistic thought and how male students respond (15).1 To say the least, the resulting confusion, concern, and debate engendered by Belenky et al.'s assertions have influenced wide range of academic disciplines. Composition teachers are certainly not immune. Female students now constitute significant percentage of the college population. To the extent that we have been influenced by and made use of the Perry development model, we may be applying teaching methods developed for and around male students. Belenky et al. alert us to the possibility that William Perry's scheme may not tell us everything we need to know about our female students. Exactly what does the Perry scheme tell us? In 1970 William Perry described the developmental stages of college students in the following way: 1) Entering freshmen are dualists. They view knowledge as collection of information falling into two categories: right and wrong. This habit of structuring the world into opposites-we and they, good and bad, correct and incorrectprompts dualists to assume that truth is inarguable and can be dispensed through the proper authorities. Learning is therefore passive process. 2) Students become multiplists as they are exposed to the spectacle of authorities disagreeing among themselves. Recognizing that often there are no clearcut answers and that truth is not absolute, multiplists become functional

    doi:10.1080/07350199109388931

September 1989

  1. Mr. Darwin and his readers: Exploring interpersonal metadiscourse as a dimension ofethos
    Abstract

    (1989). Mr. Darwin and his readers: Exploring interpersonal metadiscourse as a dimension of ethos. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 91-112.

    doi:10.1080/07350198909388880

March 1989

  1. Hunting forethoswhere they say it can't be found
    Abstract

    (1989). Hunting for ethos where they say it can't be found. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 299-316.

    doi:10.1080/07350198909388863

September 1988

  1. Stasisandkairos: Principles of social construction in classical rhetoric∗
    doi:10.1080/07350198809388842

March 1988

  1. Reader‐response and thepathosprinciple
    Abstract

    (1988). Reader‐response and the pathos principle. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 152-166.

    doi:10.1080/07350198809359160
  2. Bakhtin,Phaedrus,and the geometry of rhetoric
    Abstract

    This question, the engine humming at the center of Bakhtin's vision, generating alien words like heteroglossy and polyphony, is one that rhetoricians do not ask. And our work is poorer for the silence. We make inquiries, sometimes very probing ones, into ethos, and occasionally we investigate some rhetor in great detail. But we take identity for granted. It is Plato or Socrates or Burke doing the speaking. we fail to notice is that these labels do not designate autonomous, univocal entities. They designate composites-collections of voices, some in harmony, some in conflict. Mikhail Bakhtin, then, has something to tell us: listen. Listen and you will hear a verbal carnival of such depth and diversity, of such extravagance and exuberance, that your ears will never be the same again. The most immediate consequence of this newfound affluence is that the traditional triangular paradigm of rhetorical events becomes lopsided. The speaker's corner becomes very heavy. But two questions, in parallel with Bakhtin's obsessive probe, present themselves-Who is listening? and What is being said? -and they find similarly multivocal answers. This additional plurality does not so much balance the triangle as burden it. That is, as soon as we start to listen more carefully, the paradigm proves hopelessly inadequate. It simplifies interactions to the point of insignificance, it undervalues or ignores essential elements, and it effects an artificial closure on an inherently openended process. Applying it to any rhetorical event, once we are fitted with our new ears, reveals this inadequacy, but, to keep things in the family, consider how the paradigm fares in an examination of multivalence in the Phaedrus.

    doi:10.1080/07350198809359161

September 1987

  1. For a modern rhetoric: A prose‐poetic persuasion
    Abstract

    (1987). For a modern rhetoric: A prose‐poetic persuasion. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 87-89.

    doi:10.1080/07350198709359155

January 1986

  1. Subliminal seduction: An essay on the rhetoric of the unconscious
    Abstract

    That anyone should want to use critical reading in analysis of advertising should be surprising if one accepts a broad conception of letters as including anything in print that worth studying. My idea of English studies supports point of view that our concern in English departments ought to be with critical reading and writing of all kinds of texts, just imaginative literature. In other words, we ought to be concerned as much with rhetorical inquiries as with aesthetic inquiries. In its own right, advertising provides a kind of distinctive knowledge about society. To some critics, advertising fills a genuine need by creating markets for new and valuable products and by expanding and strengthening economy. Advertising also reveals how techniques of science can contribute to better living. In addition, it informs people about available goods and services and invites them to secure good things of life-material comforts, entertainment, travel, and so forth. To some critics, however, advertising creates false values. These critics contend that since some products are basically alike, all too often advertisers appeal to people's baser instincts and emotions to sell their products. To stimulate demand for a product, they attach psychological values such as acquisitiveness, power, sexual pleasure, attractiveness, social approval, and competitive success, none of which are in product. To attain these values, all consumer needs to do to buy appropriate product. In brief, advertising an exercise in a special kind of persuasion. As if these criticisms were enough, advertisers have been accused of manipulating people without their consent at some deeper level of consciousness, of selling to id, as one critic put it (Seldin 442-43). A number of critics have commented on use of techniques in advertising. Vance Packard calls them hidden persuaders(3). Marshall McLuhan refers to them as subliminal pills for subconscious in order to exercise an hypnotic spell (228). They are not meant for conscious consumption. Their mere existence, asserts McLuhan, is a testimony to somnambulistic state of a tired metropolis (229). There evidence to suggest that some of these criticisms are justified. As early as 1934, James Rorty, in his book Our Master's Voice:Advertising, noted that the advertising man is, in fact, a journeyman psychologist (241). He

    doi:10.1080/07350198609359118

September 1985

  1. Persuasion as ethical argument
    Abstract

    You are, at the least, obliged not to be ignorant, not to be dogmatic, not to be arrogant. You must explain fully, offer carefully collected evidence, and reason logically. You must disavow coercion, manipulation, and image-making. You must welcome, not threaten; disclose, not deceive; be generous, not hostile. You must, in your argument, make a common world, with room in it for yourself and your reader. (231)

    doi:10.1080/07350198509359104
  2. The rhetoric of cynicism
    Abstract

    To speak of and cynicism in the same breath is to bear a double burden of pejorative jeopardy. The pejorative freight of either term, rhetoric or weighs heavily against anyone who tries to use these terms in non-pejorative ways. Such people are quite simply trying to swim against a torrent of pejorative everyday usage. Yet some of the positive historical legacy of the traditions of classical and of the ancient cynics is still around and does carry over into contemporary contexts, especially when we speak of and cynicism away from the marketplace and in academia, where still is the art of persuasion and cynicism graces literary texts with clever displays of verbal play and repartee. Wayne Booth at a recent conference, in discussing the problem of the public image of rhetoric, quoted a colleague as referring to some fellow as asshole, but at the same time explaining that the term was not intended in its pejorative sense. The twist of irony in the remark stimulates our imagination to come up with a context in which someone could be an asshole in a nonpejorative sense. Quite possibly there is a virtue in acting like an asshole towards others who act the same. Let us leave aside any question of a non-pejorative sense of rhetoric. What possible approbation can there be for the cynic, or for the use of the role of the cynic in our rhetoric? What is the rhetorical payoff of a cynical ethos? What function do cynical remarks serve in rhetorical strategies? To pursue these questions I caution against question begging assumptions when we examine the phenomenon of cynicism, for cynicism is a loaded term. But first off, cynical remarks do not a cynic make. Yet certainly they are used as evidence for attributing cynical attitudes, beliefs and cynicism to the one who makes them. Note in your own experience the degree to which the attributions of cynic and cynical are simply allegations that a sin has been committed. A second note of caution. The phenomenon of cynicism is, I believe, recalcitrant to any essentialist description, and we ought to avoid the pitfalls of pursuing a phantom of cynicism, that is, seeking to describe or to define the essential nature of cynicism. If you are not willing to take my advice on this matter, I commit you to chasing your tail endlessly in verbal circles, a game called whose paradigm is on first?

    doi:10.1080/07350198509359105

September 1982

  1. Aristotle's concept of ethos, or if not his somebody else's
    Abstract

    (1982). Aristotle's concept of ethos, or if not his somebody else's. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 58-63.

    doi:10.1080/07350198209359037