Is Rhetoric Helpful?

Is rhetoric helpful? Well, that depends on what kind of rhetoric and what kind of approach to rhetoric we take. Everything that I have read from the late Wayne Booth's works leads me to say that rhetoric can not only helpful but essential to long-term flourishing in our relationships. Likewise, good rhetoric can benefit our communities and society at large. Booth is especially helpful for understanding rhetoric because he can clearly distinguish between good and bad versions of rhetoric. 

In The Rhetoric of RHETORIC, Wayne Booth provides some real-life samples of rhetoric's bad reputation as expressed in several comments, and though these examples are pre-2005, they still sound too familiar: 

• "Impoverished students deserve solutions, not rhetoric." Letter to Chicago Tribune. 

• "All that other stuff is rhetoric and bull. I don't think about it." Athletic coach. 

• "[What I've just said] is not rhetoric or metaphor. It's only truth." Columnist attacking race prejudice. 

• "President Bush's speech was long on rhetoric and short on substance." New York Times Editorial.

--Wayne C. Booth. The Rhetoric of RHETORIC: The Quest for Effective Communication (Wiley-Blackwell Manifestos) (Kindle Locations 39-41). Kindle Edition. 

 

In light of such a bad reputation, one might ask, "Is rhetoric helpful despite its misuses and abuses?" Short answer: Yes, perhaps even more so in light of those misuses and abuses. 

Our problem with rhetoric is more so a problem with the dark side of human nature. An honest study of rhetoric reveals such flair-ups in humans throughout the ages and across cultures. Such practices, especially in our modern world, can give rhetoric a bad name. In such cases we have the pejorative sense of rhetoric, in which we are "expressing contempt or disapproval."

In addition to the pejorative use of the word rhetoric's use, the study of rhetoric can sometimes come across as too formal and esoteric, merely the work of some ivory tower academics. However, teachers and writers like Wayne Booth insightfully reveal how relevant and accessible rhetoric can be for everyone. In fact, I'm thinking that Booth's approach is even an essential discipline for all citizens and community members to practice throughout their lives. If rhetoric is basically the study of and use of various means of persuasion, then rhetoric can be used for great good as well as great evil. 

I was recently musing that we have so much focus in public schools and colleges on speech communication, yet we have so little focus on learning to listen well. We aren't required to take courses in listening. Perhaps one might have been forced to learn to listen in the traditional use of lecture, but lecture has become a bad word while engagement has become the gold standard for teaching and learning. Unfortunately, much of our educational rhetoric does not have a vision as to what larger purpose all of our engagement should have.

In contrast to merely being engaged, Wayne Booth offers a mix of ethical and rhetorical purpose for our engagement growth in the classroom, in the community, and in the culture at large. He coins the terms "Listening-Rhetoric" for this practice and purpose. I long for this sort of practice and purpose to become a normal part of our society and organizations so that we would constructively "Dare to Disagree" while also agreeing to be deeply civil in our disagreements. 

Booth characterizes such "Listening-Rhetoric" as this:

"[Listening-Rhetoric is] an even deeper probing for common ground. Here both sides join in a trusting dispute, determined to listen to the opponent's arguments, while persuading the opponent to listen in exchange. Each side attempts to think about the arguments presented by the other side. Neither side surrenders merely to be tactful or friendly. 'If I finally embrace your cause, having been convinced that mine is wrong, it is only because your arguments, including your implied character and emotional demonstrations, have convinced me.' Both sides are pursuing not just victory but a new reality, a new agreement about what is real." --Wayne C. Booth. The Rhetoric of RHETORIC: The Quest for Effective Communication (Wiley-Blackwell Manifestos) (Kindle Locations 576-580). Kindle Edition.

Such an understanding and practice of good rhetoric is the foundation for a deliberative representative democracy. 

In our clamorous and conflicted culture of non-listening rhetoric, Booth's vision for better rhetoric sounds increasingly good and helpful.