Leithart
Rhetoric is an ancient art. It was one of the main courses of study in ancient schools, along with grammar and logic. During the days of the Roman Empire, learning rhetoric was a path to power and prestige. Augustine, the great church father of North Africa, was trained as a rhetorician, and was climbing the ladder of Roman society when God called him to a very different sort of speech-making in the pulpit at Hippo.
According to Quintillian, rhetoric is “the science of speaking well.” For Romans like Cicero, skill in speaking and persuading was essential to the life of a political leader. As Cicero wrote in his treatise On Invention, “There is a scientific system of politics which includes many important departments. One of these departments — a large and important one — is eloquence based on the rules of art, which they call rhetoric. . . . Therefore we will classify oratorical ability as a part of political science.”
Not everyone in the ancient world was a fan of rhetoric. In Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates challenged the Sophists of Athens who emphasized rhetorical ability, arguing that rhetoric could be used by ignorant people. Plato thought rhetoric, the art of speaking and being persuasive, was very different from philosophy, the pure and unadorned search for Truth.
In the modern world, suspicions about rhetoric have become even more pronounced. In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), one of the most important books of the early modern period, John Locke argued that rhetoric was nothing more than a way to prettify falsehoods: “if we would speak of Things as they are, we must allow, that all the Art of Rhetorick, besides Order and Clearness, all the artificial and figurative application of Words Eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong Ideas, move the Passions, and thereby mislead the Judgment; and so indeed are perfect cheats.” For Plato and Locke, rhetoric is the condiment on the burger that makes the meat taste better. Philosophers don’t care for spices. They want to be fed. They want the meat itself. Hold the mustard.
Today, many tell us that we live in a “postmodern” era, and one of the clearest signs of this new period of thinking is the revival of rhetoric. Postmodern thinkers say that we can’t help but use rhetoric. When they say this, they have a couple of things in mind. First, they say we cannot escape rhetoric because we are always using literary devices like metaphors, similes, and comparisons. Locke says that rhetoric “misleads the Judgment,” but of course rhetoric is not an incompetent guide dog that leads us down a wrong path. It doesn’t really lead anything at all. Locke’s statement assumes a metaphor, a comparison in which words are like Daniel Boone, leading people down a trail toward their goal. For postmoderns, we always want the meat to have some flavor. We may not put spices on our food. But when we don’t, it’s because we want the food to have a particular flavor, a “natural” flavor. Philosophers speak and write in pictures just like everyone else. But some pretend not to.
Second, we are always using rhetoric because every time we open our mouths we are trying to convince someone of something. We may avoid using rhetorical tricks; but a speech without rhetorical trickery is trying to persuade, by avoiding trickery. Take Locke’s argument against rhetoric. He is trying to persuade his readers that he is right, and he does this by calling rhetoric an “artificial” way of speaking that “misleads” into something “wrong.” Who wants something “artificial” when you can have something “natural”? Rhetoricians don’t lie outright, but they “insinuate,” a word that implies cunning and trickery. Locke uses rhetoric to attack rhetoric. He chooses words that make rhetoric sound cheap (artificial), and even dangerous. It’s impossible to do otherwise. The alternative would be for Locke to present an argument without making any effort to persuade. Locke could argue against rhetoric by using words that made rhetoric seem cuddly and warm. But that wouldn’t persuade anyone. If Locke did this, there would be no point in arguing in the first place.
Oddly, the postmodern thinkers who say that we can’t avoid using rhetoric also accept much of Plato’s and Locke’s negative picture of rhetoric. They often say that rhetoric is an act of violence. They assume that people should be completely free to determine for themselves what they think is true or false, good or bad. Everyone should be free to make up his own mind about whether abortion is good or evil. If a pro-lifer tries to persuade someone to defend unborn babies, he’s attacking that person’s freedom, his ability to make his mind up for himself. Rhetoric is unavoidable, but all rhetoric, all attempts at persuasion, are acts of violence. They are all attempts to control another person. All rhetoric is tyranny, but we cannot escape this tyranny. We just have to live with it. Violence and tyranny are bad, but unfortunately they are the only game in town.
Christians should be aware that our language is full of pictures, metaphors, and similes. We shouldn’t pretend that it’s not. God is the world’s best poet and storyteller, and the Bible is one of the great books of story and poetry. But Christians reject the postmodern view that all rhetoric is violence or tyranny. God speaks to us in rhetorical forms, seeking to persuade. But He doesn’t persuade us by being a tyrant. When we are persuaded by the Word of God, we are truly free. God brings a new game to town – a game of loving persuasion that doesn’t enslave but liberates.
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