Did Susan Jarrett Peg Aristotle Right as a Logos Snob?

Did Susan Jarrett Peg Aristotle Right as a Logos Snobor Was He Just Ahead of His Time for SeparatingLiterature and Poetry from Rhetoric?

I definitely see both aspects as I read through Book3. Arisotle continually divides and subdividesrhetoric and in the third book seems to focus onStyle, Arrangment, and Delivery. Part of thesedivisions serve to provide a common way of thinking,common vocabulary and such for the newly created area of rhetoric but also cause those on the fringes (non-logos users) to be excluded from the creation. At the same time he is moving language (especially oratory communications) into 2 distinct classes: creative literature and purposeful rhetoric.

He looks at form and almost immediately makes a comparison between oratory and play/ ordinary speech. He insists oratory should be different from tragedy and rhapsody and poetry as well as everyday speech. He also comments on the apects of voice in oratory. The elements of tone, rhythm, pitch, and volume canbe varied in giving a greater effect on the audience but at the same time he compares this negatively toacting. He negatively says that “those [performerswho give careful attention to these] are generally theones who win poetic contests; and just as actors aremore important than poets now in the poetic contests.” Once again he reiterates his dislike of the use ofpoetics in rhetoric. Though he compares delivery to acting, he goes on to say that these are artisticelements and have a great effect on audience. I also think it is insightful yet limiting that each personof a category, age, gender, etc., can only speak fromthat specific set of virtues of that group. I see thepoint that it is part of our ethos, but he seems tosay that we cannot argue something that is not in ourcharacter or morals. Like Tim points out, he doesseem to be contradicting himself, but I agree with Tim that using them rhetorically and conspicuously (asopposed to excessively and badly) that they can improve oratory. But he is definitely making a separation from the ‘lower’ uses of speech in playsand everyday speech from the ‘higher’ rhetoric. But aren’t these differences used in professional writing-we want to sound educated and actually interesting to our audience but we have to be careful of getting too creative and having our audience forget the purpose.

When discussing style and tropes, he remains consistent in moving away from poetic speaking and towards ‘professional’ speaking. His major rationale in preference for the metaphor, is that simile is used in poetry. In Dr. Shea’s class we talked about why high school teachers make such a big deal between the difference between the explicit simile and the implicit metaphor, and this may be the reason why. Aristotle himself makes such a difference when the actual difference is not so striking. Another area he spends time enumerating the differences between effective oratory style and poetics is diction. He defines lexis, word choice or diction, and goes on to enumerate, in his typical style, the uses and misuses of lexis. He often compares it to poetry, that we should mimic the rhythm but not the meter of poetry. So both in style and delivery he moves from poetry and the beauty of words into using the beauty of the words as a tool to convey a meaning-- an important distinction between the purposes of the genre.

So though he is privledging certain members of his society, Aristotle is also beginning the separation of language into literature/poetry/creative writing and rhetoric/professional writing. As we see in ourEnglish programs today, that distinction remains.

Digging through the gloss...

As I read through Book Three, I began to get confused by Aristotle’s seeming flip-flopping. The thing that really confused me is that he seemed to be saying in some places that we should not obscure the meaning of our speeches from our audience—we should use clear, simple words and grammatical structures to avoid confusing them. But then he turns around and says we should avoid being known to our audience. So which is it, Ari, Ole Boy? Should our audience know us or shouldn’t they? Should they be able to understand what we mean, or should we try to hide it from them? What purpose, exactly, would hiding the meaning of our speeches from our audience serve? To make us seem more elevated and lofty in our intellectual obscurity? To confuse and baffle our audience into submission?

Then I decided that maybe I was glossing over the text, as it were (in the modern sense—not the glossing of antiquity). Maybe I wasn’t reading between the lines enough. Certainly it would help if Aristotle were here to read it aloud to us himself, because then we would be sure to catch all the nuances and inflections of meaning that begin to blur on the written page (and now I’m flip-flopping from my former position that the written word is superior to the spoken word...sigh...). Finally, after pacing around my office, reading Aristotle to the empty desks, an idea emerged from the fog in my brain. I think what he is trying to get at is that we should use language and syntax that our audience will understand, but that we should hide our technique to make our speech seem as though it is completely genuine and not premeditated because this will improve our ethos—it will appear as though we are speaking from our hearts and minds, not carefully plotting the best way to manipulate our audience into following the course of action we prescribe. So, if we cleverly disguise the framework, we will use logos to build our ethos and appeal to the audience through pathos? These are just some thoughts to start the ball rolling. I’ll keep digging...

Enthymemes, enthymemes!

Thanks to the state of Oregon for putting Measure 50 on the ballot! And thanks to "The News Hour" on PBS for a segment on the measure! I now have ENTHYMEMES!
If passed by the voters in Oregon, Measure 50 will increase the state's tobacco tax to pay for health care for children. In an interview with a smoker who is the mother of a diabetic son who receives state health insurance for his health care, she said she didn' think cigarettes should be taxed because there are a lot of other "bad things ou there. It's not because we smoke that kids get sick. " She also said that smokers didn't cause her son to be diabetic.

A tobacco industry lobbyist was shown speaking. He said: "We're taxing a convenient minority who has a habit that's unpopular and that's easy to pick on. What does an Oregon smoker have to do with the problem of uninsurance with kids today? Can you make a logical argument that because somebody lights up and smokes, they're somehow responsible for 117,000 kids being uninsured?" In the interview with the reporter, the lobbyist said, "The logic of using a smoking tax to fund health care is people quit smoking, you have no health care, and so you're rooting for one behavior - for people to quit. But on the back of that, you're trying to fund a program with money you hope disappears, and it makes no sense."

The next argument came from an advocate for the measure. She said, "Tobacco causes more than $1 billion a year in health care costs in Oregon. We know that exposure to second-hand smoke causes tens of thousands of hospital admissions for children." She also said, "No matter how hard we might try, we can't get everyone to quit smoking, and they won't." She said the tax would be a stable revenue source.

So, we see people on both sides of the argument using enthymemes to move people to support their positions. For the mom who smokes and the industry lobbyist, the smokers aren't doing anything one way or the other regarding child health care costs. The act of lighting up a cigarette does not affect the cost of health care, they say. Besides, there are other bad behaviors "out there." The advocate, on the other hand, ties her argument to the fact that second-hand smoke contributes to children's health problems and therefore, the smokers should help bear the costs of insuring these children. If you're going to smoke, you should take responsibility for what your smoking causes, she is saying.