Nick
Catalano is a TV writer/producer and Professor of Literature
and Music at Pace University. He reviews books and music for
several journals and is the author of Clifford
Brown: The Life and Art of the Legendary Jazz Trumpeter,
New
York Nights: Performing, Producing and Writing in Gotham
, A
New Yorker at Sea,, Tales
of a Hamptons Sailor and his most recent book,
Scribble
from the Apple. For Nick's reviews, visit his
website: www.nickcatalano.n
A great many people
think they are thinking
when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
William James
In several previous
essays for Arts
& Opinion I’ve referenced
difficulties 5th B.C. century Athenians had as their new ‘Democracy’
took root. A major problem was rhetoric. Upon the establishment
of the new system about 505 B.C., it soon became evident that
power advantages in their free speech assemblies lay in the
talent of citizens who could best employ effective persuasive
rhetoric. As a result, very quickly, scores of teachers of
rhetoric or ‘sophists’ flooded the Agora or main
thoroughfare in Athens earning huge sums paid by eager students
and ‘politicians’ seeking to learn the techniques
of successful persuasive rhetoric. In order to increase their
power, citizens needed to become expert at manoeuvring words.
Soon the teachers
began to identify and explain hundreds of language skills,
tactics and manipulations; and successful ‘orators’
became celebrities -- i.e. Pericles. Although the initial
desire was to use persuasive rhetoric to advance justice and
social equilibrium, it soon became obvious that rhetorical
mastery had a dark side. Selfish, immoral and unjust causes
could also be advanced as truth and facts morphed into a rhetorical
sea of lies and distortions. Persuasive rhetoric could be
used to erode logical, rational, thought by appealing to the
myriad human emotions and fears everyone has. Its power was
awesome. Even the leading sophist Gorgias had to admit the
power it had. “The effect of speech upon the condition
of the soul is comparable to the power of drugs over the nature
of bodies,” he said at the height of democratic speechifying
in the 5th century.
In its glossary,
the Oxford Handbook of Rhetorical Studies lists hundreds
of Greek terms which can effectively defy logic and thus advance
distortion, prejudice and untruth. Terms like adianoeta, brachylogia,
cataplexis, metalepsis, erotema, and literally hundreds of
others were formulated by the Greek sophists, and orators
studied them hard so they could use rhetorical weaponry when
needed.
The evil that
descended from this development cannot be measured. Presently,
reference to ‘fake news’ by logical twisters in
the media and their use of exaggerations, prejudicial opinions
and lies has society dangling. Lies about vaccines, rigged
elections, mask mandates, etc. are enormously effective because
most citizens are ignorant of the aforementioned rhetorical
tricks. So . . . Logical thinking goes out the window replaced
by heaps of prejudice, fear and often childish emotions.
Greek citizens
carefully studied and scrutinized the rhetorical techniques
and the way they afforded manipulation of logic and reason.
This educational approach continued in the classical world
of Greece and Rome for a thousand years. But, incredibly,
few students these days have even a smattering of logic history
much less a knowledge of how to manipulate it. As a matter
of fact, if you presented a list of terms like the ones mentioned
above to English teachers in schools across the country you
would find very few who’ve even heard of them.
This lack of education
has resulted in millions of people accepting fake news, rumour,
gossip, distortion and lies.
In
the 4th century, Aristotle, upon witnessing the violations
of logic employed by trained speakers, wrote a treatise he
called Posterior Analytics. Herein, he teaches the
reader how to arrive at correct conclusions by correctly linking
valid premises. This essay together with Aristotle’s
entire oeuvre is just as valuable today as it was 2500 years
ago. However, if you ask anyone with a college education if
they have studied Aristotelian logic and philosophy in school,
you would find very few who have.
The power of rhetoric
to persuade by substituting emotion, prejudice and clever
falsehoods for logic and reason has never been overcome. Through
the ages, from Ancient Greece and Rome to Hitler’s Germany
to Tucker Carlson, millions of people have been seduced, deceived
and deluded. Issues have been muddled, lies have proliferated
and truth hopelessly buried. Heretofore no one has come up
with solutions to combat this insidious human invention and
enormous suffering continues to damage societies and threaten
populations.
Ironically, the
Greeks came as close to defeating this execrable practice
as anyone. Because of their unparalleled worship of reason,
the titanic achievement of their philosophers -- Socrates,
Plato, Aristotle et al -- and the sheer amount of
study evidenced by the identification of the logic violations
we referenced above, Greeks at least provided citizens mechanisms
for truth to emerge.
As a result of
their achievements, the present crises of distortions and
lies most readily observable in the media can be battled.
How? By adherence to reason through intense study.
I’m not
proposing to have students memorize and utilize the hundreds
of rhetorical devices defying logic that we noted above. But
if only a few of these tricks are identified in classes, shared,
and constantly identified, citizens can access greater truth.
So make sure your
youngsters (and stilted oldsters) know a just few terms like
begging the question, red herring, hasty generalization, ad
hominem, post Hoc, false analogy and circular reasoning.
And send them to schools where education focuses on great
minds and disciplines. There is no substitute for a curriculum
featuring study of mathematics, physics, 
biology,
great literature, history, art and philosophy. Also a focus
on classical rhetoric in English and speech courses might
be a great idea if you can find schools that offer it. You
would be surprised at how few you come across.
The rhetoric problem
is global. Recently, The New York Times reported
that Trump media officials have traveled to Brazil to offer
aid to president Jair Bolsonaro who is experiencing widespread
unpopularity as the upcoming election looms. He has advocated
proliferation of guns, has denied administration of Covid
vaccine, and has accelerated deforestation. The Trump people
immediately instructed him on the efficacy of false news and
they put before him their favourite lie -- advance the notion
that the election is rigged.
