Chapter 9

 In ARCS chapter 9 covers arrangement and its effective use in rhetorical argument. The author makes a good point in saying that it is one of the most important factors. I know from my personal experience you organize your argument so that you give your strongest most effective point first and then build on that. The chapter also covered the different kinds of cases such as Honorable, difficult, mean, ambiguous, and obscure. Each of these different categories are a way of describing an argument that is being presented. The way this connects to arrangement is if your arrangement is good then you may have an honorable case and therefore gaining immediate support. If your arrangement is bad your case may be defined as one of the other 4 cases where the audience responds meekly or not at all. The author also describes how to organize a good argument and explain to the audience why they should care about this topic or why it is of any importance of them. There is also a good section on how to argue your point in such a way that it brings the other rhetor into a negative light. The four important steps to capture your audience are to show importance of the issue, show how it affects the audience, show how it affects everyone, and then show how it affects the general good of the community.

Margaret Fell

The reading about Margaret Fell takes an interesting stance on women and their history of literacy. I had no idea that religion was the main reason that women were taught to read and right or that it led to their oral rhetoric. In a way Fell is portrayed as a Martin Luther King for women. She was to literacy among women as he was to freedom for African-Americans. In the section about her it describes that she was deeply religious and that she used that religion to speak publicly and write. This was severely frowned upon in her time and women were seen as people who should not be heard. At least this is one instance where I can say religion led to something good. It's impressive that she continued to still write and speak while being ridiculed and harassed by the public. The last thing that would be on my mind if someone was trying to take my home and land is writing religious works. In short what I learned was women were severely illiterate before the spread of Christianity. After the religion spread the fact that women had to read the bible lead to them ultimately being educated and the number of women that could sign their name jumped way up. The text also says that the spreading of religion by women is what gave them the opportunity to use their rhetoric publicly while debating religion or teaching.

Ramus

 The reading about Peter Ramus was actually an interesting piece and good example of karma if you ask me. He was obviously a very smart student being that he went to college at the age of twelve but it sounds to me like he let it go to his head. The man was smart but ambitious and the fact that he attacked many famous and renowned rhetors ultimately led to his demise. He was obviously very big-headed to think that a university should just dump their methods of teaching and do things his way. In a way I think he got what he deserved in the end for being overtly cocky and full of himself. Even the way that Ramus debated as is described in the book shows him to be the self-absorbed ass that he is. Throughout the chapter the book discusses how in the majority of Ramus's debates such as against Quintilian, he not only puts down the opposition in a demeaning way but recommends that his own ways replace that of the previous rhetoric. I feel like if Ramus had a motto it would be “my way or the highway”.   

Speech

Condemnation Speech

You will not gain much WSU parking, you are assholes and those who hear you gave me a ticket will know you as such....assholes. If you had waited a little longer I would have been gone and your desire of me to vacate my parking space would have been fulfilled. I am only talking about you who have written me this ticket and chose not to dismiss it. You think you are doing right because I did not explain myself well, but this is not the case. I did not come in crying and begging throwing a little tantrum like you have come to expect. But I would rather have stood up to you than given you what you want. A man should not be a brown nose, even if it gets you out of your situation, stand up for yourself. And now I leave you, condemned to pay your outrageous ticket but you too leave to deal with karma. I must suffer my consequences but you too have it coming.

And now I must pay my ticket I will tell you your fate. For this is the time students are granted this power. You who have been assholes will have bad bad things happen to you after I have paid my fine. For there will be far more people that will hate you now that I have kept at bay. Because they are younger they will do far worse things to you and you will be far more upset at them. If you think that handing out tickets makes you the good guy, you are an idiot. That is not the way to make you a better person. This is the fate I see for you who have condemned me.

My friends that were on my side I would like to discuss what happened with you while the assholes talk before I must go empty my wallet into their pockets. You are my friends and I would like explain why this happened. You are judges because you truly judge me. On my shoulder is a little man that tell me if what I am doing is right or wrong but now I have done something considered to be wrong but my little man kept silent and has stayed that way. I interpret this as a sign that what happened to me is good and those who think getting tickets are bad are wrong. Because if getting a ticket were bad then my little man would have told me, which proves it is good.

Source

Plato: The Apology

(http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/plato_apology.htm )

Not much time will be gained, O Athenians, in return for the evil name which you will get from the detractors of the city, who will say that you killed Socrates, a wise man; for they will call me wise even although I am not wise whe n they want to reproach you. If you had waited a little while, your desire would have been fulfilled in the course of nature. For I am far advanced in years, as you may perceive, and not far from death. I am speaking now only to those of you who have condemned me to death. And I have another thing to say to them: You think that I was convicted through deficiency of words -- I mean, that if I had thought fit to leave nothing undone, nothing unsaid, I might have gained an acquittal. Not so; the deficiency wh ich led to my conviction was not of words -- certainly not. But I had not the boldness or impudence or inclination to address you as you would have liked me to address you, weeping and wailing and lamenting, and saying and doing many things which you have been accustomed to hear from others, and which, as I say, are unworthy of me. But I thought that I ought not to do anything common or mean in the hour of danger: nor do I now repent of the manner of my defence, and I would rather die having spoken after m y manner, than speak in your manner and live. For neither in war nor yet at law ought any man to use every way of escaping death. For often in battle there is no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he m ay escape death; and in other dangers there are other ways of escaping death, if a man is willing to say and do anything. The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death. I am old and move slowly, and the slower runner has overtaken me, and my accusers are keen and quick, and the faster runner, who is unrighteousness, has overtaken them. And now I depart hence condemned by you to suffer the penalty of death, and they, too, go their ways condemned by the truth to suffer the penalty of villainy and wrong; and I must abide by my award -- let them abide by theirs. I suppose that these things may be regarded as fated and I think that they are well.

And now, O men who have condemned me, I would fain prophesy to you; for I am about to die, and that is the hour in which men are gifted with prophetic power. And I prophesy to you who are my murderers, that immediately after my death punishment far heavier than you have inflicted on me will surely await you. Me you have killed because you wanted to escape the accuser, and not to give an account of your lives. But that will not be as you suppose: far otherwise. For I say that there w ill be more accusers of you than there are now; accusers whom hitherto I have restrained: and as they are younger they will be more severe with you, and you will be more offended at them. For if you think that by killing men you can avoid the accuser censuring your lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or honorable; the easiest and noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves. This is the prophecy which I utter before my departure, to the judges who have condemned me.

Friends, who would have acquitted me, I would like also to talk with you about this thing which has happened, while the magistrates are busy, and before I go to the place at which I must die. Stay then awhile, for we may as well tal k with one another while there is time. You are my friends, and I should like to show you the meaning of this event which has happened to me. O my judges -- for you I may truly call judges -- I should like to tell you of a wonderful circumstance. Hitherto to the familiar oracle within me has constantly been in the habit of opposing me even about trifles, if I was going to make a slip or error about anything; and now as you see there has come upon me that which may be thought, and is generally believed to be, to the last and worst evil. But the oracle made no sign of opposition, either as I was leaving my house and going out in the morning, or when I was going up into this court, or while I was speaking, at anything which I was going to say; and yet I have often b een stopped in the middle of a speech; but now in nothing I either said or did touching this matter has the oracle opposed me. What do I take to be the explanation of this? I will tell you. I regard this as a proof that what has happened to me is a good, and that those of us who think that death is an evil are in error. This is a great proof to me of what I am saying, for the customary sign would surely have opposed me had I been going to evil and not to good.

Reflection

Overall I didn't find this assignment too hard but there were some issues that I came up against during the process. I wrote my speech on “The Apology” by Plato which is about Socrates giving an apology and defending himself while he is condemned to death. It was a little difficult to capture his theme and transfer it into my own words because the way we speak today compared to how we spoke back in the day of Plato is much different. The first thing I had to do was figure out which portion of the article was usable since the whole piece is too long to replicate. I chose this portion because he tries to convince the public and the council that he is innocent which I could relate to any hearing that would happen in the present. Then after that I had to decipher exactly what it was Plato was saying since you cannot simply read and understand what he says due to the grammar that was used back in those days. The ending was particularly hard to figure out because he tried to connect the fact that his conscience hadn't said anything about what had happened with why what he did was right.

I decided that for my topic I would use a hearing from the parking department because it fit in nicely with the original topic of Socrates on trial. One thing in particular that I felt was largely appropriate was the fact that many people feel that the parking departments judgment is wrong just like Socrates believed that the council was wrong. I tried to make it comical while at the same time keeping the same style of argument as Plato used. What I found helped best was to go through and read the speech again and as I went through the speech I picked out the main focus and general ideas that are presented. Once I had gathered enough information I took these general ideas and made up my story using the same guidelines.

What I found difficult in making this speech was more the memorization of it after I had written it. I have always found myself to be a good speaker because I research a topic and then go completely impromptu and just start talking instead of writing it out before hand. In this case I didn't have a hard time coming up with the speech but it definitely took awhile to get it memorized. Finding the right speech was also kind of an interesting task in that it was hard to take something so old and portray its style in a modern topic. I had to search for quite a long time to find this speech and then read through it to pick out the paragraphs that I would use for my analysis. However reading much of the actual speech and not just the section that I was doing helped the process along faster and I feel made a better overall project. Having more background on the argument then was just in the paragraphs I chose helped my understand what was being referred to and what ideas were being presented.

Some things I felt that I could have improved on was making my speech a little longer. The problem was that I picked a long section of a speech but once the content and style was pulled from it my speech was far more condensed. I think that the reason for this was that today we don't speak the same way and the grammar that was used in the past made for a longer way of saying something then it would take today. I also would have left more time for memorization of my material because as I mentioned earlier that was a hard thing for me to do and not something that I am used to. What I liked about my speech was that I felt I presented it well and tried to change up the ways I was talking when at certain parts of the speech such as when I called the parking department “assholes” I tried to give a dramatic pause at the beginning. Also I felt that I spoke loudly and clear enough for everyone to hear but kept a pace that made it easy to understand as well. Overall the project was interesting to me because I got to analyze something that was so old, whereas in most of my classes we analyze modern topics and political speech's which I find significantly less interesting than these speeches. I also like how we got to take the piece of work and re-write it and change it into what we wanted it to be versus just memorizing and old speech which is what I thought we might be doing. I felt that this was a fun project and the fact that I could take something serious and ancient and make it modern and comical made it fun while I learned about ancient rhetoric.

Chapter 7 Reading

 In Chapter 7 of Ancient Rhetorics the author discuses Pathos and its uses in rhetorical arguments. Pathos is a valuable asset because of the decisions it pushes us towards that we may not make in another situation. The book uses a good example of this from the film Troy where the king is trying to persuade Achilles to help him by using different pathos appeals such as to his greed and empathy. A common example of this found in Pullman, WA is fighting where many people would not commit assault against another if the right pathos is used ones choice can be swayed an example of this might be “talking shit” about a certain person or group of people. Pathos is also useful in sports when motivating a team the coach will apply pathos to get the players pumped up through applying this kind of argument to subjects of school or personal pride.

The power of pathos is demonstrated in the authors story about how the 9/11 attacks motivated the decision to support the war on terror whereas now that the shock and grief of the even has worn down the support is significantly less. I feel that it is the most important of the the three appeals when concerning politcs. You can only sway so many people with ethos or logos but the concept of pathos applies to everyone of all ages. We all have emotion from the day we are born and there are concepts that are common to everyone that incite those emotions, for example murder is a concept that incites emotion of the masses because the majority of us share the same response to murder due to our culture. This is why I think pathos is the most important political tool because instead of aiming at a particular group of people it stirs up everyone.

RT Borthius Reading

This reading contained a short biography about Anicius Manlinus Severinus Boethius. I'm going to start this blog out by saying that I thought his name was pretty funny and that I'm going to name my first born child Manlinus, however on another not it was interesting that this man considered himself to be a philosopher that accepted rhetoric as an addition to is work but not the focus and yet he produced famous rhetorical work. It even stated in the reading that one of his most important rhetorical books known as book IV of Topica Boetii was used as a textbook on rhetoric. However it was unfortunate that this scholar was unable to continue his work due to a suspected plot he was involved in that led to his execution by Theodoric the Great.

After the bibliography the author goes into a discussion of rhetoric and breaks down the different parts almost in the way one would break down a species of animal by dividing it into three different kinds of species judicial, demonstrative, and deliberative. Then the topic is broken down even further and it is described how if all of the parts are not met then it is no longer rhetoric and it is also explained how rhetoric must seek to argue. If one was simply giving a question and answer argument it would be an unbroken oration in which the adversary and judge are the same person. Overall it was mildly entertaining reading even though the last few pages seemed to be dressed up a little too much instead of just presenting the information we were asked to learn. The breakdown of rhetoric was very useful though because it gives you all the parts of a rhetoric argument that is needed to make it successful and accurate.

Chapter 5 reading response

 In chapter five of Ancient Rhetoric’s the author starts to discuss the idea of logos. He explains that logos is the rational truth that is found through examining issues. One of the factors involved in finding logos is the premise or the statement made before the argument commences on a topic. Then he makes a connection with the fact that in order to make a premise true it must follow with one of the many types of reasoning such as dialectical reasoning in which the arguer is less certain of the truth of the premise but is accepted because those who have previously accepted it are deemed to have been wise therefore making it true. This theory however makes very little sense to me considering the fact that just because someone is smart doesn't mean they are always right. For example teachers are deemed to be wise individuals and I got in a argument with a teacher in high school about student rights involving bathroom privileges. Most people believed her to be right because she was “wise” but I proved her wrong by showing her the law. A good point the author makes about rhetorical reason involving probability is that the human mind makes connections that seem reasonable and what should happen but aren't always right. He goes on to use the example that a small weak person will not attack a large strong person which we know is not always true. His examples of deduction are quite interesting as well and make much more sense than the way the last chapter was explained. He talks about how if A is B and B is C then C is A which isn't always true. An amusing example of this was how he used the apple slogan to explain how silly this theory is. Overall the chapter laid down a much better explanation then the last about its topic. I was able to retain much more information and felt like I was wasting a lot less of my time.