I mainly want to focus on what Aristotle says in the ethos parts in chapters 12 through 17, where he is describing the characteristics of men. I never really understood topoi and enthymemes and the like, and I still .. don't really understand them. So, instead, we shall discuss ethos.
In these 6 chapters, Aristotle breaks down 6 different characteristics of men: the young, the old, those in the prime of life, those with gifts of fortune, those with wealth, and those with power. Like the previous chapters from 1 to 11, Aristotle explores the characteristics of these types of men in order that the rhetor may understand the audience he is talking to and adjust his ethos accordingly. Aristotle himself says that "the hearer is always receptive when a speech is adapted to his own character and reflects it. Thus we can readily see the proper means of adapting both speech and speaker to a given audience" (Ch. 13, 1390a).
However, it seems that in mostly all of his explanations, Aristotle himself highlights all the negatives of these different types of men, and rarely any of the positives. With those in the prime of life as the exception, Aristotle speaks about the rashness of the young or the cynicism of the old (but he doesn't categorize himself as old yet!), focusing solely on the weaknesses of men as the things for a rhetor to appeal to. We can see that the young "like to be superior... easily deceived... and carry everything too far" (Ch. 12, 1389b). Even for the characteristics that the reader might think are positive like "believing in goodness" or "are trustful" are simply because they haven't experienced the harder parts of life (Ch. 12, 1389a).
Aristotle paints a consistent picture for the elderly, completely opposite from the young men. They are cynical and hardened, "think evil... are mean-souled... and are cowards" (Ch. 13, 1390a). Even the things that we may think of as good in this life, things to be desired like good fortune, wealth, and power, Aristotle leaves little room to be positive about. If one isn't wise enough to use these things for their own good, then they just become insolent and spoiled fools. The only place that we can think that Aristotle has any praise for is for those in the prime of life, but even then, Aristotle only speaks about it shortly and the best thing that these men in the middle place have is that they have moderation (which may indeed be high praise coming from Aristotle).
Why does it seem that Aristotle has such a cynical view towards life? If you are young, your high-mindedness and excitability will only diminish until you are a cowardly and hardened old man. If you are middle-aged or old, you’ve experienced the difficulties of life and there are only more to come. Even in my last blog post on Aristotle’s descriptions of emotions, it seemed that he believed the negative emotions were much more powerful than the positive ones.
Perhaps this is my hopefulness as a young person butting heads with the almost elderly Aristotle’s cynicism, but I have a hard time believing that an ethos only shaped to cater to the negative aspects of an audience will always be the most effective. It feels to me that Aristotle is simply teaching you how to take advantage of an audience’s weaknesses, instead of appealing to the positive aspects of their character.
I think you're pretty spot on about Aristotle teaching readers about how to take advantage of their audience's weakness. I'm not so sure that Aristotle is really all that cynical; personally I think he was fairly balanced in his characterizations of the youth and elderly. I think the heavy emphasis on negative characteristics of the audience was a way for Aristotle to not only illustrate the ways a rhetor should alter his speech but also critique the perceived "negative" characteristics of the young and old.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, our contemporary outlook might also be distorting our interpretation of Aristotle's characterizations. Aristotle does describe anger as a pleasant emotion while most of us today would generally describe it as unpleasant. Maybe some of what we consider negative characteristics of the young and old weren't all that bad in Aristotle's view?
I took Aristotle's analysis of ethos-by-age in a different perspective. While you can indeed interpret it as Aristotle saying that these are the flaws of certain age groups to be taken advantage of, one can also say with ease that these are things to be cautious about.
ReplyDeleteConsider for a moment the difficulty in explaining to a 17-year-old why he shouldn't participate in drag racing down deserted streets. To someone slightly older, it may be common sense, but he will be arguing against a sense of adrenaline and excitement inherent in the young person's mind, and must be prepared to speak in a way that appeals to them just as much if he wishes to convince him that this is a bad idea.
Is there really any point in reassuring people of the goodness of man? Most men think of themselves as good and it only follows that some of our actions are objectively good.
ReplyDeleteWhen you say, "I have a hard time believing that an ethos only shaped to cater to the negative aspects of an audience will always be the most effective," I think you misunderstand the intent behind Aristotle's philosophy. It is not to convince people of the futility of their actions, but rather it is meant to keep them on guard for when they do fall into these same, predictable patterns.
When Lord Acton famously said, "Power corrupts..." he did not mean no leader can ever do any good. It was a cautionary phrase, one meant to point out the shortcomings of man and the same, predictable pattern he follows when he assumes power without thinking critically about its implications.
It is only by criticizing ourselves that we can improve ourselves. It is only by acknowledging our shortcomings that we can have any chance of overcoming them.
For there is a danger in assuring men of their own goodness with trite platitudes. It blindsides people to their own flaws and sets them up for failure.