The Kennedy reading was pretty difficult for me to take seriously. At first, I was interested in what Kennedy had to say about the physical energy of rhetoric, that rhetoric is largely focused on the emotional and physical energy of what is said or of the actual speaker. However, when it became clear that his illustration on "animal rhetoric" was not just an illustration but the core of his theory, I began to question more and more the foundation of what his many theses were built upon. Not that I am such a great rhetorician or even that I did an extremely close reading of Kennedy's "Evolution of General Rhetoric," but my natural intuition is to basically reject almost everything he said about rhetoric.
First of all, Kennedy predicates all of his theses on the assumption that rhetoric is some kind of "energy," whether the physical energy of speaking the words or the emotional energy motivating the speaker. However, Kennedy does not do a good job establishing this premise of energy, simply giving a few examples and explanations. In general, the majority of Kennedy's theses and thoughts on rhetoric are relatively contrary to the traditional sense of rhetoric, so one might think it would be important to establish the foundation of rhetoric as "energy" well before building upon it. The idea of rhetorical "energy" in itself is an interesting theory, but when Kennedy tries to legitimize it with examples from "animal rhetoric," that is when he begins to lose me.
Somehow, Kennedy makes the jump from rhetoric to mean the basis of all communication, when the traditional sense of rhetoric would likely fall under the umbrella of communication. There are clearly ways to communicate beyond vocal noises -- touch or movement or what have you. Although the thesis of "rhetoric is prior to speech" may be an idea to explore, Kennedy's reasoning of seeing it in animal communication doesn't do a good job of establishing it as a thesis.
Even disregarding the entire animal rhetoric and rhetorical energy points, I also cannot accept Kennedy's second thesis: "the receiver's interpretation of a communication is prior to the speaker's intent in determining the meaning." Kennedy does not, at all, persuasively establish the truth of this theory. Again, it is something interesting that could be explored, but not with the examples of songbirds. It is difficult for me to accept Kennedy's ideas that the most basic response without intent or belief is the most prevalent thing in rhetoric and communication. After taking a philosophy of language class, it's clear that language and communication is extremely complex, and the speaker's meaning has a lot to do with the meaning of a phrase of language.
Even assuming that Kennedy is speaking about emotion as a base response to rhetoric or the energy of emotion as the basis of rhetoric, he neither proves nor argues well for the most fundamental principles of his theories. Generally, he doesn't touch on emotion much. Although there may be insights to be drawn from animal communication, suffice it to say that it is probably a stretch to apply the observations of animal "rhetoric" to the full level of human rhetoric, which includes such intricate and complex parts as invention, memory, delivery, arrangement, and style. Perhaps I missed the point, but animal rhetoric just doesn't have that much bearing on human rhetoric as I know it.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Smith and Hyde: sinners altogether or just one sinner?
Smith and Hyde have a very in-depth and compelling reading of Aristotle's argument about emotions and also Heidegger's idea of "Dasein." I think, for the most part, I agree with both of what they say about Aristotle and the importance of emotions and how to appeal to the pathe within an audience, as well as Heidegger's arguments that there is no "alone" without a "Being-with-one-another." Smith and Hyde's argument, it seems, is to say that the two ideas of Aristotle (emotion is fundamental to the human's sensibility) and Heidegger (the idea that all people are in some way connected to a group, or "the public") are connected with one another. That is, a rhetor can more easily appeal to the pathe within an audience if he can appeal to the mindset of the "public" as opposed to just a single individual.
In order to show this, Smith and Hyde give the example of Jonathan Edward's famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." They establish that Edwards used the rhetorical tool of identification to get the audience, his congregation, to identify with the mass of people that Edwards was directing his sermon to, that they are all in the same boat. Edwards basically says that not one of the people in the congregation is far from the fury of God's wrath. Then, after establishing them as the "public" or the mass, he can use imagery and appeal to Aristotle's pathe to instill fear, misery, hopelessness, and eventually move them to action. Smith and Hyde say that this appeal to the pathe is more effective because Edwards was able to get the individuals in the audience to all identify as one body or situation.
Though it may be true that in some cases, having the empathy of many other people is a powerful tool in evoking emotions, I'm not sure if this is always the case. I can think of many cases where evoking the emotions in a single individual may be more efficient than using the power of identification to make the person feel that he must do it as a part of the public. Take the example of sinners repenting to an angry God, for instance. Using Aristotle's criteria to evoke emotions, I could possibly be more effective in establishing an individual's sinfulness and evoking those same emotions simply by using Aristotle's criteria and knowing the circumstances from which the person would come. A drug addict may feel guilty about his drug use, and therefore be more compelled to change than from some generic sermon addressed at a congregation of other non-drug users. The same goes for the adulterer or thief or cheater. In these cases, appealing to the pathe in the circumstances of an individual would seem more effective than a generic address towards a public.
Now, I may be understanding Smith and Hyde's argument wrong, or perhaps they are not making as bold a claim as to say that evoking the emotions in a public is always more effective, but I think it's worthwhile to think about the individual appeal to someone's emotions than just the public. Edwards, however, was able to establish to his entire congregation that they were on the brink of Hell, and therefore a great change came about from his speech. Perhaps if the rhetor is able to make the congregation feel a certain emotion to an intense enough level, there will be a great empathy and unification of emotion. That is, most likely, when great and profound movements begin from the words of a powerful rhetor.
In order to show this, Smith and Hyde give the example of Jonathan Edward's famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." They establish that Edwards used the rhetorical tool of identification to get the audience, his congregation, to identify with the mass of people that Edwards was directing his sermon to, that they are all in the same boat. Edwards basically says that not one of the people in the congregation is far from the fury of God's wrath. Then, after establishing them as the "public" or the mass, he can use imagery and appeal to Aristotle's pathe to instill fear, misery, hopelessness, and eventually move them to action. Smith and Hyde say that this appeal to the pathe is more effective because Edwards was able to get the individuals in the audience to all identify as one body or situation.
Though it may be true that in some cases, having the empathy of many other people is a powerful tool in evoking emotions, I'm not sure if this is always the case. I can think of many cases where evoking the emotions in a single individual may be more efficient than using the power of identification to make the person feel that he must do it as a part of the public. Take the example of sinners repenting to an angry God, for instance. Using Aristotle's criteria to evoke emotions, I could possibly be more effective in establishing an individual's sinfulness and evoking those same emotions simply by using Aristotle's criteria and knowing the circumstances from which the person would come. A drug addict may feel guilty about his drug use, and therefore be more compelled to change than from some generic sermon addressed at a congregation of other non-drug users. The same goes for the adulterer or thief or cheater. In these cases, appealing to the pathe in the circumstances of an individual would seem more effective than a generic address towards a public.
Now, I may be understanding Smith and Hyde's argument wrong, or perhaps they are not making as bold a claim as to say that evoking the emotions in a public is always more effective, but I think it's worthwhile to think about the individual appeal to someone's emotions than just the public. Edwards, however, was able to establish to his entire congregation that they were on the brink of Hell, and therefore a great change came about from his speech. Perhaps if the rhetor is able to make the congregation feel a certain emotion to an intense enough level, there will be a great empathy and unification of emotion. That is, most likely, when great and profound movements begin from the words of a powerful rhetor.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Nussbaum and Walker: Reasoning with Katharsis.
Nussbaum and Walker both make a similar argument towards Aristotle's system of rhetoric -- emotions are intricately tied in with reason. However, they go about emphasizing emotion in different ways. Nussbaum argues that every emotion we have is centered on certain beliefs. Walker, on the other hand, argues the the emotional foundation precedes our reasoning. I'd like to explore more of Walker's ideas, especially what he says about emotional katharsis.
Walker begins his argument with an exposition on katharsis, first introducing it through its role in music. Katharsis, as Walker explains, is a kind of "purgation" or "purification"; when we hear music, we respond to it with some kind of emotional release. For example, in horror movies, we know that something bad is about to happen if we hear some kind of dissonance or tension in the music, and we have an automatic reaction anticipating something fearful.
Walker also gives us the analogy of medical katharsis, where some kind of pharmakon or remedy would cause medial katharsis, or a releasing of the bad "juices" in a sick person. However, emotional katharsis isn't a purging of negative emotions only -- it is simply a "forcing out" of certain emotions. In order to appeal to these pathé or emotions in a person, the rhetor uses the tool of rhetoric to "force out" these emotions.
Walker states his argument as such: basically all reasoning is pathetic reasoning, and rhetoric is meant to guide such reasoning by appealing to the emotions -- rhetoric is simply the pharmakon to cause emotional katharsis. He also says that this was not Aristotle's intention, who would have much rather preferred to have reason reign supreme over any of the emotions. Inevitably, however, emotions are our foundation of reasoning, our quickest and basest response to the things around us.
I thought that this was an interesting and new way to look at Aristotle's Rhetoric, or pathetic appeals at all. We generally have the modern view that emotions are irrational and should be discarded in our reasoning, but it makes sense that emotions are the foundation of our reasoning. Perhaps they are not always right or appropriate, but we respond in these physiological and psychological ways for a reason; perhaps our body and brain work faster than our consciousness. Before we can say, "Oh, there is a masked man standing next to me with a big knife... I think I should be scared," our body does the work for us with a knee-jerk reaction of fear and panic. The brain has already processed it: run for your life.
Rhetoric has such a bad rap as a manipulating and persuasive tool used by bad people to make the masses do what they want. People are right to be afraid: if an effective rhetor has the ability to raise up emotional katharsis in people, that rhetor can control an audience's base reactions. That is likely why Walker also talks about an ethical approach to this idea of emotional katharsis; the rhetor must be responsible with how he uses his pharmakon of rhetoric, just like a doctor must be responsible with how he administers medicine to his patients. This is perhaps a topic for another day. For now, I think that we can agree that emotion is intimately tied in with any type of reasoning or reaction that we have. Whether it is a good or bad thing, depends wholly on the situation and the rhetor.
Walker begins his argument with an exposition on katharsis, first introducing it through its role in music. Katharsis, as Walker explains, is a kind of "purgation" or "purification"; when we hear music, we respond to it with some kind of emotional release. For example, in horror movies, we know that something bad is about to happen if we hear some kind of dissonance or tension in the music, and we have an automatic reaction anticipating something fearful.
Walker also gives us the analogy of medical katharsis, where some kind of pharmakon or remedy would cause medial katharsis, or a releasing of the bad "juices" in a sick person. However, emotional katharsis isn't a purging of negative emotions only -- it is simply a "forcing out" of certain emotions. In order to appeal to these pathé or emotions in a person, the rhetor uses the tool of rhetoric to "force out" these emotions.
Walker states his argument as such: basically all reasoning is pathetic reasoning, and rhetoric is meant to guide such reasoning by appealing to the emotions -- rhetoric is simply the pharmakon to cause emotional katharsis. He also says that this was not Aristotle's intention, who would have much rather preferred to have reason reign supreme over any of the emotions. Inevitably, however, emotions are our foundation of reasoning, our quickest and basest response to the things around us.
I thought that this was an interesting and new way to look at Aristotle's Rhetoric, or pathetic appeals at all. We generally have the modern view that emotions are irrational and should be discarded in our reasoning, but it makes sense that emotions are the foundation of our reasoning. Perhaps they are not always right or appropriate, but we respond in these physiological and psychological ways for a reason; perhaps our body and brain work faster than our consciousness. Before we can say, "Oh, there is a masked man standing next to me with a big knife... I think I should be scared," our body does the work for us with a knee-jerk reaction of fear and panic. The brain has already processed it: run for your life.
Rhetoric has such a bad rap as a manipulating and persuasive tool used by bad people to make the masses do what they want. People are right to be afraid: if an effective rhetor has the ability to raise up emotional katharsis in people, that rhetor can control an audience's base reactions. That is likely why Walker also talks about an ethical approach to this idea of emotional katharsis; the rhetor must be responsible with how he uses his pharmakon of rhetoric, just like a doctor must be responsible with how he administers medicine to his patients. This is perhaps a topic for another day. For now, I think that we can agree that emotion is intimately tied in with any type of reasoning or reaction that we have. Whether it is a good or bad thing, depends wholly on the situation and the rhetor.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Visual Analysis Revised/Final
After looking through a few websites that had lists of interesting or creative print advertisements, several ads from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) caught my eye. I found a list of 55 WWF ads all together in one place, and decided to pick this one of a “homeless” tiger – just one in a series of many similar ads. The list of 55 ads was on speckyboy (http://speckyboy.com/2009/04/16/55-inspiring-creative-and-potent-ads-from-the-wwf/), an online design magazine. The context of a design magazine tells us that those readers probably were not the ad’s original intended audience.
A first look at this image provokes the emotions of sadness, pity, disgust, and surprise. It really depends on the viewer to see how powerful these emotions may manifest themselves, as in, how high the viewer holds animals like tigers and elephants. The makers of the ad likely wanted readers to primarily feel the emotions of pity and sadness towards this situation. We generally relate to tigers as noble, elegant, and almost regal, but in this image, the tiger is laying sadly and helplessly in the open. It is a debilitating and humiliating position for any animal: surrounded by trash in a lackluster environment. It seems like a high-traffic pedestrian area, and most people are just passing by, with one person looking down on the tiger. With the image being black and white, the contrast from harsh light to gloomy gray is emphasized. We miss all of the rich colors of the tiger, and all of this contributes to the dreariness and feelings of helplessness in the picture. All the emotions that we would (or should?) feel towards a helpless and homeless person, like pity and sadness, are applicable to this ad. The element of surprise comes as we see the tiger take the place of a homeless person.
There’s also a pathetic appeal from the short phrase at the bottom of the advertisement. It states in four succinct words: “mindless deforestation wrecks homes.” The message is clear: human deforestation destroys the natural environments of wild animals. However, the authors use powerful and emotional words to evoke more out of the viewer. Deforestation isn’t just bad, it is mindless. It gives the connotation that deforestation isn’t necessary, and that the people responsible for deforestation aren’t giving any thought to the plight of the wild animals. Also, animals don’t just lose their homes, but their homes are wrecked. This simple phrase of emotionally charged text coupled with the mix of emotions in the visual appeal clearly states the argument of the advertisement: deforestation causes tragedy for wild animals, removing them from their homes, and you should do something about it.
The advertisement urges the viewer to do something to help the tiger. Obviously, it’s not a real situation, and even if it was, you couldn’t physically go to the place to help the tiger. The only logical behavior left is surely what the authors of the ad intended: to support their cause of wildlife preservation through the donation of money. Other than the phrase at the bottom, there isn’t any additional text on the ad, but the brand and logo of WWF are in the top left corner. The everyday viewer doesn’t have a direct hand or influence in deforestation, so it’s clear that donation is the simplest path to supporting the cause.
As for the interpretation, we have all the common reactions of pity and disgust (not towards the subject but towards the situation) towards homelessness, but it is increased by the presence of a noble animal like the tiger. Our interpretation is: “This is wrong! A tiger shouldn’t be subject to conditions like this, but deserves to be in the wilderness.” It is emphasizing the reality that animals deserve to live in their natural habitats, and deforestation destroys that possibility. In order to stop this, the World Wildlife Fund is asking the viewer to donate to their fund in order to save the animals.
However, as I was thinking about this ad and looking at it more in depth, I was hit with another level of sadness and disappointment. Our interpretation is that such a noble animal like a tiger doesn’t deserve to live in abject poverty and humiliating circumstances like we can see above, but what about a human being? As I said before, the emotional potency of this ad depends on how the viewer values animals. The ad includes an element of surprise because of the tiger in an uncommon habitat, but generally, we are desensitized to the plight of homeless people. Like the people passing by the tiger in the ad, we would likely pass by this ad if it was a typical homeless person in this situation and not a tiger.
As for Aristotle’s stereotypical types, this advertisement doesn’t really appeal directly to any age group or even any certain class. It could be argued that young people who are quickly passionate and believe in goodness fit the mold of who this advertisement might appeal to, according to Aristotle. The anger and passion of this image, if strong enough, could spur a young person to take up the cause of wildlife preservation in a radical way. Of course, more generally, the WWF would prefer that the advertisement moves wealthy people to donate to their cause, but nothing in the ad is particularly targeting wealthy people. As with most all of the WWF advertisements, they hope to target people who have high regard towards animals and their conditions, and who want to make a change through their advocacy and donation.
In general, this advertisement is memorable because of the surprise factor of seeing a wild animal in a position of humiliation and homelessness. We should feel sadness and disgust towards this situation, and therefore the advertisers from the WWF were successful in arguing their point. The advertising campaign of animals in decrepit homeless environments has an effective pathetic appeal.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Visual Analysis Draft
After looking through a few websites that had lists of interesting or creative print advertisements, several ads from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) caught my eye. I found a list of 55 WWF ads all together in one place, and decided to pick this one of a “homeless” tiger – just one in a series of many similar ads. The list of 55 ads was on speckyboy (http://speckyboy.com/2009/04/16/55-inspiring-creative-and-potent-ads-from-the-wwf/), an online design magazine. The context of a design magazine tells us that those readers probably weren’t the ad’s original intended audience.
The emotions that the image provokes are sadness, pity, disgust, and surprise. It really depends on the viewer to see how powerful these emotions may manifest themselves, as in, how high the viewer holds animals like tigers and elephants. It’s clear that the makers of the ad want the viewer to feel pity and sadness towards this situation, perhaps as we should for any debilitated “animal” in such a humiliated position. The ad is in black and white, with the tiger laying sadly and helplessly in the open. It seems like a high-traffic area, and most people are just passing by, with just one pedestrian looking on at the tiger. All the emotions that we would (or should?) feel towards a helpless and homeless person, laying in an open area, are applicable to this ad. The makers add the element of surprise by substituting a tiger with a homeless person.
The behavior that the authors of the ad want is to support their cause of wildlife preservation through the donation of money. There isn’t additional text on the ad, but only the brand and logo of WWF in the top left corner. Also, they aim to educate or raise awareness of what deforestation does to wild animals: displaces them from their homes. The everyday viewer doesn’t have a direct hand or influence in deforestation, so it’s clear that donation is the simplest path to supporting the cause.
As for the interpretation, we have all the common reactions of pity and disgust (not towards the subject but towards the situation) towards homelessness, but it is increased by the presence of a noble animal like the tiger. Our interpretation is: “This is wrong! A tiger shouldn’t be subject to conditions like this, but deserves to be in the wilderness.” It is emphasizing the reality that animals deserve to live in their natural habitats, and deforestation destroys that possibility. In order to stop this, the World Wildlife Fund is asking the viewer to donate to their fund in order to save the animals.
However, as I was thinking about this ad and looking at it more in depth, I was hit with another level of sadness and disappointment. Our interpretation is that such a noble animal like a tiger doesn’t deserve to live in abject poverty and humiliating circumstances like we can see above, but what about a human being? As I said before, the emotional potency of this ad depends on how the viewer values animals. The ad includes an element of surprise because of the tiger in an uncommon habitat, but generally, we are desensitized to the plight of homeless people. Like the people passing by the tiger in the ad, we would likely pass by this ad if it was a typical homeless person in this situation and not a tiger.
As for Aristotle’s stereotypical types, this advertisement doesn’t really appeal directly to any age group or even any certain class. Of course, the WWF would prefer that the advertisement moves wealthy people to donate to their cause, but nothing in the ad is particularly targeting wealthy people. As with basically all of the WWF advertisements, they hope to target people who have high regard towards animals and their conditions, and who want to make a change through their advocacy and donation.
In general, this advertisement is memorable because of the surprise factor of seeing a wild animal in a position of humiliation and homelessness. We should feel sadness and disgust towards this situation, and therefore the advertisers from the WWF were successful in arguing their point, but perhaps the deeper question is why we are shocked at animal “homelessness” and not humans in homelessness. A simple ad exactly like this but substituted with a person would not have the same effect. Perhaps it could be argued that if we have enough money to support efforts against deforestation for the conservation of wildlife, we may want to start thinking about the reality of poverty for the many millions of humans.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Aristotle's Rhetoric, Book II: 12-26 -- A Cynicism Towards Life
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.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Aristotle's Rhetoric, Book II: 1-11
As I was reading through the first 11 chapters of Book II, I was trying to determine which of the 10 emotions that Aristotle explores is the most powerful emotion, at least to me. Which of these emotions, if actually aroused in me through rhetoric, would be effective in galvanizing me to take action? I tried to remember if I ever felt (or could possibly feel) that a rhetor made effective use of emotional appeals, enough to make me remember succinctly and do something about it as well. Aristotle does pick an impressive array of some of the most powerful emotions: shame, love, fear, and indignation, to name a few.
Aristotle picks anger first for a reason and delves into the emotion of anger with much depth, but personally, I'm not much of an angry person. Instead, I feel that positive emotions would have the most effect on me. For the most part, Aristotle explains the opposing positive emotion in regards to every negative emotion, but in many of his explanations, it seems that the negative emotion is the more powerful for Aristotle. For example, one might think that the emotion of Love (and it seems that Aristotle explores Love in terms of Friendship) would be particularly strong. Instead, Aristotle simply explains the cause of friendship as "doing favors without being asked; and doing them without publishing the fact - for thus the recipient thinks they are done for his sake, and from no ulterior motive" (Ch. 4, 1381b). This seems to be a pretty mild representation of even friend love, but Aristotle's words about hatred carry a much further emphasis: "And whereas anger may be cured by time, hatred is incurable. Again, the aim of anger is to give pain, while the aim of hatred is harm; the angry man wishes his victim to feel, but to hatred this makes no difference... The angry man wishes the object of his anger to suffer in return; hatred wishes its object not to exist" (Ch. 3, 1382a). Aristotle's explanation of hatred seems to be much more intense compared to the mild explanation of love.
This is true of Aristotle's insight on Fear and Confidence as well. Aristotle defines Fear as "a pain or disturbance arising from a mental image of impending evil of a destructive or painful sort" (Ch. 5, 1382a). He goes on to explore this definition at length, describing the many ways that men fear suffering. For Aristotle, the opposite of fear is confidence, which Aristotle explains is caused by "inexperience [or] resourcefulness" (Ch. 5, 1383a). From this reading, it certainly seems that Aristotle believes fear to be the more powerful emotion of the two.
However, I came to wonder if confidence is the correct opposite of fear as we normally think about it. For myself, if asked the question, "What is the opposite of fear?" I would be inclined to answer Hope. As I said, I think that positive emotions can be more galvanizing and convicting for audiences than negative ones. An audience that feels fear will do what is necessary to avoid suffering; an audience that feels a great hope will go beyond the status quo in pursuit of that hope. Obviously, I was surprised that Aristotle skipped over an emotion that I believe is very powerful.
Perhaps Aristotle is correct in citing Confidence as the opposite to Fear as he defines it; if fear is simply about a suffering, then to not be afraid of suffering would be confidence. Nevertheless, it still remains that Aristotle does not really talk about Hope. If I think about the great speeches of modern history, the ones that are the most memorable are the ones that incite great hope. Martin Luther's "I Have A Dream," Winston Churchill's speech at the beginning of WWII, Nelson Mandela, and FDR are some that come to mind.
In general, I am curious as to why Aristotle left Hope out of his list of emotions, and what he would say if he had considered it in the Rhetoric. It is clear that Hope is an emotion that many great rhetors use, and I am inclined to say that it may be more powerful than any of the emotions listed in these 11 chapters of Book II.
Aristotle picks anger first for a reason and delves into the emotion of anger with much depth, but personally, I'm not much of an angry person. Instead, I feel that positive emotions would have the most effect on me. For the most part, Aristotle explains the opposing positive emotion in regards to every negative emotion, but in many of his explanations, it seems that the negative emotion is the more powerful for Aristotle. For example, one might think that the emotion of Love (and it seems that Aristotle explores Love in terms of Friendship) would be particularly strong. Instead, Aristotle simply explains the cause of friendship as "doing favors without being asked; and doing them without publishing the fact - for thus the recipient thinks they are done for his sake, and from no ulterior motive" (Ch. 4, 1381b). This seems to be a pretty mild representation of even friend love, but Aristotle's words about hatred carry a much further emphasis: "And whereas anger may be cured by time, hatred is incurable. Again, the aim of anger is to give pain, while the aim of hatred is harm; the angry man wishes his victim to feel, but to hatred this makes no difference... The angry man wishes the object of his anger to suffer in return; hatred wishes its object not to exist" (Ch. 3, 1382a). Aristotle's explanation of hatred seems to be much more intense compared to the mild explanation of love.
This is true of Aristotle's insight on Fear and Confidence as well. Aristotle defines Fear as "a pain or disturbance arising from a mental image of impending evil of a destructive or painful sort" (Ch. 5, 1382a). He goes on to explore this definition at length, describing the many ways that men fear suffering. For Aristotle, the opposite of fear is confidence, which Aristotle explains is caused by "inexperience [or] resourcefulness" (Ch. 5, 1383a). From this reading, it certainly seems that Aristotle believes fear to be the more powerful emotion of the two.
However, I came to wonder if confidence is the correct opposite of fear as we normally think about it. For myself, if asked the question, "What is the opposite of fear?" I would be inclined to answer Hope. As I said, I think that positive emotions can be more galvanizing and convicting for audiences than negative ones. An audience that feels fear will do what is necessary to avoid suffering; an audience that feels a great hope will go beyond the status quo in pursuit of that hope. Obviously, I was surprised that Aristotle skipped over an emotion that I believe is very powerful.
Perhaps Aristotle is correct in citing Confidence as the opposite to Fear as he defines it; if fear is simply about a suffering, then to not be afraid of suffering would be confidence. Nevertheless, it still remains that Aristotle does not really talk about Hope. If I think about the great speeches of modern history, the ones that are the most memorable are the ones that incite great hope. Martin Luther's "I Have A Dream," Winston Churchill's speech at the beginning of WWII, Nelson Mandela, and FDR are some that come to mind.
In general, I am curious as to why Aristotle left Hope out of his list of emotions, and what he would say if he had considered it in the Rhetoric. It is clear that Hope is an emotion that many great rhetors use, and I am inclined to say that it may be more powerful than any of the emotions listed in these 11 chapters of Book II.
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