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.
One of the weird things about the ancient Greeks through about the Victorians was that they didn't have a conception of a true lifetime love -- I mean, they had it, but they didn't think it happend to most people or even many people. "Love" through the last century referred to something that happened in the first months or years of a relationship, and was then phased out by affection. The husband-wife bond of affection would be as strong as the companionship-centered love we see in married couples these days, but they didn't think of it as romantic love, not Romeo and Juliet love.
ReplyDeleteOn a totally different note, I remember when Aristotle was talking about fear, he was very careful to instruct people on whether or not to allow a tiny glimmer of hope. Maybe hope is part and parcel of fear, the way Aristotle talks about it -- not the opposite, but a tempering agent, like salt. Fear without hope produces a very different effect than fear with a little hope, or a situation that is bad but very hopeful. By itself -- that is, without fear or danger -- hope doesn't make much sense.
The closest I would come to the opposite of fear is maybe safety instead of hope, or comfort. I think that's what Aristotle refers to as confidence.
An interesting recurring theme in the speeches that you have cited here that inspire hope is what they target as their goals. To quote FDR from one of his famous speeches, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." These speeches that inspire hope could be interpreted differently not so much as to inspire hope as to dispel fear and give those listening the confidence to have that hope (rather than cowering from German bombers/Jim Crow laws/Apartheid). Left unopposed the fear will crowd out the hope, forcing it to be voiced only in secret. From a practical standpoint, I think an argument could be made that a speech meant to inspire hope is more a speech against fear (such as the fear that X will always drive us down) and providing the courage and positive reinforcement to act.
ReplyDeleteThe post you put about fear and confidence struck some interest in me. It seems odd that he describes confidence as inexperience or resourcefulnes. Is he saying that withought experience you are too dumb to fear something you ought to fear. Example being a child not knowing to not talk to strangers? I'm not sure if I like or dislike Aristotle's definition, but not it seems unfair to define confidence as not having experience, seems more like we should make the opposite of fear ignorance.
ReplyDeleteI think Aristotle may not have defined Hope as an opposite of Fear because of how strict he is in defining his emotions as complete opposites. That is, in Aristotle's view, confidence replaces fear and vice versa whereas hope (as you mentioned) can coexist with fear. I can imagine a scenario in which one might feel fear but retain hope i.e. a person who fears public speaking but hopes he'll do well. I think it's a little harder (but not impossible) to conceptualize fear and confidence together. For example, an experienced basketball player with a 90% free throw percentage is probably going to feel confident if he's fouled and thus would not feel fearful at all, although he might feel hope in conjunction with confidence.
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