Aristotle defines rhetoric as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. He notes that this is not a function of any other art. He goes on to say that we look at as the power of observing the means of persuasion on almost any subject presented to us. Persuasion is power as I’ve become keenly aware in this most interesting time of polarized political and economic challenging atmosphere. As Aristotle asserts the power or the credibility comes from the hearer. As I listen, I judge. Has the speaker chosen to include me as part of their audience?
Of course, it’s not just what is being said it is the “art of the rhetoric” that lends to the credibility of the speaker. Aristotle speaks to the power of persuasion. President Obama is consistently blasted by some media outlets as disingenuous in the instances in which he uses teleprompters. However, he is engaging when he’s out in front of an audience with his sleeves rolled up seemingly speaking from the heart when in reality in all likelihood his answers are rehearsed.
We as the audience as hearers, gives the artist the power. We judge the speaker from our own personal vantage point of experiences and our individual truths. If the speaker is attempting to persuade a group to high achievement by reaching for the rainbow and there is a colorblind person in the audience, then the “art” of the persuasion of the speaker is to “paint” the colors with his words in a manner that the colorblind can imagine the colors even though he has no direct knowledge of it. Then the speaker is deemed credible by his audience and gains power through persuasion. It is the audience that defines and empowers the artist. As the audience determines the speaker is credible, he or she is then elevated to artist based on their power of persuasion and therefore legitimizing their power. Martin Luther King, Jr., is noted as saying he never wanted to be a leader in the Civil Rights Movement, but he was chosen by the people.
Biblically, Moses understood the power in the art of rhetoric:
And Moses said to the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor
since thou has spoken unto thy servant in the past nor since have you spoken to thy
servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. And the Lord said unto him,
Who hadth made man’s mouth? …Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and
teach thee what thou shalt say. And he said, O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand
of him whom thou wilt send. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses,
and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well…And
thou should speak unto him and put words in his mouth: and I will be with thy mouth
and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do. And he shall be thy spokesman
unto the people…Exodus 4:10-16.
Those who are truly gifted in the rehetorical art of persuasion, we empower as leaders and ordain them as prophets
