(3) Epideictic rhetoric about civic values involving good values versus values not deemed to be good (also known as "evil").
In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses personal values and the cultivation of virtue. Even though both Plato and Aristotle lived centuries before St. Paul and St. Augustine conspired to construct the concept of so-called original sin, both Plato and Aristotle understood that we are not born virtuous.
We Americans today still have (1) legislative assemblies in which deliberative rhetoric is used and (2) law courts to adjudicate charges made against someone in which forensic rhetoric is used and (3) public occasions for speeches about civic values in which epideictic rhetoric is used.
Aristotle also differentiates three different appeals used by civic orators:
(A) The logos appeal (appeals to rational argumentation).
(B) The pathos appeal (roughly emotional appeals).
(C) The ethos appeal (roughly credibility).
In terms of civic rhetoric in American culture today, most Americans would recognize (A) that rational argumentation may still be detected (Aristotle's logos appeal) and (B) that emotional appeals to anger, contempt, or patriotism, for example, may still be detected (Aristotle's pathos appeal) and (C) that the speaker's (or writer's) credibility may still be detected (Aristotle's ethos appeal).
Simply stated, an orator's or an author's ethos appeal involves the person's qualities that positively impress us and compel our attention and interest in whatever she or her has to say. Typically, the person's positive ethos somehow triggers something in us (in our psyches) that enables the person to pass muster as it were with us as trustworthy and thereby enables us to make a positive archetypal projection on to the person. (In my op-ed piece "Profiling Oppo-Appeals in the Match-up of Donald J. Trump and Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016" at OpEdNews.com [dated March 6, 2016], I have explained that we may project "shadow" forms of the archetypes on to certain persons.)
But making such a positive archetypal projection on to a person does not necessarily make us uncritical of the person and what she or he has to say. However, as we might expect, experience often shows that our trust was misplaced, because the person and/or what she says do not turn out to be trustworthy. As a result of such disappointing experiences, we have to mourn our loss involving our misplaced trust in a healthy way.
Now, for understandable reasons, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle was not familiar with the ancient Hebrews. Under the leadership of the prophet Moses, the ancient Hebrews had collectively entered into an experiment in a form of government known as the covenant. But the covenant form of government had evolved over the centuries before Amos and certain other prophets articulated the theme known in American culture today as social justice (also known as distributive justice). Rhetoric about social justice is epideictic rhetoric.
In the ancient Greek culture out of which Plato and Aristotle emerged, a concept of legal justice emerged -- for example, in Plato's Republic. For a philological study of the ancient Greek concept of justice that emerges in Plato's Republic, see the classicist Eric A. Havelock's book The Greek Concept of Justice: From Its Shadow in Homer to Its Substance in Plato (Harvard University Press, 1978).
In any event, Amos and certain other ancient Hebrew prophets (such as Jeremiah) claimed to be speaking for the monotheistic deity of the Hebrews (also known as God). In this way, the ancient Hebrew prophets established their credibility (Aristotle's ethos appeal) for speaking out to their fellow Hebrews. Characteristically, Amos expresses anger, blame, shame, and contempt (Aristotle's pathos appeal) as he urges his co-religionists to choose a more elevated path to follow (Aristotle's logos appeal).
As the example of Amos' public oratory to his co-religionists can be described in the terminology that Aristotle uses to describe the basic appeals used in Greek oratory. However, for understandable reasons, we Americans today might invoke the admittedly limited experiment in participatory democracy in ancient Athens. We might also invoke the theme of social justice pioneered by Amos and certain other ancient Hebrew prophets. But for Amos and the other prophets who pioneered the theme of social justice, social justice was connected with the covenant. Granted, when we Americans today invoke the common good, we are tending implicitly toward something like the ancient Hebrew idea of the covenant.
Now, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, mentioned above, has accentuated the theme of the covenant in several of his books, including The Politics of Hope, 2nd ed. (Vintage, 2000), The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations (Continuum, 2002), To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility (Schocken Books, 2005), and The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning (Schocken Books, 2011).
QUESTION: Could a secularist theory of covenant be formulated without reference to God or a specific monotheistic religious tradition? Arguably the spirit of fraternity expressed in connection with the French Revolution expressed something akin to a secular spirit of covenant. Tragically, the French Revolution did not work out as well as the American Revolution -- nor did the various communist revolutions in Russia and China and elsewhere.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
