Rhetoric and Audience

I’m struggling this week trying to define what “good” rhetoric is versus “bad” rhetoric (“cookery” for Plato).

Aristotle defines rhetoric's function as "not simply to succeed in persuading but rather to discover the means of coming as near such successes as the circumstances of each particular case allow" (Herrick, p. 77). So that means that rhetors do not necessarily have to win people over, but they have to do the best they can given the situation to achieve this success. But where is that line? Who determines whether the situation only allows for a near success or that the rhetor is simply ineffective?

I keep mulling over the role of the audience and the expectations that are placed upon it; they should be engaged, thinking, participatory. Yet the assumptions Aristotle seems to make about an audience’s abilities don’t appear to give them that much credit. In Chapter 1 of Rhetoric, Aristotle discusses four reasons for the usefulness of rhetoric. The first two, however, seem to address assumptions about audience:

• 1) all things equal, truth will prevail, but since all things are not equal, rhetors are important to "advocate" true and just ideas
• 2) knowledge of audience is crucial as even true and just ideas will not be received if the audience's frame of mind does not match that of the rhetor

When the rhetor begins an argument, he or she has a goal-- to persuade the audience--and it seems to me that Aristotle sees the audience as less enlightened; it can't see what is "true and just" without guidance. Additionally, Aristotle's second point, that the message must match the mood, implies how easily an audience can be persuaded when the rhetor is in tune with his or her listeners. I suppose this should be obvious as only an elite few were trained rhetoricians in Aristotle's day, but I keep thinking about how we use rhetoric today and how the audience, in many circumstances, is as empty as many of our contemporary rhetors. But maybe it is not because people have become less “engaged” or less “enlightened;” from Aristotle’s viewpoint, the audience has always needed to be shown the way.

As an instructor, I have always recognized the importance of rhetoric and used it to “persuade” my students. And I make assumptions about these students, my audience. I assume they won’t see the truth without my guiding them. I do my best to “sync” our moods and divine common experiences to win them over. So I guess that just confirms my own assessment that I am more Sophistic than Platonic, but may Aristotle is too.