The RCL Blog of Owen Hall

In a televised event, the place element of civic engagement can be easily controlled. It’s simply the background of what is being filmed. This is what led an innocent speech about faith, generosity, and self sacrifice by Queen Elizabeth to garner much hate.

In the background of her speech was an elegant room with a golden piano in the center of it.  Some critics, such as Kevin Maguire, are enraged by someone who was born in luxury and never having to sacrifice anything talk about self sacrifice. Because of this, the speech has far less power over these people, most of the audience is not living in the luxury that the royal family is, so when they see the golden piano in the background, they cannot relate. “Out of Touch” they cry.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, where he defends protesting in the streets rather than just through court cases. In this case, the place is where he sent the letter from, prison.

King used many techniques to improve the reach and power of his rhetoric, one of which was his famous belief that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. With this statement he is trying to increase the audience to beyond those in Birmingham, he is saying that those outside this city should still care about what is happening there because it still affects them, being a threat to justice everywhere.

He took the rhetorical situation that was given to him to create a powerful statement that was relevant to all American people. In his location, he tells people to break unjust laws and shows that he does himself as he is in prison in contrast to the Queen who lives a luxurious life talking about sacrifice. Rhetoric works well when people act, or appear to, the way they speak.

Quintilian, a Roman educator, believes that “Rhetoric is the art of speaking well” or of a “…good man speaking well.” In contrast to some of the more complex definitions that have appeared in the Key words, this definition of rhetoric is simple. The most modern and common definitions of rhetoric talk about speaking effectively or persuasively, so from this version, the definition has not changed much in two millennia.

To speak well is not to speak fondly of a topic, but to speak of it in a way that attempts to convince someone, similarly to the ideas of Logos, Pathos, and Ethos, brought up in the Trust article. The definition indicates the man being good, which highlights the ethos aspect, if the person appears good and trusting, then they are likely to be listened to.

Kenneth Burke, a 20th century American literary theorist explains that “wherever there is persuasion, there is rhetoric, and wherever there is rhetoric, there is meaning.”

The article around this quote explains Burke to not be focusing on the content of the message and the language but how it is conveyed, which parallels the Criticism keywords, which explains how rhetorical criticism is not the breaking down of someone’s opinion as right or wrong, “but instead to understand what communicative processes are in play.”

Saying that wherever there is rhetoric there is meaning, also shows that whenever persuasive language is used, there is always a meaning behind it. While it is typically used to have someone agree with what is said, it sometimes can try to convince someone of something without outright saying what that thing is.

While the definitions of rhetoric vary significantly, the central idea remains the same, focusing on the idea of persuasion.