Introduction
Rhetoric is an ancient art, with a long and impressive history. Some of the most brilliant minds of any age—Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine—have practiced it and taught it. As classical schools have recovered the lost tools of learning, one of the rustiest has been rhetoric. Various approaches have been proposed to clean off that rust and return it to trusty service. These range from simply shoving the Ad Herrenium under a student’s nose to that put forward by authors Douglas Jones and Michael Collender, in Veritas Press’s A Rhetoric of Love, published in two volumes as the mainstay of a two-year high school course.
Rather than
follow the traditional method of using the Greek and Roman pagans, A
Rhetoric of Love (hereafter ROL) claims that it follows a
distinctively Christian approach to rhetoric: one based on the Bible (and
specifically Jesus as presented in the gospels). This allows them to move
beyond the taint of power or manipulation, and instead focus on bringing the
foundation of all believing activity—love—to bear on communication. It is an
intriguing idea, reminiscent of Augustine’s claim that one could learn
eloquence by merely studying the Scriptures. A thoroughly effective Christian
reworking of classical rhetoric would be something to applaud. But I believe this
ROL project, by poorly defining its terms, means, and genre, winds up
with several significant issues that quickly bog it down. These issues group
nicely under three major headings: first, definitional troubles and an
unworkable antithesis between love and power—what we might call paradigm
problems—mar the project’s scope and purpose. Second, practical issues would
render the text difficult to use in actual high school classrooms. Third, ROL
is not a “classical” textbook in most senses of the word, making it a poor
choice for the intended audience: classical Christian schools. Though the text
is graciously reasoned and wittily written, and has many praiseworthy points, I
would not recommend it to any classical school trying to craft a high schooler
into a rhetor; its flaws outweigh its foundations.
Paradigm Problems
The first major systemic issue of A
Rhetoric of Love lies at its heart: the definition of rhetoric. Rather than
rounding up the usual suspects, such as Aristotle’s “available means of
persuasion” or Quintilian’s “a good man speaking well” the authors produce the
following: “rhetoric is the art of using the best signs to convey a message to
shift people's attitudes.” This is well-intentioned; they wish to
save rhetoric from being merely the modern province of a skilled debate society…and
little else. But the definition given equates to communication simpliciter. Literally
any deliberate action taken by a human being can now be considered “rhetoric.”
The authors treat this as a modern improvement over the classical versions: “Through
the centuries, most definitions of persuasion and rhetoric have limited the
tools of persuasion to words. We now realize that many more things can help
persuade, so rhetoric must include more kinds of signs than letters alone.” Rather
than dealing mostly with public speaking, rhetoric must deal with all purposeful
communication and the skills necessary to accomplish it. ROL boldly sets
out to cover virtually anything that would make students effective
communicators—everything from how to master “small talk” to an entire chapter
on how to read facial expressions. Would some high schoolers (particularly the sheltered, shy stereotype) benefit
from such a wide-ranging course of instruction? Naturally. But even if this was
a feasible scope for a two-year high school course, the fact that this is
possible does not make it automatically profitable. And when the scope is yoked
to the books’ driving concept, it runs into serious trouble.
Douglas Jones begins
by structuring the course around a new insight: there must always be an inverse
relationship between “the way of love” and “the way of domination.” In chapter
one, he writes that “one [approach] seeks peace, one domination; one wishes for
the good of its neighbor, one tries to subjugate her.” He roots this approach
in St. Augustine’s City of God vs. City of Man metaphor, then traces it back to
Jesus himself. Classical Rome “knew how to weaponize rhetoric for purpose of
subjugating the Mediterranean…Jesus contrasts the domineering ethic of Rome
with His own way.” Rome waved spears and crucified rebels; Jesus was nailed up for simply loving
others, without a thought of force. Put simply, classical rhetoric is rooted in
domination, power, and manipulation; its goal is to win at any cost. A
Christian, by contrast, must serve in love, rejecting any opportunity to use
the weapons of the world. (We might call this the policy of strict pacifism
translated into principles of communication.) But framing the discussion this
way has a disquieting effect—for this means that classical rhetoric, as
practiced for millennia, has been using the tools of the enemy. Christians have
wielded power instead of love, and so we have become like our idols: “We flame
our opponents in Facebook posts. We talk about taking culture back from the
ungodly, especially by political means. We often repay evil for evil by
reversing the slogans and memes of our opponents. We return insult for
insult…we seem to be far more comfortable with the power rhetoric of Rome.” If
Jones’s reading of Scripture and rhetorical dynamics is correct, then many Christians
are in serious sin here (though he never explicitly says this). If he has
correctly interpreted Scripture and his sources, then we have a lot of work to
do, and his book is a crucial first step. But I rather think he has presented
us with a false dilemma—and viewing rhetoric through his split-level lens
results in a serious distortion of both what Christian love is and how
classical rhetoric operates, eventually rendering both incoherent.
Distorting
Love
First, we’ll
begin with love. ROL defines it as “empathy or indwelling” or “the will
and habit of giving oneself to another that life and union may increase.” This
means that there is a consistent emphasis throughout the text on dealing with
opposition on its own terms, and becoming intimately familiar with those terms.
If an audience has a different point of view, the rhetorician must come to
understand that view from the inside out before attempting to present his own
case, or he is not being “loving.” Of course, a communicator should always know
his audience, and the better he knows them the more material he will have for
persuasion. But asking him to “indwell” his audience before opposing them seems
to be asking too much, for two reasons. First, is this always something a
rhetorician should desire? To take an extreme example, how would someone
empathize enough with a serial killer to persuade him to turn himself in? Even
Jesus—the supposed paragon of this approach—seems to condemn some sins out of
hand without a thought for his audience’s viewpoint. To
require such complete identification seems to destroy the innocence of doves in
the name of being wise as serpents. It may also lead to overly emotional
analysis of the problem—how many church fights over the color of the carpet are
about listening more to the other guy’s carpet choices? Do we, as finite human
beings, even have the innate capacity to know most other humans to this extent?
Second, while
this level of audience knowledge may be possible in repeated, one-on-one
conversation with an individual, it is impossible to perform when speaking
publicly. A speaker can never account for every belief, background, and
assumption in an average auditorium—he must simply assume a few factors and
forge ahead. Otherwise, he would be paralyzed by the unknown. Individual
communication is always more complex—and more potentially costly. If you
communicate poorly to your wife, the result may haunt you for years; if you
communicate poorly to three teenagers in the twenty-second row, then your
speech seems a rousing success. The focus on empathy and love prioritizes the first
scenario (personal dialogue) over any others, leading to strategic incoherence
in the text.
For example, in ROL
we are told confidence in communicating your views is a bad choice rhetorically,
since it turns off your audience. That is, until it isn’t (which we learn from Joel Osteen!) since it persuades
your audience. Which is it? Again, assuming a universally-true standard of logic or logos
is presented as unloving, since “it compels something else to be the case or to
happen…in contrast, love extends an invitation, not a compulsion, to believe.” We
may not conclude that our opponents are idiots for failing to see the force of
our logic, it seems. But
in the same chapter, just before, we are told that “if God is love, then the logos
is love, if the Logos is love, then the patterns and inferences of love should
ultimately become our patterns for right reasoning. All things, even physical
laws, are held together by love.” This
is a lovely hypothetical syllogism—is it universally true? And if it is, can
you (or worse, God) fault a rhetorical opponent for not believing it? Which is
it? The authors assume that love mystically solves such trifles.
Second, viewing
love and power as necessary opposites creates more problems than it
solves. The text follows a very modern and libertarian view of power; defined
as “ability to control someone or something.” This is contrasted with persuasion: “a symbolic process in which
communicators try to convince other people to change their attitudes or
behavior regarding an issue through the transmission of a message, in an
atmosphere of free choice.” Note the concluding words: persuasion (or love) occurs in an atmosphere of
free choice. Power, by contrast, controls anything from viewpoint to
opportunity. If any form of dominance is present, free choice has been
destroyed, and with it “loving” persuasion. The classical rhetoricians are
accused throughout the text of being hopelessly dominant—they were, after all,
the rich, educated, popular, male, and successful residents of a ruling culture
that had harshly conquered the others around. This
binds them in a set of blinkers, forcing them to focus on all the wrong ways to
persuade—manipulation, mocking, clever tricks and lies. Power corrupts, and it
has corrupted classical rhetoric nearly absolutely. We should supersede it, say
our authors, with a rhetoric of love instead. Volume I opens with the example
of Desmond Tutu throwing his body over a mob victim to protect him from
violence during the tensions of apartheid in South Africa. It is presented as
an example par excellence of the rhetoric of love, not power. “When made to serve politics or philosophy or
a host of other ends, rhetoric becomes a tool of domination.” Tutu,
they say, persuaded his audience to take a different path to their mutual goal
(justice) by his wordless example.
But are we really
to conclude that Desmond Tutu—the highest-ranking black bishop in a
violently-segregated country, who had preached a funeral sermon mere minutes
ago to the (largely black) crowd he now defied— had no “power”? Had he no
political or philosophical end in mind? I doubt the same effect would have been
achieved by any random man off the street! Classical rhetoric has a better
explanation: his action succeeded due to his prior ethos—and his ethos gave him
power to control minds in South Africa. Cicero noted this effect long before: “It is not every sort of person who is worth
listening to…for it is a common belief that the talented, the wealthy, and
those whose character has been tested by a long life, are worthy of credence.” The mob obeyed Tutu’s wishes because of who he was, not just how he presented
those wishes. No human choice, in other words, is ever completely free of the
influence of others; power, in and of itself, cannot be opposed to love.
Otherwise no official of any government, from the family to the state, could
ever communicate anything righteous or loving, and our only option is a
sanguine anarchy of persuasive efforts. “Please pay your taxes—I understand why
you might not want to, I really do, but here are some good reasons why you
should. Are you persuaded?” pleads the new Christian IRS agent who took this
course three years ago. Power cannot be inherently opposed to love—it simply
changes love’s scope. A man with more power has the responsibility to
love more people, not less (Matt. 25). Jones and Collender are correct when
they assert that many powerful people, ancient and modern, abuse others with
it. But the solution is not to renounce the power, but to train it. Is that not
the whole point of a rhetoric course—to discipline the dangerous power of
persuasion?
Distorting the
Classics
For all ROL’s emphasis
on understanding and indwelling an opponent, its paradigm requires it to give
classical authors (as purveyors of power) short shrift. A familiarity with many
of the works quoted reveals that the ancients are often misrepresented; the
sidebars quoting classical sources are often cherry picked out of context. Consider
the frequent claim that classical rhetoric only seeks the good of the speaker
via domination. Cicero didn’t think so. “And they should study [rhetoric] more
earnestly in order that evil men may not obtain great power to the detriment of
good citizens and the common disaster of the community; especially since this
is the only thing which has a very close relation to both public and private
affairs, this renders life safe, honorable, glorious, and even agreeable.” In
other words, rhetoric was the safest route to safeguarding everyone. Of course,
this required virtue: “For from eloquence the public things receive many
benefits, provided only it is accompanied by wisdom, the guide of all human
affairs.” This is true of each facet in life—something a Christian ought to understand
before he comes anywhere near a rhetoric text. Virtue does apply to everything
you can do, including power over others. ROL seems to assert that love
may only work if it is explicitly named. But love is more like salt; its
absence is immediately obvious, but it should never be the only ingredient in a
dish.
What about the
fact that texts like Ad Herrenium recommend manipulating the judge to a
favorable verdict? We
must recall that all Roman court cases were conducted by citizens, which means
you would not go to the effort of prosecuting a case without a pretty high
conviction that the accused had actually done something wrong. Presumption of neutrality
before impartial judges is a Christian value, and requires a very different
court system. To accuse a Roman of “power politics” is to confuse a historical
fact with a moral one. What else, exactly, could he have done? Or consider the
howler asserting that stasis theory is about finding profitable vs.
unprofitable arguments: “Classical stasis theory seems to say that we may argue
profitably about anything that can be framed in speeches and arguments. The
biblical tradition, in contrast, doesn’t put much hope in the independent
competency of words—especially when fallen hearts and minds are involved!” But stasis theory is neither about invention nor speech in a sinful world
generally—it is simply a useful method of clarifying the point at issue in a
dispute.
Further
distortion occurs in discussion of classical arrangement. The traditional
placement of refutation later in the speech is seen as too little, too late:
“Only in the refutatio do we hear the first loud, clear voices from the other
side. What’s more, refutations sometimes dismiss those opposing voices too
quickly. Classical arrangement can foster this sort of low-tension approach to
a presentation.” Well, maybe it would if you were using classical arrangement to resolve a
dispute with your mother about green beans for dinner, and insisted on giving
her arguments virtually no air time. But simply because opposing views must
occur later does not mean they are not considered earlier. Every classic
rhetor shaped his speech from beginning to end with his opponent clearly in
mind. Arrangement was not about investigation—that occurred earlier. Yet the
authors seem to conclude that a refutatio’s sequence determines its relevance,
as it often would in a conversation. Once again, the text places the priority
on personal dialogue over public communication. In the classical eras, these were separate
arts: dialectic dealt with the intimate exchange of views in pursuit of truth,
rhetoric dealt with speaking at large in pursuit of the probable. Our authors
refuse to differentiate the two because of their sweeping definition of
rhetoric, leading to statements such as, “Socrates saw this pursuit of truth
through questioning as the heart of good rhetoric.” The author of the Phaedrus, if listening, might be appalled.
Now, all this
confusion stems from a good intention: Christians should think holistically, applying
our Christianity to everything we do; since God is love, this includes love. There
are objectionable elements in the pagans. This means, as Augustine noted in De
Doctrina Christiana, that there are aspects of ancient rhetorical thought
that a Christian need not embrace. No one ought to imitate Cicero when he is bragging, just as no one should
imitate the Pharisees when they are bragging. However, it is odd that
Christians had few to no issues with this system for two millennia, and Veritas
Press has suddenly found out that the whole affair is hopelessly compromised.
Why not join a better understanding of virtue to the pagan wisdom that exists?
Isn’t this the whole point of classical education in the first place?
Practical
Issues
But ROL’s issues
are not limited to the theoretical; it also has practical troubles that lead me
to question its classroom effectiveness. The two chief ones are poor sequencing
of topics in the course, and poor layout design. With regard to sequencing,
though the first volume begins well (covering the governing paradigm of power
vs. love, the need to persuade in general, and the authors’ “perspective
triangle” in the first few chapters) it quickly loses any sense of progression
after that. Stasis theory, usually a rather advanced technique in rhetoric due
to its abstract quality, makes an appearance in chapter five (mostly to be
brushed aside as too impersonal and unloving). Types of proof (such as ethos,
pathos, logos) make their appearance in the ninth chapter, followed by an
all-too-brief mention of the five canons of rhetoric (two pages!) in the tenth.
Then there is a break for a long chapter on “finding your artistic voice”
(shouldn’t that be either first, or last, depending on how romantic or
rationalist one leans?) before we finally find classical arrangement in chapter
twelve, which is again discounted as too impersonal. Rather, we should find
rhetorical arrangement in the very personal field of…architecture? Chapters 17-21 are a long digression on the scientific method (back to proof)
before we reach Aristotle’s three genres of rhetoric in Chapter 23 (again, to
discount them as inadequate). How to find and locate the main point of another’s
speech is chapter 31 (of 32), and the “true, good, and the beautiful” finally appear
two pages from the end—in a textbook devoted to what and how students should
love!
Poor layout
contributes as well. The chapters are titled with variations of the phrase
“Love…” (Serves, Wrestles, is Curious, etc.). By itself, this is merely
artistic, but it makes quick navigation to any particular concept difficult.
However, when combined with the text’s complete lack of an index, it becomes a
teacher’s nightmare—students cannot locate any topic or example on their own without
flipping through the entire text! Review is therefore nearly impossible without
an accompanying set of notes or handout. On the teaching side, ROL is
obviously designed to be used in complete, front-to-back method; woe betide the
teacher who tries to jump around the given sequence without an intimate grasp
of what is treated where. This may work great for a harried homeschool mother who has little time to do
anything other than plod through a text, but the veteran teacher who likes to
craft his lessons to match his own views should beware.
The two-volume
approach of the course takes both these concerns and exacerbates them. Volume I
is overwhelmingly theoretical, as the editors admit in the preface to Volume
II: “We developed volume 1 as a first-year text for learning rhetoric. Teaching
about rhetoric was to take up about 80% of its content; practicing
rhetoric, about 20%. Volume 2 was to be the opposite.” This
initial focus on “meta-rhetoric” was probably necessary due to the massive
restructuring of the topic the course attempts, but it has a downside. This theory/practice
division means that the student is somehow supposed to retain all the structure
and theories of year one long enough to really put them to use in year two. In
a highly practical skill like rhetoric, this seems seriously problematic. For
instance, classical arrangement (covered and discarded in two pages in Vol. I)
is built on in Vol. II, without preamble. Even assuming the student somehow
held on to his first volume (improbable) he still has no way to locate that
passage—the chapter titles are no help, and there is no index. Worse, because
of the wide range of the course’s definition of rhetoric, the second volume is
almost too practical. For instance, there is an entire lesson (a week’s
worth of classes, mind) on how to make small talk; another whole lesson on good
standing posture, complete with accompanying exercises! Does a school really wish to spend valuable class time on something a student
should have learned long ago, in other contexts?
It does have some
excellent points stranded amid the muddle. Volume I’s chapter on story
arrangement (“Love Serves”) is easily some of the best work in the course:
clear, memorable, and very helpful in a modern world where something is
competing for our attention every five minutes. The plethora of examples may
find a ready audience in the tech-savvy modern world, since they are
overwhelmingly from movies, TV, TED talks, and current popular figures. Printed
YouTube links provide students with accessible models and discussion topics.
There are enough references to scientific studies (on everything from brain
chemistry to how people express emotion to “patterns of life” in common architecture)
to make your back molars ache. This emphasis on the current and up-to-date is one of the texts’ strengths, as
it dives into showing students how to deal with the world they are immersed in.
Not Classical
But this leads to
my last issue with A Rhetoric of Love: it is not classical in its method,
content, or desired outcomes. It is published by Veritas Press (one of the juggernauts
of Classical Christian Education) which trumpets its dedication to the Trivium
all over its website. Since ancient rhetoric is part of that classical trivium, shouldn’t ROL be a proud piece
of that tradition? But instead, it is left aside, if not ejected entirely. Nearly
every time a part of classical rhetoric comes up (for instance, the five
canons, types of proof, arrangement, figures of speech, etc.) the book deems it
inadequate or wrongheaded, and proceeds to lay out a totally different system. This fits with both the expanded scope of “rhetoric” and the “power vs. love”
dynamic discussed earlier. Classical rhetoric deals with a narrow area of
expertise, and is thought to lie on the “power” side of the divide. Such a
subject cannot be more than a starting point at best, since it is
“inconsistent” with Christian love. Its own editors refer to it as a “yes,
but…” version of ancient rhetoric. As noted above, the disagreement portion of the course overwhelms the
agreement. I would contend that this is a brand-new system of rhetoric
masquerading as rooted in the classics. At best, it is vaguely Augustinian.
The fact that it can be regarded as
“classical” at all is probably due to Veritas’s wholesale adoption of Dorothy
Sayer’s “The Lost Tools of Learning” model, where rhetoric is a “stage” that “concerns
how the students present what they have learned.” This nicely covers both the expansion of the subject to mean “communication in
general” and its ability to avoid the classics while retaining the label. If
classical is an approach, and not any specific material, then Doug Jones may
revise it as much as he wishes—what is between the covers is immaterial, so
long as it works.
And what is between the covers is not
classical in content. The ultimate clincher of any theory or idea is an appeal
to the fundamental dogmatic of modern society—the scientific method. Over and over,
our science is the final court of appeal. “Aristotle’s definition of
rhetoric is helpful in many respects, but it overlooks key concerns in critical
thinking and science that we’ll be paying attention to in this book” runs a
representative sentence. Here’s
another: “Aristotle taught that words point to mental experience. Brain science
shows us how Plato and Aristotle are mistaken.” If
science doesn’t back it up, it doesn’t count. If science does back it up, we
can spend an entire lesson noting fifteen universal “Patterns of Life” from
architecture to apply to communication! Has no one in the past managed to
discover anything about humanity? If they did, students won’t hear it; since, as
noted earlier, ROL doesn’t let the ancients speak for themselves.
Despite modern examples drawn from movies or the news going on for pages at a
time, the longest excerpt from the classics is just under a page in length,
with virtually no supporting context. A student who had never read the classics could
be readily forgiven for thinking them abstruse, evil, and useless after
using this text; the various sidebars of quotes are rarely relevant to the current
lesson and often superficial. Far more time is spent discussing memes. “If we don’t engage these new media,
we will be crippling our young adults,” claim the creators. But do modern students really need so much training in how to use modern tools?
Should they not rather be exercised where they are weakest? Do you really want
to present a church that has parishioners make vows while throwing bits of
dynamite in a jet-fueled fire as the ultimate example of effective logos
in rhetoric? That seems to be prioritizing sound over substance.
Last, it is not
classical in desired outcomes. Martin Detweiler, president of Veritas, notes in
the Foreword to Volume I that:
“Rhetoric, what may be the model’s pinnacle discipline, has
not been taught the way it should…until now, most Christian rhetoric curricula
have merely applied Aristotle to Christian contexts. This sort of ‘pillaging of
the Egyptians’ has its places and times. Today’s rhetoric needs are not one of
them. Now is the time for a clear distinction. Jones reframes Augustine’s two
cities. He sees them as two different rhetorics—one of domination, one of love.
This text will train our children in classical rhetoric, but it will do more.
It will give them the tools and insights needed to be rhetoricians who love and
serve both God and neighbor.”
Notice the clear
differentiation of the 21st century from what came before. That use
of dominant structures might have worked
for the Roman Catholics, or the McCarthy Era. But now—we need Jesus (and Doug Jones)
instead. We do not dare let students near the words and works that
shaped Augustine, Boethius, Calvin, Milton, or Jefferson. They might be
contaminated by the focus on domination. In our modern, gloriously scientific
world, we need different principles for different times! But this is a rejection of one of the
basic foundations of classical education: the key is to teach a student to
think, using subjects and material that has stood the test of time. Here is
Sayers, whose insight Veritas professes to put into practice: “We often
succeed in teaching our pupils ‘subjects,’ we fail lamentably on the whole in
teaching them how to think: they learn everything, except the art of learning.”
If
you cannot trust a student to separate a little chaff from the wheat—to avoid
the temptation to use their newfound power for evil—then you’ve missed the
whole point of a classical education. Veritas would do well to remember its
first love.
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| For love is love, and power is power, and ne'er the twain shall meet... |
A Note for Starving Academics: this post was originally a graduate-level paper, and was luxuriously footnoted. Since footnotes on a blog seem pretentious, I have deleted them. However, if the original would be helpful to you, feel free to ask me.
