When I titled this webspot "The Reluctant Rhetor," I had no idea that I would actually be spending so much time actually talking about reluctance. But I continue to be interested in (and a little amused by) the various shows of reluctance we've seen in the works of the Greeks and Romans. I assumed this was basically a thing of the past, but based on the number of questions in class that begin with something like "This is going to make me look stupid..", I don't know. Perhaps we're not that far from the ancients after all.
Seeing how consistenly hesitant these orators are makes me wonder, "Why the reluctance?" Is it simply a PR move to look modest? Perhaps it's just covering one's self just in case the speech doesn't go well? In the case of the reluctance of the elder orators compared to the eagerness of the young, it seems as though the reluctance is a simple sign of maturity and restraint.
Luckily, Cicero provides an answer to the question of reluctance in De Oratore. First off, there is the issue of silliness. Apparently there is nothing "sillier than to talk about talking," so of course a rhetor will be reluctant to do that (305). Further, an orator's modesty (as shown by reluctance) is not a disadvantage to the speaker, but rather something that bears "witness to his intergrity" (306).
So, it's good to have a bit of an explanation for this little issue that intrigues me. Perhaps next time I'll move on to something new. But don't get your hopes up.
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4 comments:
I'm a little lost. What kind of reluctance are you talking about?
Sorry Amy...my haste to get away from work jumbled my thoughts a bit. I'm referring to the self-deprecatory banter that precedes many of the speeches we have seen so far. For example, when Phaedrus wants Socrates to speak and Socrates acts as though he has nothing of importance to add to the discourse. That kind of reluctance. I mentioned the trend as part of my Aspasia response. It has always struck me as kind of odd, and it just keeps coming up. Again, my apologies for lacking clarity. If I gain a few minutes to myself today, I'll try to revise it.
I notice politicians and academics often use this same ploy. "I don't want to get into x right now" or "I'm not really qualified to talk about y." Bush is always saying things like "Well, I'm not an economist/military general/whatever." I think you're right that people consciously use it as a ploy to boost their ethos.
I assigned an article for my class to read by Michael Pollan: "An Animal's Place." This essay on animal liberation exemplifies a similar kind of reluctance. Instead of starting out his essay by giving credentials that show he is an expert in the issue, he actually portrays himself at the beginning as a very average guy who has not decided what he himself thinks about the issue. In fact, his narrative starts with him in a steak restaurant reading Peter Singer's Animal Liberation. But instead of taking away from his argument, this "open-minded" persona ends up identifying him with the reader. In this way, he doesn't lose his audience by being overly opinionated at the beginning. Throughout the essay, he as a person becomes convinced of his inevitable thesis through what he is reading and through his own logic. So the implication is that the reader, too, can come to the same conclusion through the same "logical" process. This essay is a clear example of how an apologetic/reluctant narrator can actually help the argument in some cases.
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