Good Rhetoric

“Truthiness” is only one of the forms of rhetorical misdirection you have to look out for as you follow what’s going on in Washington—assuming you have’t given up already. Image Source: Roger Pielke Jr.

Why would I lie when there are so many ways to tell the truth?
—Unknown

When I studied communication in college, I had to take a course called Rhetoric and Communication. There I learned a simple trick to understand the truth of what people say in political discourse. It is a simple adage, “Good rhetoric denies itself.” It means we are more likely to believe a persuasive argument if the speaker says he is not trying to persuade us or, as is more common in today’s propagandized sound bytes, states a blatant untruth that feels right. To use a term Stephen Colbert coined, this last bit is called “truthiness.”

Here are a few examples of good rhetoric denying itself. Forgive me if I use Shakes twice from the same speech. It’s just that the Forum Speech uses almost every rhetorical device known to man.

• “I am no orator, as Brutus is, But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man....”
  Mark Antony disparages his own speaking ability to put the crowd at the forum at ease before delivering one of the most persuasive, eloquent orations in the English language.
• “I have come here to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”
  Of course, Mark Antony goes on to paint Caesar in a light that would make Oprah seem vile by comparison.
• “Reason, not rhetoric will win this campaign.”
  As Max Atkinson says, “So here he was using an alliterative contrast, one of the most important of all rhetorical techniques, to tell us that there wouldn’t be any rhetoric from the SDP.”
• “I’m the least racist person you will ever interview.”
  Need I say more.