Overall I didn’t particularly enjoy Watts’ style of writing, I found it repetitive, and uninteresting especially when compared to some of the other reading we have been doing recently. However, there is one point that Watts brought up that I found particularly interesting. Towards the end of the article Watts states: “Political speeches often preserve the full story-list-sanction form through out their evocation of the past and their use of promises and warning to motivate particular courses of action in the present.” (Watts, 209) This concept got me thinking about the concept of collective consciousness. The collective consciousness is the idea of a unifying force that causes all members of a society have similar ideas.
Do politicians continue to use this ancient style of rhetoric because they know of it through thousands of years of rhetorical study? Or is this style of rhetoric (and any style of rhetoric really) engrained into the human consciousness?
Lets say that rhetoric is apart of the collective consciousness and it makes its self most prevalent in those with leadership oriented personalities, e.g. kings, priests, politicians. Which is why we find rhetoric, especially this story-list-sanction style that Watts explains, scattered throughout history. It is a very effective style of rhetoric that non-leadership personalities are susceptible to. Which make this story-list-sanction style of rhetoric very persuasive and highly effective when used as political propaganda.
In my own personal opinion in the realm of politics, I believe that story-list-sanction is effective because it utilizes the past, present, and future, The past gives evidence of the issues that our occurring today and the speaker speak to the future and provide either fears or hopes to their potential constituents.I don't believe it is because this people are susceptible to; I believe that this style of rhetoric is effective because it provides the most credible argument by giving examples of occurrences in the past as well as the present. This style speaks to the three appeals that people look for in speeches. Where I find people susceptible is in future portion of the speech or sanction; people are susceptible to the fears or promises of what is to come.
ReplyDeletePolitics and the rhetoric that politicians use is incredibly interesting because they are trying to reach out to such a broad audience. They have to convince people with everything from a high school education to a PhD to vote for them. Obviously the people with PhD's are a very small fraction of the voting population, but politicians also have to deal with wide geographic and socioeconomic differences as well. Story-list-sanction seems to have become a very formulaic method they all fall back on but obviously it works. Maybe this is the best way to persuade the most people? I get really disgusted when I listen to a presidential candidate and hear them say, "If I am elected president, I will do x, y & z, and then x, y & z will happen and I will do this because I believe in America!," and so on and so forth. But, I have studied rhetoric which all in all, most citizens haven't. So basically, I have no answers as to why this formula is used so successfully in politics but I do find it fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI will your question further to say that rhetoric's effectiveness is so profound because it reaches people subconsciously first, then consciously. There is a Ted Talk that actually discusses something along these lines. It was more geared towards success in business and marketing, but the premise is the same. The overall premise is that people make decisions on whether or not to buy a particular brand or be inspired by someone's speech based on how well the 'why' or 'motivation' behind the rhetoric reaches them emotionally. People will typically choose whether or not to accept the rhetoric if it's motivation matches theirs. It gives them the 'gut feeling'. It is only as effective as the similarity behind the goals behind the rhetor and audience member.
ReplyDeleteI will your question further to say that rhetoric's effectiveness is so profound because it reaches people subconsciously first, then consciously. There is a Ted Talk that actually discusses something along these lines. It was more geared towards success in business and marketing, but the premise is the same. The overall premise is that people make decisions on whether or not to buy a particular brand or be inspired by someone's speech based on how well the 'why' or 'motivation' behind the rhetoric reaches them emotionally. People will typically choose whether or not to accept the rhetoric if it's motivation matches theirs. It gives them the 'gut feeling'. It is only as effective as the similarity behind the goals behind the rhetor and audience member.
ReplyDeleteI think as humans we find what works through cultural patterns. These patterns of what works in culture I would say at some point comes from nature. So, I think we find what works within human nature and merely continue to use it. I think culture is constantly evolving and changing. Therefore we might all react to politics in similar ways, we just have different variables that change with culture. Variables such as technology. Anyway, I think our culture and how we do things can stay relatively similar, but we add other elements to our culture.
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