The Art of Manliness - #639： Why You Should Learn the Lost Art of Rhetoric

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:10.800 For thousands of years, the study of rhetoric was a fundamental part of a man's education.

00:00:15.460 Though it ceased to be commonly taught in the 19th century, my guest today argues that

00:00:19.140 it's an art well worth reviving in the modern day.

00:00:21.560 His name is Jay Heinrichs, and he's an expert in language and persuasion and the author

00:00:24.880 of Thank You for Arguing, What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About

00:00:29.280 the Art of Persuasion.

00:00:30.520 Jay and I begin our conversation with a description of what rhetoric is, why after being taught

00:00:34.520 around the world for centuries, it fell out of favor as a component of education, and why

00:00:37.940 it's still essential for everyone, especially leaders, to learn.

00:00:40.760 We then unpack the difference between fighting and arguing, and how it's the latter that's

00:00:44.580 a lost art, especially in our digital age.

00:00:46.440 From there, we discuss each of Aristotle's three tools of rhetoric, ethos, pathos, and

00:00:50.200 logos, including a dive into how the way your audience sees your character is so important,

00:00:54.080 and how you can even do an ethos analysis of your resume.

00:00:56.220 We then delve into Cicero's five canons of rhetoric, and Jay shares a smart technique

00:01:00.220 from memorizing a presentation and thus delivering it more persuasively, and we enter a conversation

00:01:04.120 with a fun game you can play to sharpen your rhetorical skills.

00:01:06.960 After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash rhetoric.

00:01:18.560 All right, Jay Heinrichs, welcome to the show.

00:01:23.320 Thanks, Brett.

00:01:24.000 So you are the author of a book called Thank You for Arguing, it's one of your books you've

00:01:29.140 written, but you're basically this, you've become this expert on rhetoric, and we're

00:01:33.380 going to talk about what rhetoric is here, but how did you become an expert on rhetoric?

00:01:37.660 Was it something you picked up in college, or did you discover this later on in life?

00:01:42.500 Definitely later on in life.

00:01:43.960 I was about 30, I guess, and I was working at a college, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire,

00:01:49.700 and I honestly got pretty bored in my job.

00:01:53.920 I was wandering through the library in ridiculously long lunch hours.

00:01:58.500 Then one day, while in the Dartmouth library, I was in this corner of the open stacks where

00:02:05.420 there were cobwebs literally on the books, and half the fluorescent bulbs had burned out.

00:02:11.440 And a book, for some reason, caught my eye.

00:02:13.880 It was about eye level, and I took it down and opened it up, and it had been signed by

00:02:18.100 John Quincy Adams, you know, President of the United States.

00:02:22.540 Before he became President, while he was still a U.S. Senator, he gave some lectures at Harvard,

00:02:27.860 and this book was a collection of his lectures.

00:02:30.880 And in it, he introduced me to rhetoric, because that's what his lectures were about.

00:02:35.760 And he was telling these teenage students, all boys, to catch from the relics of ancient 0.60

00:02:44.320 oratory these unresisted powers that could control humanity.

00:02:49.700 And I thought, I've got to get me some of those powers.

00:02:52.600 And for the next, you know, dozen years, I did everything Adams told me to do.

00:02:58.960 I read into rhetoric and interviewed rhetoricians around the world.

00:03:02.800 And eventually, I drove my wife so crazy, she begged me to write this book.

00:03:07.780 So I did.

00:03:09.200 Well, so let's talk, what is rhetoric?

00:03:10.880 And then let's talk about the history of rhetoric.

00:03:12.420 Because as you said, you found this book written by John Quincy Adams.

00:03:15.540 It was a big part of the college curriculum for a lot of Americans in the 18th and 19th century.

00:03:21.200 But so talk about what is rhetoric, the definition, and then the history of rhetoric in the West.

00:03:26.720 Rhetoric essentially is the art of persuasion.

00:03:29.540 It's the study of how words influence people.

00:03:33.520 And so we're talking about spoken rhetoric, written rhetoric, you know, art can be rhetorical,

00:03:38.960 anything that moves people.

00:03:41.820 And so originally, back in the day, let's say 3,000 years ago, it was invented as we study it today

00:03:49.340 by these Greek itinerant teachers who just went from island to island in Greece, teaching people

00:03:58.320 how to speak well and persuade others.

00:04:01.720 They called themselves sophists, which means the wise ones.

00:04:05.680 They were into really good branding back then, apparently.

00:04:08.640 And so along comes the philosopher Aristotle.

00:04:12.320 And apparently, as his last book, he wrote the textbook on rhetoric,

00:04:16.380 The Art of Rhetoric, which I spent years studying.

00:04:19.820 And so Aristotle has been used for centuries ever since.

00:04:24.200 Now, it was taught to boys and young men exclusively.

00:04:29.200 So you had to be a member of an elite to study it.

00:04:33.240 So originally, you would learn grammar, you know, how to speak proper Greek and later proper Latin.

00:04:39.860 And then you would learn logic.

00:04:42.400 And the last thing you would learn when you were old enough was rhetoric, which was considered to be

00:04:47.560 the height of what was called the liberal arts.

00:04:50.380 Liberal meaning you didn't have to work for anybody.

00:04:52.820 You were a leader.

00:04:54.560 So that was taught more or less in any place where people had elections throughout history.

00:05:01.200 And by the way, this isn't just Greece and Rome.

00:05:03.500 There's good evidence that the ancient Jews studied rhetoric in schools.

00:05:07.700 Chinese did, too.

00:05:09.060 There's some evidence that rhetoric was taught in African civilizations and even in North American ancient civilizations.

00:05:16.980 So this is anywhere anyone wants to persuade anybody else.

00:05:20.880 Rhetoric was apparently taught up until sort of the late 1700s when German universities came along.

00:05:29.160 And they were very research-based, didn't like the classics very much, very much into science.

00:05:35.220 And they had this notion that the Americans picked up, which is that leaders really don't count in history.

00:05:43.140 And that once you've set up really good institutions, then they should run themselves.

00:05:48.580 And, you know, people shouldn't have to bother having to lead.

00:05:53.100 And so that pretty much held sway right up until like the 1980s, 1990s in this country.

00:06:00.440 I wrote the book thinking, I don't know that that's true, that we don't need decent leaders.

00:06:07.800 We have our institutions, but if we have bad leaders heading them, those institutions don't seem to go very well.

00:06:13.320 That's why I wrote the book.

00:06:14.880 Now, I think this is the art of leadership.

00:06:18.400 So really anybody who wants to be a leader should study it.

00:06:21.000 But also anybody who doesn't want to be manipulated ought to study it well as well, because rhetoric essentially being the art of persuasion, it's a dark art.

00:06:31.000 It can also be a tremendous art of manipulation.

00:06:35.440 So studying it gives sort of inoculates you against that.

00:06:39.460 All right.

00:06:39.580 So the art of rhetoric, something that's been taught for thousands of years around the world, and you argue is so important for leadership.

00:06:45.400 But then it stopped being formally taught around the early 1800s.

00:06:49.240 Now, one place where rhetoric continued to be studied all along were the historically Black colleges.

00:06:57.360 So after the Civil War, these colleges sprung up to teach Black people.

00:07:01.680 And among those colleges were Morehouse University and the Crozer Theological Seminary, among others.

00:07:08.180 The reason I mentioned them was that one guy studied rhetoric at both those places, and that was Martin Luther King, which I think, you know, it's one example of the value of learning rhetoric.

00:07:19.320 Well, at the beginning of the book, you talk about there's a difference between arguing and, like, rhetoric is the art of arguing well, but also fighting.

00:07:28.000 What do you think most people do today?

00:07:30.560 And, like, what's the difference between arguing and fighting?

00:07:33.180 You know, it's funny, Brett.

00:07:34.640 When I first told people I was writing a book on how to argue, they all thought I was having a really late midlife crisis.

00:07:43.440 You know, who wants to learn about argument?

00:07:46.500 And, you know, one of the first things I had to do, and this is why I did it at the beginning of the book, was to talk about the distinction.

00:07:51.720 So, in an argument, your job is to win over somebody, to make them feel as if they somehow won at the end, won something, while you convince them of what you want them to believe or do.

00:08:06.140 Fighting, on the other hand, is about simply winning, either scoring points or dominating another person.

00:08:12.640 So, an argument, what you hope for at the end is a consensus, you know, where both of you agree on something.

00:08:18.220 It doesn't always happen, so sometimes it's better just to, you know, your goal might be to walk away with a good relationship.

00:08:24.060 But, generally, if you want to persuade someone, you want them to feel glad that they were persuaded.

00:08:29.220 Fighting, on the other hand, is just a way to prove that you've dominated someone else.

00:08:33.480 So, fighting usually ends up with at least one person feeling lousy.

00:08:38.980 And, you know, argument makes you feel good.

00:08:41.560 And, in the end, if it goes well, fighting, the purpose of it is to make the other person feel terrible.

00:08:48.240 So, it seems like a lot of the internet discussion on Twitter or Facebook, it's a lot of fighting and not too much arguing.

00:08:54.560 Yeah, way too much.

00:08:55.680 And, you know, a lot of what happens in social media in general is that you're either preaching to your own choir, you know,

00:09:01.420 you have your own groups who are just looking to confirm their own opinion,

00:09:05.560 or you want to, you know, score points to show that you're wittier than the other person or, I don't know, just meaner.

00:09:14.220 So, you know, I think a lot of what comes across as arguing in social media, Twitter in particular, really is more venting.

00:09:24.420 You know, people trying to just, you know, feel better for themselves by making other people feel terrible.

00:09:32.340 And, I think the reason why people default to fighting is because, again, as you said, we stop teaching rhetoric in the schools.

00:09:38.400 Like, you know, for a lot of, you know, for early part of American history, you started learning how to be persuasive.

00:09:42.800 And not only in college, but like, you know, seven years old, but we don't get that anymore.

00:09:48.960 And so, we just resort to just venting or emoting or just trolling and making people feel bad.

00:09:55.080 Yeah, that's well said.

00:09:56.200 I think that one of the main purposes of a rhetorical education in the past was for people to learn what rhetoric was for.

00:10:04.440 You know, that it's not just purely an art of manipulation, although it's that too.

00:10:10.900 It's also this notion that the only way for people to make decisions in common is to persuade each other.

00:10:19.360 The only alternative to that is violence or, you know, people saying violent things, you know, threatening each other.

00:10:27.180 I mean, the one way we've allowed civilization to really flourish throughout the world is this idea that people can get together and make decisions in common.

00:10:37.680 And the only way to do that is through rhetoric.

00:10:39.840 I'm not teaching it.

00:10:40.880 It's, you know, literally dangerous.

00:10:43.760 So, let's talk about, let's say someone buys in this idea.

00:10:47.400 Okay, I want to be persuasive.

00:10:48.420 I want to have an argument where the goal is to persuade another person and you feel everyone kind of walks away feeling better about it.

00:10:54.520 What do you do if you want to do that, but the person you're engaging with just wants to fight?

00:11:00.160 Is that even possible to have a persuasive rhetorical argument with that person?

00:11:05.620 Well, one of the most important things about rhetoric is to really know who your audience actually is.

00:11:12.500 So, it's a little tough to talk about this during COVID, but eventually when all of us can get together again, one of the most important things to do is to look at who your audience really is.

00:11:22.320 You know, is it the person you're talking to or is it the people around you?

00:11:27.740 So, I speak several times a week in video chats with high school classes that study my book.

00:11:34.900 And one of the first things I tell them is, be the grown-up in the room.

00:11:39.860 You're going to win so many points that way.

00:11:41.820 And a lot of people are going to be convinced, all except the person who just wants to fight. 1.00

00:11:47.660 So, you may have some jerk who's venting or saying stupid things or having a dumb opinion. 0.99

00:11:54.140 And if you treat the other person kind of respectfully, don't lose your temper, use some humor if that's possible, and don't lose your cool in general, then you're going to be admired by the people who are listening in. 1.00

00:12:08.340 And so, who cares about the jerk? 0.74

00:12:10.140 And so, what's interesting about your book, the tips and the insights you're getting about rhetoric, it's thousands of years old. 0.98

00:12:17.040 Like, what Aristotle saw over 2,000 years ago still works today.

00:12:21.480 Like, it's still relevant.

00:12:23.120 It works for social media.

00:12:24.780 It works for a blog post.

00:12:25.880 It works for a video conference call.

00:12:28.180 Yeah.

00:12:28.640 I mean, this is the thing.

00:12:30.640 Because rhetoric was developed over centuries and centuries and existed for a long time before Aristotle even wrote about it,

00:12:38.000 these are people who had a profound understanding of human nature.

00:12:44.580 And, you know, human nature really hasn't changed.

00:12:47.060 Social media, our media in general have changed, yeah.

00:12:50.160 But people, you know, not so much.

00:12:52.620 We evolved over 30,000 years before people even thought about, you know, studying rhetoric.

00:12:58.280 So, our brains are what they are.

00:13:00.360 And I think we have to sort of go with that, you know, to understand that these people really did know what they're talking about.

00:13:06.340 Now, when I was studying rhetoric, I branched out into there's lots of really good modern rhetoric,

00:13:12.720 which is more about people's sense of shared identity, which the Greeks weren't quite so much into.

00:13:18.760 But also, I studied neuroscience, linguistics, sociology, and there's a lot of really good research, behavioral economics,

00:13:26.740 that confirm a lot of what the ancient Greeks and Romans were talking about with rhetoric.

00:13:33.280 So, you mentioned you've got to think about your audience when you're thinking about rhetoric.

00:13:36.980 And you make the case, and I think Aristotle makes the case, too, that there are three main goals a speaker can possibly have for his audience.

00:13:43.620 What are those three main goals?

00:13:45.220 Well, they're sort of in ascending order of difficulty.

00:13:49.340 So, the easiest thing to do is to try to change someone's mood.

00:13:53.880 So, one of the things to look at is, is the person you're trying to persuade or the audience in general,

00:13:59.580 are they in the mood to be persuaded in the first place?

00:14:02.360 And if they're not, can you change that mood?

00:14:05.580 And so, I go into behavioral economics on this, which has this concept called cognitive ease,

00:14:11.980 which means if a person is relaxed, feeling in control, you know, ideally smiling, then they're more likely to be persuadable.

00:14:22.580 So, that's mood is one thing.

00:14:24.460 That's the easiest thing to change in somebody.

00:14:27.300 Harder is to change someone's mind, you know, on a particular issue.

00:14:31.220 You know, even if it's a family kind of thing.

00:14:33.660 Do, you know, do we go to the mountains or the beach two summers from now when we all have vaccination?

00:14:38.700 The third and hardest thing is to actually get someone to act or to stop acting.

00:14:45.420 So, you see all these concerts that are held to get young people to vote, you know, rock the vote, that kind of thing.

00:14:54.300 But time after time, people will show up for the t-shirts or the concerts or whatever online now and then not vote.

00:15:01.880 So, you know, you could change their mind about wanting to vote or to vote for a particular person, but getting them actually to show up at the polls, that's hardest of all.

00:15:12.480 And so, that takes a different set of tools and they're a lot harder to do.

00:15:16.800 Now, often what happens is you start with a mood, you change the person's mind, and then you, you know, try to get them to do something or stop doing something.

00:15:25.460 I would add a fourth goal, which is relationship.

00:15:28.940 A lot of times we make the mistake, especially when someone's confronting us and we get that fight-or-flight instinct to think we need to fight back, you know, simply to fight.

00:15:40.280 And, you know, or on the other hand, you may be upset or have a really strong opinion.

00:15:45.580 More often than not, maybe you ought to think about whether to walk away having someone like you or, you know, to get along with somebody.

00:15:53.400 Think first about whether you can get along with the other person, and that may be your best goal of all.

00:16:00.320 All right.

00:16:00.500 So, three possible goals for an audience.

00:16:02.340 You're going to either change their mood, change their mind, get them to take action, or just simply get along with them, which could help with all three of those other goals as well.

00:16:11.660 And then Aristotle said that in any argument, there are three main possible issues that could be going on.

00:16:17.420 And I think this is one of the most useful things I got out of the book was this idea of the three types of issues because oftentimes what I've discovered in the conversations or arguments or debates I've gotten with people is that we are both – all of us are arguing different issues, but we don't know it.

00:16:33.140 Yeah, it's so true.

00:16:34.560 So, what he did, what Aristotle did, and I think this is really brilliant, is he organized those issues around tenses, past, present, and future tense.

00:16:46.000 And so, the rhetoric of the past tense, when we use the past tense, what happened in the past, he called forensic rhetoric because it has to do with forensics about, you know, crime and punishment.

00:16:59.380 Who done it and how should we punish them?

00:17:01.300 Then the present tense, he called demonstrative rhetoric.

00:17:05.900 It's often called sermonic rhetoric because it's the language of sermons.

00:17:10.140 It has to do with what's good and what's bad and who's good and who's bad.

00:17:14.900 Some people call it tribal rhetoric.

00:17:17.380 And then Aristotle's favorite had to do with the future.

00:17:20.640 He called it deliberative rhetoric because it has to do with deliberating about choices, about what to do, how to solve problems together.

00:17:28.480 And so, deliberative rhetoric, he actually called the rhetoric of politics.

00:17:34.200 Now, politics today, I'm not sure we're doing so well from Aristotle's point of view.

00:17:39.100 You know, we talk in the past tense about what criminal acts our opponent has, you know, committed in the past.

00:17:46.180 Or we talk in the present tense about bad people and who should be, you know, prosecuted or locked up.

00:17:51.540 But the future tense is the one where you actually can get something done and make a choice.

00:17:56.440 So, can I tell you just a quick story?

00:17:58.140 It's in my book, which you've read.

00:18:00.920 But if I could tell it for the audience.

00:18:04.280 Some years ago when my son George was 15 years old, I was getting ready in the morning in the bathroom.

00:18:11.340 It was midwinter.

00:18:12.620 It was cold.

00:18:13.280 And I found that the tube of toothpaste had been squeezed dry.

00:18:19.000 So, I shouted through the door,

00:18:21.220 George, who used up all the toothpaste?

00:18:23.420 I figured he was the culprit because, you know, he's a teenage son.

00:18:27.260 And I hear this sarcastic voice on the other side saying,

00:18:31.080 That's not the point, is it, Dad?

00:18:33.720 The point is, how are we going to keep this from happening again?

00:18:37.120 Now, I was kind of pleased about that, actually, because for years I had told him the best way to get out of trouble is to switch the tense to the future.

00:18:47.900 You know, who used up all the toothpaste?

00:18:49.600 How are we going to solve this problem?

00:18:52.040 Now, I was so pleased that he'd actually been listening to me over all those years.

00:18:56.260 I decided to let it win.

00:18:57.520 So, I said, all right, George, you win.

00:18:59.080 Now, will you please get me toothpaste?

00:19:00.460 So, to this day, he says he won the argument because I said so.

00:19:03.340 On the other hand, I got a teenager to run an errand willingly, and he went down to our freezing basement, and I got a tube of toothpaste.

00:19:11.880 Now, what he did was he switched to solving a problem from being blamed.

00:19:18.140 What I did was let him win.

00:19:20.700 So, that's the ultimate consensus.

00:19:22.320 Now, what if I had used the present tense, what Aristotle called demonstrative rhetoric?

00:19:27.360 Then I would have said something like, George, a good son wouldn't use up all the toothpaste.

00:19:32.380 And you can imagine how fast I would have gotten a tube of toothpaste.

00:19:37.240 You know, he would have been very defensive.

00:19:39.340 And that's often the problem when we use the wrong topic, speak in the wrong tense when we have a confrontation or an argument with somebody.

00:19:48.840 I think that's useful because a lot of even just like interpersonal arguments you have with a spouse, like your kids, we tend to get hung up on the blame, the past tense, or the present tense.

00:19:59.800 And you're always wondering, like, why can't we just move forward?

00:20:02.980 And, I mean, to me, the idea that Aristotle would say, well, move things to the future, and you might start making some headway.

00:20:09.280 Right.

00:20:09.840 Pivot.

00:20:10.360 Pivot to how to solve the problem and what the result will be in the long run.

00:20:14.720 Yeah, and I think it's good insight.

00:20:16.540 So, if you find yourself in an argument that's not going anywhere, like, pay attention to how people are speaking or using the past tense and the present tense.

00:20:24.600 Because if they are, that's probably why you guys are stuck in blaming and talking about values, and you might not make any headway there.

00:20:31.460 So, I mean, like a pivot, like, what do you do?

00:20:33.600 I mean, so you give an example of what a pivot would look like there.

00:20:35.660 But what do you do when someone doesn't want a pivot?

00:20:37.240 Like, say you want to make the pivot.

00:20:39.240 Like, what can we do about it?

00:20:40.500 And then the person says, well, no, no, I'm not done.

00:20:42.380 I want to assign blame.

00:20:43.920 We want to figure out what's wrong, who did what.

00:20:46.840 Can you make any progress with that, or do you have to use some other rhetorical tools to keep moving forward?

00:20:53.080 Yeah, there's this great study that was done over years by this guy named John Gottman at the University of Wisconsin.

00:21:01.080 He ran something that became known as the Love Lab because they brought in all these married couples, and they videotaped how they argued with one another.

00:21:14.460 And what was really interesting – and they did this, as I say, over years, and then these poor grad students had to view these tapes and sort of log them of how these people talked.

00:21:24.400 And then they tracked the couples, by the way, over time.

00:21:26.600 So the couples who ended up getting divorced and the couples that stayed together actually argued the same amount of time.

00:21:34.780 They disagreed and spoke about it the same amount of time and with the same frequency. 0.99

00:21:39.520 The difference was the couples that got divorced used their arguments as a way to prove the other person was a jerk. 0.99

00:21:47.980 They spoke in terms of demonstrative rhetoric. 0.99

00:21:50.380 So this just proves you're not a good husband or you're not a good wife because you left the toilet seat up or whatever.

00:21:56.760 Whereas the other couples would say, you know, this is a problem with the toilet seat up.

00:22:02.120 What are we going to do about it?

00:22:03.480 And, you know, they could both get heated.

00:22:05.760 But at the same time, one went for a solution and the other wanted to prove they were superior to the other person.

00:22:11.540 So what do you do about that?

00:22:13.240 That kind of thing.

00:22:14.040 How do you turn it so that the relationship survives?

00:22:17.580 Maybe that's your first goal. 1.00

00:22:18.840 So you can say, you know, if you're the one who's being blamed in the past tense and or being called a name of, you know, to show how what an idiot you are or, you know, how lame you are. 0.99

00:22:31.660 The best thing to do is to say, yeah, you know, you can call me this, but that's not going to solve our problem here. 0.99

00:22:39.900 I mean, basically, all you have to do is say, that's not going to solve our problem.

00:22:43.620 Let's talk about how we're going to do that.

00:22:45.300 Now, often what happens, though, is that you have to go back to what your goal is and say to yourself, you know, is this person so angry she won't listen to me?

00:22:55.520 You know, should I be changing the mood a little bit?

00:22:58.780 And to do that, you have to really acknowledge that the other person feels bad.

00:23:03.140 And so what men are bad at is apologies, and that may have to come before anything else.

00:23:08.440 Well, it's not me.

00:23:09.060 Again, it sounds like you might have to concede. 0.99

00:23:11.180 Like, okay, let's just say I'm a jerk. 0.99

00:23:13.200 And that's hard for people to do because it's like, well, I'm not a jerk. 0.99

00:23:16.300 I don't think I'm a jerk. 0.72

00:23:17.460 But Aristotle would say, well, sometimes you've got to make a concession to achieve that higher goal of moving forward and causing a change.

00:23:25.020 Well, a lot has to do with whether you actually are at fault, right?

00:23:28.780 So, you know, suppose you did do something thoughtless.

00:23:33.280 One of the things to do is not just say you're sorry.

00:23:37.280 When you say it, by the way, look as sincere as you can.

00:23:39.680 But what you should also do is to say, you know what?

00:23:45.220 I want to do right.

00:23:47.040 You know I'm the kind of person who really believes in doing the right thing, whatever that is.

00:23:52.440 And then say, let's talk about how this isn't going to happen in the future.

00:23:57.240 And that's, you know, obviously if something happened that's really serious and upsetting.

00:24:01.220 Now, suppose, though, you're innocent.

00:24:05.160 Then you can say, you know, look, call me whatever name you want.

00:24:11.020 But let's talk about how you and I are going to get along together and sustain our relationship.

00:24:16.200 Use the kinds of terms that might appeal to this other person and work on the relationship alone.

00:24:22.200 Either there may not be a problem to solve.

00:24:24.100 If there's a problem to solve, switch to the future.

00:24:25.920 If not, think about the relationship.

00:24:27.980 Gotcha.

00:24:28.160 So try to switch to the future, give people a choice.

00:24:30.980 People like thinking about choice.

00:24:32.380 Choice makes people feel good, feels like they have a sense of autonomy, and that's where problems can actually be solved.

00:24:38.120 We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.

00:24:42.800 And now back to the show.

00:24:44.920 So another thing Aristotle said that I think is still relevant today, still works, is that there are basically three primary, we can call them tools of rhetoric.

00:24:54.420 There's ethos, pathos, and logos.

00:24:56.760 So can you walk us through each one sort of big picture and how Aristotle saw that they'd fit together?

00:25:03.360 Yeah, really important.

00:25:05.160 So ethos is your character as your audience sees it.

00:25:10.360 It's what they think of you.

00:25:12.120 So whether they like or trust you.

00:25:15.180 Pathos has to do with mood, what mood the audience is in and what tools you can use to change that and to use it to your advantage.

00:25:22.680 And then there's logos, which has to do – it's often translated as logic, but it's a little bit more than that.

00:25:29.420 Now, each one of these tools all has to do with the audience itself.

00:25:34.300 So logos, logic, really isn't about facts necessarily.

00:25:39.360 Research shows consistently that if you throw facts at people, they're likely to just get more entrenched in their own opinion.

00:25:46.200 So pure logic and reciting facts don't work all that well.

00:25:52.980 Instead, look at the beliefs and expectations of the audience, not what the facts are, but what does your audience believe, and think about how to use that.

00:26:01.980 Pathos has to do, as I say, with the audience's mood.

00:26:04.180 But ethos has to do with not who you are so much as what your audience thinks you are, and you might be able to change that as well.

00:26:12.200 So now, Aristotle invented logic, and yet he said – and he just sounded so sad when he wrote this – that logic is not the most persuasive of those three tools.

00:26:24.460 He said that ethos is – whether someone likes and trusts you is much more important in determining whether they'll follow you.

00:26:33.660 So if you are someone your audience thinks is one of the tribe, maybe a slightly improved version of it, like a leader, then they're much more likely to be persuaded by you than any kind of logic you're going to use on them.

00:26:46.740 Well, let's talk about ethos in particular in detail here.

00:26:49.660 So Aristotle thought in order to have ethos, your character, you had to develop rhetorical virtue.

00:26:55.060 And again, Aristotle wrote a whole book about virtue ethics, the Nicomachean ethics, and it sounds like he took that idea and integrated it into his idea of rhetoric.

00:27:05.340 But it sounds like he has an idea of like – it's almost like rhetorical virtue.

00:27:09.220 So for Aristotle, what does rhetorical virtue look like, and how do you develop it?

00:27:13.660 Yeah, you know, there are three basic – he devised – the Greeks were crazy about rules of three. 0.97

00:27:20.140 So there are three tools of ethos, and probably the most powerful of them all is virtue.

00:27:26.820 Now, it's very different from what he described in the Nicomachean ethics.

00:27:33.400 Rhetorical ethos, as you hinted, really has more to do with the audience's values and whether the audience thinks you uphold those values.

00:27:42.880 So he used this sentence that took me years to try to understand, and I think I'm kind of getting it.

00:27:50.900 He said that virtue is a matter of character.

00:27:55.380 Okay, it's your expressed character, what the audience thinks of you.

00:27:59.500 Dealing with choice.

00:28:01.080 So it's how your character influences the choices you make, lying in a mean.

00:28:08.460 And I think what he meant by that is the choices your audience sees you make, not just for the moment but throughout your life, should fall between something that's completely reckless and something that's too cautious.

00:28:22.580 And at the same time, should also fall like right smack in the middle of the values of your audience, right there in the dead center.

00:28:32.280 Now, that's the most important kind of expression of character.

00:28:36.640 Now, the other two tools are worth mentioning, which is whether the audience thinks you know what you're doing.

00:28:43.640 Like, can you – if you come up with a solution, a choice, does the audience believe that you know what you're talking about, that you can solve this problem?

00:28:53.680 And then the third is whether the audience thinks that you have their best interest at heart.

00:28:59.200 So are you disinterested, which means that you don't represent any special interests, including your own.

00:29:05.640 I break this down into labels of cause, craft, and caring.

00:29:12.900 So cause is virtue, whether you uphold these values of your audience.

00:29:17.840 Craft has to do with whether you know your stuff.

00:29:21.460 And caring is whether you have the audience's interest at heart, even to the point of maybe sacrificing yourself for the greater good.

00:29:28.800 Those are the tools of character that Aristotle defined.

00:29:32.360 Well, it sounds like, okay, let's make this – do some practical application here.

00:29:36.680 If you are in your business or an office, you can develop these things, these three things over time, right?

00:29:42.240 You can show your competence to your coworkers, to your boss.

00:29:45.400 You can show that you're disinterested, that you put the company before your own interest.

00:29:49.440 You can show to your coworkers and your boss that you have the virtue or the values of the organization.

00:29:56.420 And then so whenever you do – you need to be persuasive.

00:29:58.800 You have that going for you.

00:30:00.320 But again, this is like a long-term thing you develop.

00:30:02.720 Kind of get that street cred.

00:30:04.580 What do you do if like you're just plopped in front of an audience and they know hardly anything about you and yet you need to develop that ethos on the fly?

00:30:13.480 Did Aristotle have any insights on that?

00:30:16.420 Yeah, and the Romans did too.

00:30:18.280 The ancient Romans did as well.

00:30:19.980 They developed it more really.

00:30:21.680 So one of the things the Romans came up with is this idea of decorum.

00:30:25.180 We think a decorum is like manners, but it really comes from the Latin word meaning fitness, as in fitting in, as in like your ability to fit into your environment, including an office.

00:30:37.100 And so the clothing you wear is an expression of your character or what people see your character as being.

00:30:44.740 I was a manager for some years and was constantly being visited.

00:30:51.240 And by the way, I managed creatives who dress in all kinds of ways.

00:30:57.160 And I was often visited by human resources to tell me that some employer or another was dressing inappropriately.

00:31:04.880 Well, for the team the person was working with, that person may have been entirely appropriate.

00:31:09.580 It just didn't look good to the corporate types.

00:31:12.280 So decorum changes according to who your audience is.

00:31:15.840 And that's probably the easiest thing.

00:31:17.300 Now, the tone you use, the words you use, in some cases, you know, you can use four-letter words in a particular office setting.

00:31:26.940 In other places, that's probably not such a good idea.

00:31:29.120 So one of the most important things to do before you enter into any new situation, even if it's just to give a talk in front of an audience or, you know, harder, take a new job, is to understand who your audience is.

00:31:42.920 Do a little bit of homework before you do that.

00:31:44.960 That's hugely important.

00:31:46.380 So decorum is sort of like instant ethos.

00:31:49.960 Well, it sounds like we see politicians do this.

00:31:52.500 You know, when we had state fairs about this time, you know, they would go to Iowa or something and be like, oh, my grandpa's from Iowa, you know.

00:32:01.500 And they would try to make that connection.

00:32:03.820 And they were basically doing ethos on the fly with their audience.

00:32:07.680 Yeah.

00:32:08.020 In fact, you know, one of the problems that Hillary Clinton had when she was running in the last presidential election was that – I don't know whether she did this consciously or not. 0.91

00:32:17.580 I bet she didn't, but when she was speaking in front of a southern audience, she would change her accent. 0.71

00:32:23.360 And the problem with that is if it was just the audience, that might have been fine.

00:32:28.200 But, you know, she was a presidential candidate, so her audience was like the nation who would hear her change her accent and think she was being kind of phony doing that.

00:32:38.520 So you have to be careful.

00:32:40.120 One of the things that older people, one of the sins they commit is to try to fit in too much with like a younger audience or one – if they're speaking to people of a different ethnicity or race, trying to imitate that speech can be a huge problem. 1.00

00:32:56.920 It's much better to sort of use a decorum that represents the other people's values, not so much just their behavior.

00:33:04.680 And that's hard to do.

00:33:05.620 That takes some practice.

00:33:06.620 You know who was good at it was Teddy Roosevelt, what I've read from him.

00:33:10.560 So he's this, you know, from New York.

00:33:12.020 He was basically an aristocrat.

00:33:14.040 And he talked like a, you know, sort of New York aristocratic kind of squealy voice.

00:33:18.800 But somehow he was able to get cowboys and like lumberjacks and hunters.

00:33:23.680 Like they loved the guy.

00:33:25.220 And he didn't, you know, he didn't try to pander so much, but they just – they saw his behavior, sort of his attitude.

00:33:32.940 And they're like, hey, he's one of us, even though, you know, he might really wasn't one of them.

00:33:38.040 Oh, that – you could not – I'm going to use that example. 0.99

00:33:40.860 You could not have come up with a better example of decorum because, you know, for one thing, half those ranchers, Teddy could have kicked their butt. 0.96

00:33:49.240 You know, he was famous for leading people on these hikes where he would just exhaust everybody. 0.98

00:33:56.320 And he could stay up night after night.

00:33:58.880 He could sleep on bare ground.

00:34:00.940 And, you know, he could be with some pretty tough characters, and they would appreciate him for that.

00:34:05.860 He shared their values.

00:34:07.180 So he didn't – he could wear his, you know, pince-nez eyeglasses and speak funny.

00:34:13.220 But that didn't matter to the people because he shared their values.

00:34:16.580 That was more important than his behavior.

00:34:18.980 So ethos, character, you want to connect with the audience.

00:34:22.080 And that's something you might have – you can do on the fly by looking at the Romans, looking at your – you know, how you're presenting yourself with your clothing, the way you talk, mannerism, things like that. 0.61

00:34:31.640 But then it seems like – I mean, the big takeaway from I got from that is, like, really to develop that ethos, it's – the most effective ethos is, like, that long game ethos where you do all these things that Aristotle talks about so that you can be persuasive when you need to be persuasive.

00:34:47.480 Yeah, it's easier for us modern Americans than it was back to – for the ancient Greeks and Romans because they believed your ethos came from your ancestors. 0.98

00:34:56.580 So if you had lame ancestors, you were screwed. 0.60

00:35:00.960 But, you know, for us, it really is almost a lifetime thing or at least a career-long thing. 0.97

00:35:07.720 I mean, if you look at modern politics, it's really interesting that, you know, any presidential candidate right now, you're looking at their whole history being laid out in front of everybody, and that's their ethos.

00:35:19.180 In an office, you know, the average person stays in a job, what, two years?

00:35:23.940 That's your time for developing your ethos.

00:35:26.260 Now, by the way, another way to register your ethos is through a resume, which these days is more and more automated, of course, because you've got these scanning machines reading it and interpreting it.

00:35:37.860 So you have to have certain keywords.

00:35:39.720 That being said, sooner or later, somebody might actually read your resume, and I encourage people to do kind of an ethos analysis.

00:35:47.360 Are you showing you really know how to do the job, that you're, you know, ideally situated in terms of skill set?

00:35:56.020 Do you have a particular cause?

00:35:58.500 Are you passionate about something that's related to the job?

00:36:01.920 And then thirdly, are you willing to do what it takes?

00:36:05.480 Like, you're not someone whose first question is going to be, what's the salary and what are the benefits and how long is vacation?

00:36:11.820 So, again, that's, you know, cause, caring, and craft.

00:36:17.000 If you can make sure your resume reflects that, that's your ethos on paper.

00:36:22.340 And I was going to say, you also got to think about how you present yourself online.

00:36:26.740 Because, you know, as you said, it used to be like you didn't have, you know, you don't have to worry about what you did when you were a teenager. 0.98

00:36:32.160 Now you do, because people, when you're 20, 30, if you posted something on Facebook or Instagram when you were a kid that was stupid, that might come back and haunt your ethos. 0.99

00:36:42.840 Oh, boy, is that true? 1.00

00:36:44.180 And we see it all the time.

00:36:45.360 You know, one of the things that I tell, especially young people who are on social media all the time, think of your audience.

00:36:53.380 It's bigger than you know, and it also lasts forever.

00:36:57.800 So you have to think, you're thinking about two or three people when you post that hilarious picture of you at a party.

00:37:05.400 But now think, this could be seen by tens of thousands, millions potentially people, and it could be seen by millions of people 30 years from now.

00:37:18.180 You know, think in terms of your audience expanding into eternity, and then think about whether it's a good idea to post that picture.

00:37:26.360 One of the people, and we're prime for this, we evolved in very small groups of humans.

00:37:32.560 I mean, the largest groups of humans generally, these bands that existed for the first 30,000 years after humans had really fully developed and were speaking sophisticated languages, the biggest bands we were with was 30 people.

00:37:48.460 And to this day, most people really see their entire group as no more than 30 people.

00:37:56.160 And the problem is, social media doesn't work that way.

00:37:59.020 So you're thinking, you know, you're posting for 30 people.

00:38:01.600 You're not, your audience is much larger and much more accidental.

00:38:06.780 All right, so we've talked about ethos.

00:38:08.160 It's your character, and that can be something that, a tool you use to persuade people.

00:38:12.080 Let's talk about pathos or emotion.

00:38:14.940 What did Aristotle, how can you use pathos to persuade an audience?

00:38:19.700 Well, you know, one of the things that I go with in terms of pathos, because honestly, Aristotle was kind of a stiff.

00:38:26.120 At least he reads that way.

00:38:28.340 And so he wasn't as good at pathos as the later rhetoricians and then later neuroscientists.

00:38:36.740 And so I tend to look at modern research to see how emotion really works.

00:38:42.340 And the tool I keep going back to I mentioned earlier, which is cognitive ease.

00:38:45.900 I'm interested in making people persuadable, like putting them in the mood so that they're willing to be persuaded.

00:38:55.100 And it's amazing how many salespeople do this instinctively in making you comfortable.

00:38:59.620 I think it helps to be an extrovert.

00:39:01.780 But for those of us who are not, we have to sort of learn those tools. 0.97

00:39:04.860 And some of them sound really silly.

00:39:07.320 One being, if you want to convince someone, don't sit higher than they do. 0.79

00:39:12.940 Sit lower, if anything, or at least at their own level.

00:39:16.300 Don't speak louder than they do.

00:39:18.500 Don't interrupt them.

00:39:19.960 When they say something, pause before you answer, because it sounds like you're taking their words very seriously.

00:39:28.140 If you can get them to smile, that's really important.

00:39:31.220 So this really great researcher, Daniel Kahneman, who wrote what's now a best-selling book, Thinking Fast and Slow, defined two sort of systems in the brain.

00:39:42.240 The Homer Simpson system one is where you are easily persuadable.

00:39:47.380 You're not thinking that hard.

00:39:48.920 Your brain is kind of on autopilot.

00:39:51.000 You're relaxed and feeling in control.

00:39:53.600 System two is the thinker.

00:39:56.020 That's the system you were in when you took a math test back in the day, when you're sort of frowning, your face is screwed up, and you're thinking really hard.

00:40:04.340 Now, we've evolved to use as little energy in our brains as possible because it's amazing how much, when we're thinking hard, how much glycogen we use up.

00:40:14.840 That's why you can be literally tired after doing a really difficult project that involves a lot of thinking.

00:40:21.100 What you want is that Homer Simpson state in your audience.

00:40:24.580 How do you get that?

00:40:25.800 Well, you make them feel relaxed and in control, ideally smiling, not with their face screwed up.

00:40:30.460 When you see these expressions, by the way, you know you're kind of in trouble, and you need to start thinking about that mood again.

00:40:38.260 So there are other kinds of moods, a very important one being anger.

00:40:42.460 And one way to deal with anger is pretty much deal with cognitive ease again.

00:40:48.560 Like, make sure to speak calmly, you know, keep yourself in control, acknowledge the other person's emotion.

00:40:57.000 You know, all the stuff that psychologists tell you to do actually turns out to be pretty true when it comes to pathos.

00:41:02.380 So ultimately, though, your goal is a relationship and persuading them somehow.

00:41:07.820 So putting them in a mood to like you and be persuaded by them, that's what mood is all about.

00:41:13.260 That's pathos.

00:41:14.300 And I think the thing with pathos, I think some people feel squidgy about it because it's dealing with emotions.

00:41:19.180 And there's all these tactics that we can, you know, use to manipulate emotions.

00:41:23.380 So how can you use pathos without seeming like you're either, you know, emotionally manipulative or like a demagogue, right?

00:41:31.200 You're calling it, you're using anger, you're using the sense of belonging, patriotism, you know, othering to persuade people to action and manipulate them.

00:41:40.980 Well, the best rhetoric disguises itself.

00:41:43.840 This is true.

00:41:44.380 You know, if somebody thinks they're being manipulated, they're going to go right into that system to, you know, math-taking state.

00:41:53.440 And so you want to avoid that, obviously.

00:41:56.320 So you want to sound sincere.

00:41:58.380 That's the most important thing here in terms of expressing any kind of mood.

00:42:02.500 Now, a very effective mood to get somebody to stop doing something is fear.

00:42:07.960 Now, the problem with using fear, which is, you know, to talk about what the future is going to look like if you make this decision or continue on this path, is that it actually tends to freeze people up.

00:42:20.760 So if you want to change someone's mind, the last thing you do is put them in a fearful state because they won't make up their mind about anything.

00:42:27.640 They'll just run away or they'll fight, you know, fight or flight.

00:42:30.440 Now, in general, the best way to conduct a deliberative argument about what choices to make for the future is to try to bring the mood down, like turn down the volume.

00:42:42.840 And you can do that through your own voice control, through, you know, nodding your head and acknowledging what the other person is saying by appearing to be non-confrontational.

00:42:53.600 I call this a tool called agreeability, which is the ability to look like you're not actually arguing when you really are.

00:43:01.440 And one way to do that is to nod with the other person and then just gradually kind of reframe what they're talking about, you know, agree sort of, and then change the terms of the debate a little bit.

00:43:12.840 You take the mood out and that may be your best tool.

00:43:16.860 All right.

00:43:16.960 So that's interesting.

00:43:17.500 So taking mood out is a way to use pathos to actually be more persuasive.

00:43:21.480 So let's talk about the last one, logos, which is translated to logic.

00:43:24.680 But you make this point that for Aristotle and the Romans, rhetorical logic is different from what we typically think of as logic as, you know, facts or like if this, then, you know, be.

00:43:36.940 It's not analytical logic.

00:43:38.400 So what's the difference between rhetorical logic and what we typically think of as logic?

00:43:42.840 Well, we can talk about the really logical part of logos that as Aristotle defined it.

00:43:48.880 He came up with this tool called the enthymeme.

00:43:51.320 Some people study logic, formal logic, learn the syllogism that has the three lines that drive everybody crazy.

00:43:59.340 He came up with two lines.

00:44:00.620 And basically it comes down to this.

00:44:02.680 It comes down to your claim, what you want the audience to believe, and then the proof.

00:44:09.400 So we should go to the lake because it's nicer there.

00:44:14.660 That's not a great argument, but it's a perfect syllogism.

00:44:18.400 You know, we should go to the lake.

00:44:19.540 That's the opinion I want you to have because – and then you give evidence like what's your reason.

00:44:25.320 And so the enthymeme is like this one-two punch of logic.

00:44:31.080 And it's something always to think about because, you know, a lot of people sort of leave out the second part.

00:44:36.600 You know, we should go to the lake.

00:44:38.100 And then you sound really whiny and you don't actually give a reason.

00:44:41.740 A great way to structure your argument is to think in terms of what's my claim and what's my proof.

00:44:46.620 And is the proof connected to the claim?

00:44:50.380 A great BS detector, by the way, is to use that same technique.

00:44:54.940 You know, is somebody making a claim here?

00:44:57.320 Do they want me to believe something?

00:44:59.900 And does the proof lead to the claim?

00:45:02.060 Does it prove the claim?

00:45:03.800 So that's the enthymeme.

00:45:04.880 Now, another thing that's important, though, about Aristotle's version of rhetorical logic is that it's not so much about facts.

00:45:14.360 I mentioned this before, but about what the audience believes.

00:45:17.040 So we should go to the lake because – you can say because, you know, the lake is 20% cheaper than going to the mountain.

00:45:26.260 Well, that only works if the other person believes that that's a very important criterion for choosing a vacation.

00:45:33.260 You may want to come up with another proof based on what they really want.

00:45:38.420 Like, you know, you love water sports.

00:45:40.920 You can't do that in the mountain.

00:45:43.100 Let's go to the lake instead or to the beach or whatever.

00:45:46.980 So logos has to do with your proof and your claim, with your proof having to do with what the audience believes or what it expects will happen.

00:45:57.340 I mean, and also you talk about how when people think about logic, they often – you want to go to fallacies, like logical fallacies, and, like, you know, point out, hey, this right here, this is a straw man argument or whatever.

00:46:11.220 And you argue in rhetoric, you really don't want to – sometimes you use fallacies to be persuasive with logos.

00:46:19.140 Yeah, in rhetoric, if it works, that's good rhetoric. 0.99

00:46:24.700 So – and on the other hand, you know, rule number one in rhetoric is don't be a jerk. 0.98

00:46:30.720 Like, your ethos should not get out of control. 0.99

00:46:33.140 And one way to be a jerk is to point out other people's fallacies. 0.98

00:46:36.780 Like, that's just fighting. 1.00

00:46:37.920 That's not arguing.

00:46:38.740 Now, you can use – some fallacies work absolutely great on audiences who are not very well trained in logic at all.

00:46:48.740 And so one of the things about rhetoric is the ethics are really kind of up to you.

00:46:54.000 But, like, rhetoric will work for evil as well as it will work for good.

00:46:58.480 And this is why – so this idea of logos, rhetorical logic, this is why Socrates wasn't a fan of sophist because he took part in dialectic where his goal with the discussion with somebody was, like, we're going to find out with logic, like, what is true.

00:47:13.440 And people who are dealing with rhetoric, they're not so much concerned about – I mean, they are concerned about truth, but, like, their main goal is persuasion.

00:47:21.080 Yeah, well, you know, the irony of Plato, who, you know, essentially was Socrates' ghostwriter and maybe inventor for all we know, is that, you know, he wrote a couple of dialogues against rhetoric using every rhetorical trick in the book.

00:47:38.680 So, I mean, he was officially against rhetoric, but he was happy to use it.

00:47:43.700 Yeah, he was fighting fire with fire.

00:47:45.080 So, yeah, these – those are, like, Aristotle and the Romans' big idea of, like, so, you know, think about your audience, their goals, the use of tenses, and to figure out what the issue of an argument is, and these, like, pathos, ethos, logos.

00:47:57.300 If you think about those things, that can really help you start talking and making arguments.

00:48:01.560 But then also, I think that's really useful from classical rhetoric that's still useful today.

00:48:06.440 It came from a Roman.

00:48:07.560 It was Cicero, and he had this idea of the five canons of rhetoric.

00:48:11.460 What is that, and how can that help people be more persuasive?

00:48:14.260 Well, you know, it's really good if you're making a presentation or shooting a video or something like that.

00:48:21.700 And how much you use it is really – it appeals to some people and not so much to others.

00:48:26.040 So, he came up with these canons, invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery.

00:48:32.980 Thank goodness I could think of all that.

00:48:35.420 Invention has to do with – it's interesting.

00:48:38.400 Invention, the Latin for invention is inventio, which is where we get the term, obviously.

00:48:42.880 But it doesn't just mean making stuff up.

00:48:46.100 It also – inventio also means discovery.

00:48:49.000 So, one of the things you do before you start any kind of presentation or speech or whatever is to not just come up with your thoughts, but also do your homework.

00:49:00.920 So, inventio has to do with discovering the best means of persuasion.

00:49:05.420 That's Aristotle's term, but Cicero quoted him.

00:49:07.620 So, arrangement then has to do with how your thoughts are going to be arranged, what order you put it in.

00:49:14.740 And Cicero came up with a kind of nice outline that works for any kind of speech.

00:49:19.200 We can get to that in a minute if you want, but we can move on to the other canons.

00:49:22.740 Invention, arrangement style has to do with whether you're using terms that are suitable to the audience.

00:49:30.360 That's where your decorum fits in.

00:49:32.300 But it also has to do with how vivid your expressions are, whether you're getting your audience to pay attention through either the beauty or the strength of your language.

00:49:44.500 Memory is really interesting.

00:49:46.200 That's, you know, the fourth canon.

00:49:49.460 It has to do with your ability to deliver a speech without looking at your notes.

00:49:54.280 And the ancients were big about memorizing things.

00:49:58.740 It's one of the things that kids were taught.

00:50:00.780 One of the things they did was – some people have heard of the memory palace, which is where you invent this kind of building in your head.

00:50:07.920 And you fill it with things that remind you of what you need to know.

00:50:12.100 Well, the ancient Romans in particular, starting at like age 12, would create these memory palaces that were more like shopping malls.

00:50:21.920 I think they were like all at one level.

00:50:24.220 But they would have these rooms that they would fill with symbols they would remember.

00:50:29.300 And because these were adolescent boys who were learning this, a lot of those symbols would be pornographic.

00:50:34.400 So they definitely remember them.

00:50:35.660 So instead of memorizing a speech, they would think of a route to take through their memory palace, picking up these expressions, quotations, you know, tropes, whatever would work.

00:50:50.260 And then what would happen in the middle of a debate, they wouldn't be thrown off course.

00:50:55.160 They would simply reroute their path through this memory palace.

00:50:59.460 And so memory for them was really like a lifelong development.

00:51:03.800 Now, one of the ways I talk about memory – sorry, I'm stuck on this, but I just can't help it because it's so much fun.

00:51:09.680 I tell people if they're doing a presentation on, you know, go ahead and use PowerPoint or Keynote or whatever.

00:51:16.680 Whether you're showing slides or not, create the slides, put notes on them, and then print out the slides with your notes of what you're going to say.

00:51:26.500 Then arrange them the way you want.

00:51:28.960 That's arrangement, you know, slide by slide.

00:51:31.480 So print out each one of these things.

00:51:33.320 It may be as like separate pages if you're willing to use the paper.

00:51:37.480 Then print it out again, only this time without your notes, after you've read it a million times.

00:51:43.160 And see if the pictures themselves can trigger what you say.

00:51:47.700 And just go through that a bunch of times.

00:51:49.620 And what you're doing is you're enforcing different parts of your brain to remember what you want to say.

00:51:54.740 And then, you know, if you can, see if you can go and deliver this talk without the slides or the notes.

00:52:01.060 And people will love it because it's such a rare commodity these days.

00:52:05.000 Last of all is delivery, or in Latin, actio, which means action as well as acting.

00:52:11.200 And that is how well you can deliver this talk.

00:52:14.680 And that's why I dwelt so long on memory because memory has a lot to do with it.

00:52:19.020 I hear young people all the time giving talks, you know, in video or whatever.

00:52:24.200 When they're reading something, the kids who get the straight A's will read a mile a minute.

00:52:29.960 They associate really good speech with how fast they can go.

00:52:33.620 And, you know, for a geezer like me, I can't understand a word of it.

00:52:37.280 And it also is just not very authentic sounding when they do it.

00:52:40.460 So, one of the ways to deliver to a modern audience, especially if you're using something like a teleprompter, is, you know, slow down and sound sincere at the same time.

00:52:51.920 That's delivery.

00:52:52.500 So, invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery are the five canons.

00:52:56.680 I think it's great.

00:52:57.240 I mean, it's, again, thousands of years old.

00:52:59.300 It still works if you have to give a TED Talk.

00:53:01.540 This is going to work for you.

00:53:03.080 Absolutely.

00:53:03.680 And, you know, I can't stress this enough.

00:53:05.840 People don't learn enough how to speak sounding authentic, you know, in a video or, you know, in, I don't know, a podcast.

00:53:17.060 You know, how to sound like you're being yourself while at the same time you may have notes in front of you.

00:53:23.660 And that takes practice.

00:53:24.720 It just doesn't just – I think we have this idea of authenticity that it just – you'll rise to the occasion and it'll just – whatever naturally comes out of you will be – that's what you need to do.

00:53:34.080 But, no, actually, the good people who are good at rhetoric, good at speaking, like, they practice over and over again to hone in on how they present themselves.

00:53:43.020 Oh, that's so true.

00:53:43.940 And this stuff is really hard.

00:53:45.380 I try to get better at it every year.

00:53:46.920 So, your book – I mean, what I love about your book, it's so comprehensive.

00:53:50.880 We talked about sort of the big picture – I'm hoping people have a big picture idea of what, you know, is involved with rhetoric.

00:53:56.680 But in your book, you go into, like, details of little tools you can use to even be more persuasive.

00:54:02.280 And one of the more useful – I mean, everything was useful, but one of the things I thought was really useful at the end of the book, you provide sort of, like, games that people can use on a daily basis to fine-tune the rhetorical ability.

00:54:12.500 Is there one or two that you think are – that it's a lot of fun but also really useful for someone who wants to start improving the rhetoric game today?

00:54:21.320 I'll tell you one that is hugely popular or was back when I could speak in front of live audiences.

00:54:28.080 I would call someone with the audience, and you could do this at home.

00:54:32.120 It's really easy.

00:54:33.340 It's called the dice game, and I have – I mean, you can make this up yourself or you could simply go to my website, thank you for arguing, and you'll find it there.

00:54:42.000 What you do is there are five types of audiences that could be single people, like a priest or a nun could be one, a firefighter could be another, a college professor could be another, and so on.

00:54:59.460 And then the other side is the stuff you want to sell them, which would be a ball of twine, say, or a baby goat, or you could make stuff up.

00:55:12.680 So in the one column is particular kinds of people, and the other column is the stuff you want to sell them.

00:55:18.760 So roll two dice, and the first die is the audience, and the second die is what you want to sell them, whatever their product is.

00:55:28.300 People give the most unexpected kinds of presentations with this.

00:55:34.760 I will call up people from the audience, and generally it's people who are goaded by their friends who want to embarrass them.

00:55:40.140 They get up on stage, and they give the most amazing persuasion, and it's absolutely hilarious.

00:55:47.320 A resentful teenager is, I think, one that's listed in Argue Lab, and sometimes you'll get somebody coming up and trying to sell a baby.

00:55:58.300 Goat to a resentful teenager, and using the most amazing argument you can imagine.

00:56:03.600 It's super fun, but it also really helps people understand what argument and persuasion in particular is all about.

00:56:10.960 All right, so you mentioned your website.

00:56:12.360 Thank you for your arguing.

00:56:13.100 Anywhere else people can go to learn more about your work and the book?

00:56:15.580 Yeah, the most useful website – I have really too many.

00:56:19.500 I'm bad at this.

00:56:20.200 But the one I put the most effort into because I originally developed it for students is arguelab.com.

00:56:27.500 Argue as in argue, lab, all one word, dot com.

00:56:31.160 And that's where you'll find the exercises and stuff like that.

00:56:33.880 Otherwise, I'm hashtag Jay Heinrichs at all the fine social media places.

00:56:37.880 Fantastic.

00:56:38.300 Well, Jay Heinrichs, thanks for your time.

00:56:39.400 It's been a pleasure.

00:56:40.380 Brett, this is so good.

00:56:41.360 You asked the best questions.

00:56:42.560 My guest today was Jay Heinrichs.

00:56:45.560 He's the author of the book, Thank You for Arguing.

00:56:47.460 It's available on Amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.

00:56:49.600 You can find out more information about his work and the book at his website, arguelab.com.

00:56:53.800 Also, check out our show notes at aom.is slash rhetoric, where you can find links to resources

00:56:57.780 where you can delve deeper into this topic.

00:57:06.440 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM Podcast.

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The Art of Manliness - August 26, 2020

#639： Why You Should Learn the Lost Art of Rhetoric

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