Rhetoric and the Holistic Education of Man

        Throughout its history, the importance of rhetoric has been cyclical. The public’s opinion of rhetoric rises and falls based on the popularity of humanism and the natural sciences at the time. Humanism and the natural sciences have often captured the attention of man and displaced rhetoric in its traditional sense – although admittedly, rhetoric can never be driven out entirely. All language is, by its very nature, rhetorical. But rhetoric rooted in humanism is not moral, true, or complete. Humanism isolates the logical part of man, separating him from his emotions, and calls it truth. This practice is not only misleading and dishonest, but it is dangerous. I believe that rhetorical education should reject humanism and be targeted toward the holistic man, not just his rationality and logic. 

            Humanism appears to be rooted in the Sophistic movement. Both humanism and Sophistic rhetoric target traditional rhetoric through the removal of absolute truth, the denigration of emotion, and the elevation of delivery over content. The biggest danger of humanism is that it seeks to dismantle absolute truth. Sophists believed that truth only includes what can be empirically known through the natural sciences or observed through the human senses. Since the existence of God cannot be empirically proved or disproved, He is by Sophistic standards banned from the public sphere, for “the transcendent is inaccessible to humans, or...it does not exist” (Bizzell et al. 22). This denial of God’s existence does not make God any less real – it merely places man above Him. It also results in the removal of absolute truth, which can come only from God. This culminates into the disintegration of society through a lack of morals, values, and truths. Under Sophistic philosophy, man will sin without remorse and without fear, because his peers will judge him by cultural constructs rather than using the sense of absolute morality that has been instilled within them by their Creator. 

            Humanism further seeks to remove emotion from the public sphere. The Sophists taught that because emotions are easily swayed, they are not to be relied upon and that only reason and empirical study should be used in public discourse – this is, of course, a humanistic idea. Humanism values human achievements, empirical science, and the rational self above all else, especially above emotion and religious inclinations. Early humanists reframed traditional rhetoric as something entirely emotional and thus dishonest. In this way, humanism and science displaced rhetoric by elevating reason above emotion. 

But emotion should be taken into consideration when a man is making important decisions, or when he is persuading others to make important decisions. Rhetoric that uses emotion is not dishonest or manipulative. In fact, disregarding emotion when using rhetoric is dishonest to the human experience. Emotion can and should affect the way we think. Rhetoric that uses emotion addresses the holistic entity of man rather than just his logical, rational side. Even the Dutch humanist Erasmus would agree with the holistic education of man. Erasmus was a great proponent of humanist language studies, which is based on the principle that the whole being, emotional and social, needs to be engaged in learning, not just the mind (Bizzell et al. 450). Reason should not be elevated above emotion at all times, nor should emotion over reason, but the two should be carefully balanced in endeavors of persuasion and education. 

            Moreover, humanism values the delivery of a message over the content of that message. In other words, humanist Sophistic rhetoric is concerned “with how people could be persuaded that they had learned the truth, whether or not truth was in fact conveyed” (Bizzell et al. 23). Sophists trained their rhetoricians in the art of manipulation. They were more concerned with the effectiveness of their word choice and delivery rather than the content they presented; they taught that the power of language was to come not from the truth it contained but from its eloquence.

In contrast to the humanism-centered Sophistic rhetoric, I align myself more closely with Platonic rhetoric. Plato, to his credit, fought for the recognition of an absolute, enduring truth and an inherent moral compass that teaches us objective right and wrong. In Plato’s rhetoric, “true and false speech must be distinguished” (Bizzell et al. 28). Rhetoric should be used to reach for absolute truth as much as it should be used to share this truth. Persuasion was important not to mislead people and sway them to any view necessary, but rather to present the truth to people in a way that makes them willing to listen. An effective rhetorician “combines a Platonic commitment to virtue and enduring truth with the Isocratean and Ciceronian focus on effective public service” (Bizzell et al. 35). This will produce the rhetorician who has the audience’s best interest in mind as well as what is morally right for himself as the speaker. 

Reaching for truth is important, but if the rhetoric centers on truth found in empirical science alone and disregards emotion, it is still dishonest. Rhetoric that relies solely on what man can empirically know is a challenge to God and a dismissal of His power. However, rhetoric that relies too much on emotion is also a bad thing. Rhetorical practice that values delivery over content capitalizes on deceit by omission or presentation. The value of a speech or piece of writing should not solely be placed in the audience’s reception or response but in the truth of its content, especially God’s truth. I strongly believe that the whole being – rational, emotional and social – needs to be engaged by rhetoric in a struggle towards a more perfect education. 

Bizzell, Patricia, et al. The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present. 3rd ed.,     Bedford/St. Martin's, 2020.