Can rhetoric make us a better society?

The answer to the question is definitely yes. Communication makes a better society, and rhetoric makes better communication. Communicate is what we all do in everyday life, and in order to make our communication more effective, rhetoric has to be applied.

The answer is yes because we have history to prove it. Rhetoric is the ancient art of argumentation and discourse. Since the Roman Empire, philosophers have discussed logos, ethos, and pathos. During the Roman Empire, many great rhetoric works were produced: poetry, satire, comedy, tragedy, and history. All of them boosted up the quality of spiritual life at that time, therefore the society grew vigorously and flourishing under the new civilization that has been built by the help of theory of rhetoric.

Thousands year has been passed; rhetoric is still considered as the pivotal part of the study of liberal arts today. Every government plays a very important role of rhetor when they are dealing with state affairs with other governments. Even Obama used his excellent oratory to won the votes, to give confidence to his citizen. Besides politics, rhetoric also helps us in our daily life. Teachers use rhetoric to make lectures easier to understand; doctors use rhetoric to comfort their patients; neighbors use rhetoric to avoid unnecessary quarrels. Rhetoric brings us all of these advantages and it makes the society more balanced and positive; makes our country more united and peaceful.

John Adams Speech Analysis

In the movie, Mr. Adams mainly used pathos and ethos in his speech to persuade all delegates in the congress to declare independence.

Many pathos tools were used by Mr. Adams such as volume control, belief and so on. In this speech, he well controlled his volume. He turned the volume down while talking about the cost for the revolution, but he emphasized the expectation of his audience through turning the volume up many key words like “free country” and “republic”. This volume control method really helped him move the emotion of audience, made them get ready for the independence and gave them more confidence to participate the revolution.

Besides volume control, he also used belief to persuade audience in the congress. He stirred the emotion of audience by using their unhappy experience in colonies and gave them the expectation of freedom. This pathos tool stimulated audience to join the revolution.

Moreover, meet the expectation of audience was also an ethos tool to persuade people in the congress. Mr. Adams built his credibility by talking about a free country and the benefits of the independence. Those things are the expectations of audience.

What’s more? Mr. Adams said he would use his whole life for a free country. This promise would help him gain more trust since his words seem like no trick and a kind of personal sacrifice.

With these four tools and some other rhetorical appeal tools, Mr. Adams had a wonderful speech in the congress and successfully persuaded the delegates from other states to join the revolution of independence.

peaceful visual rhetoric

Here is an example of visual rhetoric which was found in a blog that was also for a rhetoric course. The example is a very simple wall paper that there are just two hands with some paint in a purple background, but I think it has deep meanings.

In the wall paper, two painted hands hold each other and these two connected hands look like the earth. The author delivers a message “unity” to all people in the world. So the entire human race is the audience of this visual rhetoric.

When people look at this wall paper, the tinted warm color will be the first impression of this imagine. Those light blue and purple colors give a peaceful feeling to the audience. Then those skin colors and some green express some natural. These colors are considered as pathos to give the audience a peaceable emotion.

Beside colors, two connected hands give the audience much feeling such as trust, help and so on. Moreover, there are little logos with pathos. Two hands are different in colors, but they form “the earth”. These two hands help author connect all people together by a common point: earth. Because earth is the home for all people, this logically implies all people are families. And it gives the audience an emotion about loving other people, even though some people are in different races.

For my opinion, this example of visual rhetoric persuades people easily with its pathos and logos.

MVP advertisment

I just got an advertisement about Mediacom Value Plan from my mail box and I think it is a kind of rhetoric. The Mediacom Company is the rhetor delivers the introduction of its value plan to residents in Iowa for persuading people to use the plan.

In the advertisement, the company uses pathos by giving a picture of a phone with “Mom” on the screen and there are “ultimate calling” besides the picture. I consider it is pathos, because Mediacom want to persuade people in Iowa City and Coralville to buy its plan and they know many people in these 2 areas are students who come from other places and they may have some homesick emotion.

In addition, the company also uses many specific information and comparison to persuade people, such as 5000 free movies, over 160 channels, 10 times faster internet, free DVR, free installation and lower price. The company also said, “We are the very best” and “saving you hundreds of dollars”. Depends these information, people logically want to have this better service, but cheaper price.

For my opinion, this Mediacom Value Plan advertisement has a proper measure since it mainly uses its better quality to logically persuade people to buy the plan and those are what people really focus on when they are choosing a technology service. Moreover, it is also a good time to persuade people to buy the plan, because many students are moving and new students are coming in the summer. By the reasons above, I think this Mediacom Value Plan advertisement is very effective.