Strongly agree this info is mostly about what tutoring was, but I have been struck recently by how far-reaching this idea of ‘rhetoric’ is. I have found it very easy throughout my life to think about this classic notion of rhetoric as mere speaking well and persuading. But the way it is talked about and the way the curricula of Cicero, Quintilian and Renaissance thinkers seem to think of it, as you say, as the master skill of the elite. Is it not true anymore?
It depends on how we define this master skill. What exactly was this skill, if it is broader than mere persuasion? Rhetoric has its roots in law, political, persuasion, and the courts so we might call it ‘public advocacy.’ But it concerns not so much what to advocate so much as how to advocate. So at minimum it requires a knowledge of law, persuasion, and politics.
What might rhetoric have to do with progress studies?
Today, the good public advocate needs also knowledge of technology, economics, and maybe something else, and an eye to how more good can be done. But the key factor of a modern rhetoric would be the study and practice of mechanisms and method for getting stuff done: soft networks, legal process, fundraising, think tanks, legislative interventions, startup pitches, nonprofit organization, policy drafting and implementation, management science.
Since I believe that organizational and structural barriers are currently a bigger limiting variable on progress than invention and technology, a new version of rhetoric might be called for.
One alternative view is that I am just abusing the term and rhetoric is as obsolete as wooden wheels.
Confidence level: 30%
Strongly agree this info is mostly about what tutoring was, but I have been struck recently by how far-reaching this idea of ‘rhetoric’ is. I have found it very easy throughout my life to think about this classic notion of rhetoric as mere speaking well and persuading. But the way it is talked about and the way the curricula of Cicero, Quintilian and Renaissance thinkers seem to think of it, as you say, as the master skill of the elite. Is it not true anymore?
It depends on how we define this master skill. What exactly was this skill, if it is broader than mere persuasion? Rhetoric has its roots in law, political, persuasion, and the courts so we might call it ‘public advocacy.’ But it concerns not so much what to advocate so much as how to advocate. So at minimum it requires a knowledge of law, persuasion, and politics.
What might rhetoric have to do with progress studies?
Today, the good public advocate needs also knowledge of technology, economics, and maybe something else, and an eye to how more good can be done. But the key factor of a modern rhetoric would be the study and practice of mechanisms and method for getting stuff done: soft networks, legal process, fundraising, think tanks, legislative interventions, startup pitches, nonprofit organization, policy drafting and implementation, management science.
Since I believe that organizational and structural barriers are currently a bigger limiting variable on progress than invention and technology, a new version of rhetoric might be called for.
One alternative view is that I am just abusing the term and rhetoric is as obsolete as wooden wheels.