Rhetoric of The Open Hand and of The Closed Fist

The Rhetoric of the Open Hand and the Rhetoric of the Closed Fist
Author(s): Edward P. J. Corbett

Source: College Composition and Communication, Vol. 20, No. 5 (Dec., 1969), pp. 288-296
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/355032
Accessed: 20-03-2019 07:11 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
National Council of Teachers of English is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve

and extend access to College Composition and Communication
This content downloaded from 129.97.58.73 on Wed, 20 Mar 2019 07:11:46 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
The kRh oric of the Open -land and the Rhtoric
of the Closed Ti§t
EDWARD P. J. CORBETT
THE FAVORITE METAPHORS USED during rhetoric and logic reigned supreme in
the Renaissance in referring to logic the schools, and to try to account for
and rhetoric were Zeno's analogies of the changes that have taken place.
the closed fist and the open hand. The +
closed fist symbolized the tight, spare,
compressed discourse of the philosopher; Book-length historical studies pro-
the open hand symbolized the relaxed, duced during the last thirty years or so by
expansive, ingratiating discourse of the such scholars as T. W. Baldwin, William
orator. When, sometime after the ap- G. Crane, Wilbur Samuel Howell, Sister
pearance of Descartes's Discourse on Miriam Joseph, Rosemond Tuve, and
Method in 1637, logic became more a Walter J. Ong have served to acquaint
theory of inquiry than a theory of com- teachers of the humanities with the gen-
munication, rhetoric became the ration- eral rationale and the specific details
ale for both learned discourse and popu- of the disciplines of rhetoric and logic
lar discourse, and these traditional met- in the English Renaissance schools. The
aphors came to be looked upon as de- arts of communication-rhetoric, poetics,
scribing the two varieties of communica- and logic or dialectic-that were incor-
tive discourse. I see the two metaphors porated into the curriculum of the Ren-
now as having taken on a new tenor. aissance schools of England were es-
The open hand might be said to charac- sentially the same disciplines that were
terize the kind of persuasive discourse originated by Aristotle and extended or
that seeks to carry its point by reasoned, modified by Cicero, Quintilian, and Hor-
sustained, conciliatory discussion of the ace and by such medieval scholars and
issues. The closed fist might signify the teachers as St. Augustine, Alcuin, John
kind of persuasive activity that seeks of Salisbury, and Geoffrey of Vinsauf.
to carry its point by non-rationale, non- They were rigidly codified and struc-
sequential, often non-verbal, frequently tured studies, taught predominantly in
provocative means. The raised closed Latin until vernacular texts on rhetoric,
fist of the black-power militant may be logic, and poetics began appearing about
emblematic of this whole new develop- the middle of the sixteenth century. Al-
ment in the strategies of persuasion in though the Renaissance humanists adopt-
the 1960's. ed the full panoply of persuasive strate-
The style, the tactics, the ethos of gies-the logical, the emotional, and the
much of the activity which seeks to ethical-they certainly placed the great-
change attitudes and influence action est emphasis on the cognitive approach
have certainly changed remarkably dur- to invention. In none of the Renaissance
ing the troubled years of the 1960's. I rhetorics do we find as much attention
should like to describe the changes I paid to emotional appeals as Aristotle
have noted, to compare these new rhetor- paid in Book Two of his Rhetoric. It is
ical strategies with those that prevailed not until the third quarter of the eigh-
in the Renaissance when the study of teenth century, with the appearance of
288
OPEN HAND AND CLOSED FIST 289
George Campbell's The Philosophy

his formerof
colleague Marshall McLuhan,
Rhetoric, which coincided with the
who, as few people are aware, wrote
growth of interest in faculty psychology,his doctoral dissertation on Thomas
that we find increasing attention beingNashe (Cambridge, 1944). Printing
paid to the strategies of the emotionalfrom movable type was barely a half
appeal. The emphasis on the cerebralcentury old when the Renaissance be-
in Renaissance discourse is the natural
gan in England, but this revolution very
soon exerted a profound influence on
consequence of the close union of rhet-
oric and dialectic in the Tudor class- the schooling and the mental set of
room. The emotional had its chief outlet
the period. As Father Ong has reminded
in the lyrics and dramas of the period.us,1 there was a heavy oral residue in
The ethical appeal does not receiveTudor prose style throughout most of
much explicit attention in Renaissance the sixteenth century, as is evidenced
rhetoric, but the concern for the per- in the stitching-together, nonperiodic
suasive efficacy of the personal imagepattern of prose discourse, a pattern
of the speaker or writer is implicit in
which was fostered by the great stress
the whole educational bias of the period.in Renaissance schools on copia, on
One of the reasons for the popularity commonplaces, on formulary phrases and
of Cicero and Quintilian's rhetorics withstructures. The lingering on of the oral
Renaissance schoolmasters, most of medium is evidenced too in the scholas-
whom were ordained priests, was that tic disputations, in the oratorical struc-
these Roman rhetoricians placed so ture recommended by the letter-writing
much emphasis on the moral formation manuals for formal epistles, and in that
most oral of all the literary arts, the
of the aspiring pupil. They subscribed
to the definition of the ideal orator as
drama, which attained its pinnacle of
being "a good man skilled in speaking."glory during this period.
The appeal of such how-to-win-friends-But the predominance of dynamic,
and-influence-people texts as Ascham's personalizing sound soon gave way, in
Schoolmaster and Castiglione's The the academic world at least, to the fro-
Courtier was that these texts were de- zen, silent, impersonal matrix of print.
As Marshall McLuhan has been telling
signed to produce the man for all seasons.
The Renaissance schoolmaster's efforts us, print served to detribalize man, to
were directed to the education of an remove him from the group, to make
aristocracy, not only in the sense ofhim
edu-more independent, more solitary,
cation for the landed gentry but alsomorein
inner-directed. Instead of the teach-
the Greek sense of rule by the best er on one end of a bench and the stu-
men,
dent on the other end, we now had the
men characterized by those Aristotelian
ideals of good sense, good will,studentand curled up in the corner with a
good moral disposition. book. Instead of the give-and-take, ques-
Another thing we must keep in mind tion-and-answer dialogue between teach-
er and pupil, we now had the teacher's
when assessing the rationale of Renais-
monologue, delivered from the lectern
sance rhetorical training is that Europe
was just entering upon the typographical
from a handwritten or printed text and
not so much heard by the student as
age, with all the cultural consequences
which that revolution effected. It ishesig-
sat silently in his seat as transcribed
nificant, and perhaps ironic, thatbythe
him into his notebook.
two men who have written most exten- As a consequence, persuasive dis-
sively about the electronic era upon
which we have now entered are two
1"Oral Residue in Tudor Prose Style," PMLA,
Renaissance scholars-Walter J. OngLXXX
and (June, 1965), 145-54.
290 COLLEGE COMPOSITION AND COMMUNICATION
course for the next three centuries took who could not also write it. That profi-
the form mainly, not of the stop-and- ciency was certainly not possessed by
go, fragmentary, oral-aural dialogue that the majority of Englishmen, who could
Socrates had practiced but of the se- handle only the vernacular; for that
quential, structured monologue that majority, the vernacular was exclusively
Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian had an oral medium.
given instructions about in their rheto- And while I am speaking about lan-
rics. One difference of course is that guage, I might make the observation
whereas the classical rhetoricians were
that the language of traditional discourse,
in classical times as well as in the Renais-
dealing with the kind of monologue that
sance, tended to be highly formal,
would be delivered orally before a live
audience, the Renaissance rhetoricians learned, even uncommon. It is curious
dealt with the kind of monologue that that this should have been so, because
more often than not would be delivered rhetoric, from its beginning, was con-
to an unseen audience in the visualist ceived of as the discipline which gov-
medium of handwriting or print. erned This communication with a mass au-
is not to say that persuasive discoursedience. But the whole doctrine of the
in the oral-aural medium disappeared schemes and tropes was founded on
entirely during the late Renaissance. the notion that language would more
Throughout the period, there continued effectively convey a message to an au-
dience if it frequently departed from
to be a great deal of discourse conducted
the literal meaning and the normal pat-
orally, in the courtrooms, the parliaments,
and the classroom. But with the grow- terns of words. Wilbur Samuel Howell
ing consciousness of an international suggests a plausible reason for the de-
community of scholars, merchants, velopment
and of this linguistic bias:
statesmen, the Renaissance man found It is suggestive to speculate upon the
that he had to manage more and more cultural implications of a rhetorical
of his communication with that farflung theory which equates true elegance and
community through the medium of the hence true effectiveness with a system
printed book or the handwritten letter.of studied departures from the estab-
Latin of course was the international lished patterns of everyday speech.
Such a theory appears to be the normal
language of communication in scholar-
concomitant of the social and political
ship, commerce, and diplomacy, and that situation in which the holders of power
fact not only strengthened the position are hereditary aristocrats who must be
of Latin in the curriculum but helped conciliated by the commoners if the lat-
to foster the growing orientation of the ter are to gain privileges for them-
period to the print medium, because, as selves. In a situation like that, persua-
Father Ong has reminded us,2 once Latin sive forms of speech would emerge as
had ceased to be the language of the agreeable forms; and agreeable forms
family circle, as it certainly had by the would be those which sound agreeable
time of the Renaissance, it became a to the aristocratic holders of power.
What forms could sound more agree-
language artificially preserved and con- able to the aristocrat than those which
trolled by writing and by printing. And originated in a repudiation of the
while there were some educated peoplespeech of the lower classes? Would not
during this period who could speak Lat-such forms remind him of the superior-
in fluently, the significant fact is that ity of his own origin and thus be a way
there was no one who could speak Latin of softening his will by the subtle in-
ducements of flattery?3
2"The Vernacular Matrix of the New Criti-
cism," The Barbarian Within (New York, 1962), 3Logic and Rhetoric in England, 1500-1700
pp. 177-205. (Princeton, N.J., 1956), p. 117.
David Hume,
Late in the seventeenth century, withby Hugh Blair, George
the growth of parliamentary government Campbell, and Richard Whately, by the
and with the reform programs ofProfessors
Boylston the of Rhetoric at Har-
Royal Society, there was a revolt vard in the nineteenth century, and by
against
this notion of a mandarin language. Alfred Korzybski,
But I. A. Richards, and
even as early as the mid-sixteenth Kenneth cen-
Burke in the twentieth century,
tury, John Jewel, in his Oration but time simply does not allow for a
against
Rhetoric, delivered before the members tracing out of that history here.6
of Corpus Christi College at Oxford, Let us begin by acknowledging that
raised some serious doubts about the there has been a marked revival of inter-
est the
appropriateness and effectiveness of in rhetoric in the twentieth century
ornate style of address: and that there has been a conspicuous
increase in rhetorical activities in this
For if in speaking, we seek this (as we
country during the 1950's and 1960's. It
certainly do), that we may be under-
is Wayne Booth's judgment that "we are
stood by others with whom wequantitatively
deal, the most rhetorical age in
who can discover a better mode of
history-and not only in the undeniable
speech than to speak intelligibly, sim-
ply, and clearly? What need of sense
art? that more men are living by rhet-
What need of childish ornaments?4
oric than ever before."7 Let us see what
some of the characteristics are of this
In a recent article on "The Rhetoric of new rhetorical activity to which I have
Confrontation," Robert L. Scott and attached the metaphor of the closed fist.
Donald K. Smith observed, "Since the
time of Aristotle, academic rhetorics
One of the more obvious character-
have been for the most part instruments
of established society, presupposing the istics of those contemporary activities
that seek to change attitudes and affect
'goods' of order, civility, reason, decorum,
and civil or theocratic law."5 We mightaction is that many of them are non-
verbal. Demonstrations of all kinds-
use that quotation as a transition to the
marches, boycotts, sit-ins, take-overs,
description of the rhetoric of the closed
riots-have taken on a new currency in
fist, since it contains suggestions of how
and why changes have taken place in theour time, and if they need a label, they
might be called "muscular rhetoric" or
style and strategies of modern rhetoric.
"body rhetoric." They seek to convey a
I hope, however, that this abrupt transi-
message, to exercise an influence, simply
tion will not create the impression that
by massed physical presence, either stat-
the reasoned, highly structured, elegant
manner of discourse that prevailed in ictheor kinetic, either organized or sponta-
neous. The accouterments of the demon-
Renaissance changed suddenly into the
new style of rhetoric. There werestratorsall are often such non-verbal sym-
bols
those intermediate stages, all those con- as flags, armbands, bizarre cos-
tributions to the development of a "newtumes, and occult insignia worn as pins,
rhetoric" made by Peter Ramus and buttons, or neck-chains. It is remarkable
Omer Talon, by Rene Descartes and the
Port-Royal logicians, by Thomas 6See my articles, "Rhetoric and Teachers of
Hobbes, Francis Bacon, John Locke, and
English," QJS, LI (December, 1965), 375-81,
and "What Is Being Revived?" College Compo-
sition and Communication, XVIII (October,
4Hoyt H. Hudson, "Jewel's Oration against
1967), 166-72, for a brief survey of this history.
Rhetoric: A Translation," QJS, XIV (1928), 7"The Revival of Rhetoric," PMLA, LXXX
381. (May, 1965), quoted from New Rhetorics, ed.
5QJS, LV (February, 1969), 7. Martin Steinmann, Jr. (New York, 1967), p. 5.
too how much a part music plays history,

in thiseconomics, sociology, and logic.
non-verbal rhetoric, especially Unlike
the musicthe writer of the Tudor, Eliza-
of the strummed guitar. Words, bethan, and ofJacobean periods who han-
course, do play some part in these dem-
dled his language in a spirit of exuberant
onstrations, but words clearlydiscovery,
play athe writer today, Steiner
maintains,
subsidiary role, and it is notable how "tends to use fewer and sim-
pler words,
fragmentary these verbal utterances are.both because mass culture
Aside from the broadsides that issue has watered down the concept of literacy
from the mimeograph machines, writtenand because the sum of realities of which
words mainly appear as sloganswords in- can give a necessary and sufficient
account has sharply diminished."8 Any
scribed on posters or as graffiti painted
on walls. In the oral medium, single new rhetoric that develops will certainly
words or phrases are chanted endlessly
have to give increasing attention to the
in unison. Of course when the ultimate non-verbal means of communication.
confrontation comes, coherent sentencesAnother characteristic of the rhetoric
have to be resorted to, and we are back of the closed fist is that it tends to be a
group rhetoric, a gregarious rhetoric.
to the strategies of traditional rhetoric.
But body rhetoric has set the stage for Traditional rhetoric was designed for the
solitary speaker or writer addressing a
the nitty-gritty of negotiation, and in the
last analysis, body rhetoric is the medi-captive audience. The solitary speaker or
um that has conveyed the main message. writer held forth, as I am doing now, for
The heavy reliance on non-verbal an allotted time or space. Today, except
means of communication serves to con- for the lone martyr who immolates his
firm Marshall McLuhan's claim that the draft card or himself, a good deal of
electronic media have expanded and in-rhetorical activity is conducted in
tensified the human sensoria. Aural,groups. The mass demonstration, which
visual, and tactual images have an im-
we have just considered, is the best man-
mediacy, an intensity, a simultaneity ifestation of this phenomenon. One of
about them that words strung out one the vogue words today is participatory,
after the other on a page can hardly and participatory means of course "op-
achieve. Recently I visited the Electricerating as part of a group." This ten-
Circus in Greenwich Village, and after dency may be a confirmation of another
an hour in that atmosphere of high- of McLuhan's claims, namely that far
decibel music, blinking strobe lights, and
from making passive automatons of its
throbbing floor, I understood for the viewers, television has retribalized men
first time what young people mean when
to the point of making them want to act
they speak of a complete immersion inin concert with others. And so the new
an experience that involves the senses
passion of the young for action and for
of sight, hearing, touch, and even smell
involvement, for abandoning the passive
simultaneously. And I began to under-lecture-room, with its print-locked books,
stand too why there has been a shift in
and mixing in the marketplace. A new
educational theory recently from the sense of community and commitment
cognitive approach of men like Jerome flourishes today, as is evident in the
popularity of the Peace Corps and the
Bruner to the affective approach of men
like Jean Piaget. This may be part too of
Vista and the tutoring programs. We see
what George Steiner refers to as "the it too in the renascence of the dialogue,
retreat from the word," a retreat that he
or what I call the "polylogue," forms of
finds taking place not only in the physi-
cal and biological sciences but also in 8"The Retreat from the Word," Language
such traditionally verbal disciplines and
as Silence (New York, 1967), p. 25.
1968.show,
discourse-the interview, the panel According to the Newsweek ac-
count dy-
the brainstorming sessions, the group of the incident (May 6, 1968, p.
43), of
namics, the living theater. One Mark
theRudd's response was an un-
reasons why dissidents against the es-
equivocal "bull shit." Andrew's comment
tablishment so often resort to is, "The choice then was between the
gregarious
SDS position
rhetoric is simply the realization that and 'bull shit': no choice
there is safety and strength inatnumbers.
all."
And in densely populated, highly I see choices as the key concept of
com-
plex societies, like ours, the individual is
rhetoric. Accordingly, where the choices
such a cipher that he thinks itare arbitrarily pared down or eliminated,
presump-
tuous of him to demand the sustained rhetoric begins to disappear. This may
attention of an audience, but he realizes
very well be the most ominous tendency
of the new rhetoric. But I can see why
that his anonymity acquires a powerful
the tendency has developed. Mahatma
voice when it merges with the group.
Gandhi once said, "Violence is essential-
Vox populi can be heard in the back
ly wordless, and it can begin only where
benches of the executive and legislative
assemblies. thought and rational communication
A third characteristic of the new rhet-have broken down. Any society which is
oric of the closed fist is that it reliesgeared for violent action is by that fact
more on coercive than on persuasivesystematically
tac- unreasonable." People are
tics. There was a moral dimension to the likely to resort to coercive, non-rational,
even violent tactics to gain their ends
traditional persuasive process. As Yves
when they feel that the normal channels
Simon has said, "To persuade a man is to
awaken in him a voluntary inclination of communication are ineffectual or un-
toward a certain course of action .... available. It is significant that the ones
persuasion implies the operation of whofree
have most often resorted to these
choice."9 Leland M. Griffin sees rhetori- coercive tactics have been the dispos-
cal activity become coercive rather than sessed, the disenfranchised in our society
persuasive when it resorts to the non- -poor people, students, minority groups
rational, when it is dependent, as he puts-people who do not have ready access
it, on "seat of the pants" rather than onto the established channels of communi-
"seat of the intellect."10 James R. An- cations. As The Report of the National
drews refines this definition a bit when Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders
he says, "Rhetoric becomes less persua- (New York: Bantam Books, 1968) puts
sive and more coercive to the extent that it, "The frustrations of powerlessness
it limits the viable alternatives open to have led some to the conviction that
the receivers of the communication."l1 there is no effective alternative to vio-
lence as a means of expression and re-
He cites as an example of coercive tac-
tics the answer Mark Rudd gave to thedress, as a way of 'moving the system'"
many offers to negotiate made by the (p. 205).
Columbia administration during the As I say, I can understand why some
campus disturbances in the spring of people in our society resort to gut
responses, but I become apprehensive
when I see people abandoning the rea-
9 Philosophy of Democratic Government (Chi-
cago, 1951), p. 109. sonable and reasoning approach in situa-
tions where their freedom or their wel-
10"The Rhetorical Structure of the 'New
Left' Movement: Part I," QJS, L (April, fare
1964),
is not at stake. I am talking about
127.
11"Confrontation at Columbia: A Casethe habit, both in ordinary conversation
Study
or in formal discourse, of saying the
in Coercive Rhetoric," QJS, LV (February,
1969), 12. thing that is patently untrue or grossly
illogical. Mouthing untrue or invalid

gether logically so that they 'track' or
propositions is of course not peculiar 'follow,' "to
Booth says, "doesn't seem to
our age. We have all been guilty appeal
of to
thatmany of us any more." Booth
on occasion; I know I have. What does cites the example of a speech that Leslie
seem to be on the increase; however, is Fiedler gave at Chicago a few years ago,
the deliberate disdain for, even revolt in which Fiedler advanced the thesis
against, truth and logic among those that "all the younger generation is really
whom we would expect to be more imitating Negro culture and that the cul-
responsible.l2 tural warfare between what he calls
In a recent article in the AAUP Bul- palefaces and redskins accounts for our
letin, A. M. Tibbetts remarked, literature today." When Booth protested
to a student afterwards that Fiedler had
On most issues of importance that arisenot offered any evidence or proof to sub-
in university life, students are failing
stantiate his thesis, the student replied,
to investigate fully, clarify premises,"But that doesn't matter, because it was
define terms, think logically, use evi-
so interesting."l4
dence properly, and write (or speak)
precisely, truthfully, and to the point. This is the kind of irrationality or
As a consequence of these failures,non-rationality that should disturb all of
many universities are moving towardus in the university community. This is
not the desperate rhetoric of a disen-
the very antithesis of what they are
supposed to be. They are graduallyfranchised people who have exhausted,
becoming places of untruth and un- or who do not have available, the normal
reason.13 channels of communication with those
who can do something to alleviate their
Among the examples of "unreason"miseries. This is the aberrant rhetoric of
that Tibbetts cited was one involving a supposedly intelligent people profession-
very bright student in an advancedally engaged in the pursuit of truth and
course of his, who said to him one day reason. The older rhetoricians, who de-
after a heated classroom discussion, "In voted most of their attention in the class-
not letting me, as a student, help runroom and in their texts to instruction in
this university, they are taking away mythe strategies of the logical appeal,
civil rights." When Tibbetts pressed himwould be appalled at this development
to define civil rights so that they couldin contemporary rhetoric. This retreat
intelligently discuss his assertion, thefrom reason may be part of the shift to
student replied, "Definitions are irrele- the primacy of the emotional appeal.
vant; I'm talking about facts." God help us all.
Wayne Booth, Dean of the College at The fourth characteristic, one that is
the University of Chicago, also notes aclosely allied to the previous mark and
disturbing increase of unreason in theone that lends a particular aptness to my
rhetoric of the left, right, and center. metaphor of the closed fist, is that a good
"The simple task of putting ideas to-deal of contemporary rhetoric is non-
conciliatory. By this I mean that whereas
12See Franklyn S. Haiman, "The Rhetoric of
1968: A Farewell to Rational Discourse," The
speakers and writers once took special
Ethics of Controversy: Politics and Protest (Law-pains to ingratiate themselves with their
rence, Kansas, 1968), pp. 123-42. Reprinted inaudience, today many speakers and writ-
Contemporary American Speeches, ed. Wil A.
Linkugel, R. R. Allen, and Richard L. Johanne-
sen, Second Edition (Belmont, California, 1969), 14 "'Now Don't Try to Reason with Me':
pp. 153-67. Rhetoric Today, Left, Right, and Center," The
13"To Encourage Reason on the Campus," University of Chicago Magazine, LX (Novem-
AAUP Bulletin, LIV (December, 1968), 466. ber, 1967), 12.
people
ers seem actually to go out of their is toway
speak abrasively. "The
squeaking
to antagonize or alienate their audience.wheel gets the grease."
Shouts,
Aristotle regarded the ethical threats,
appeal, obscenities do gain at-
the
image of himself that a speaker pro-
tention. Whether they elicit conviction
or actionof
jected, as the most potent means from anyone not already com-
per-
suasion. Militants today seem to to
mitted think
the speaker's point of view is
another
that all they need to do to movematter.
an There is another folk
audience is "tell it like it is." It matters
maxim to set against the one about the
not that in the process the audiencesqueaking
is wheel: "You attract more flies
shocked or angered or unsettled. Jimwith honey than with vinegar." The open
Corder has made this observation: hand has at least the chance of being
grasped cordially. The closed fist just
"Argument often fails because speakers
and writers assume that the right toanother closed fist to be raised.
prompts
speak, coupled with sincerity, inevitably
endows their voices with worth." Be-
I have been tracing out the contrasts
cause any position we take in an argu-
between
ment necessarily establishes a note of an older mode of discourse
which was verbal, sequential, logical,
partiality, we must, Corder contends,
search out those ethical arguments which monologuist, and ingratiating and a new-
can make "what is partial worth some- er style of communication which is often
one's time."15 non-verbal, fragmentary, coercive, inter-
It was Kenneth Burke who, in his locutory, and alienating. In the course of
A Rhetoric of Motives, established iden-this exposition, I suppose I have be-
tification as the crucial strategy in the trayed my preference. But I am really
persuasive process. "Identification,"not disposed to contend that the older
Burke says, "is compensatory to division.mode of discourse is superior on all
If men were not apart from one another,counts for our age. Our worl'd is' chang-
there would be no need for the rhetori- ing at a faster rate than any of us
cian to proclaim their unity." "You per- realize. It is notable that the newer style
suade a man," Burke goes on to say,of rhetoric has been adopted mainly by
young people. Perhaps the generation
"only insofar as you can talk his' language
by speech, gesture, tonality, order, under thirty realizes more than the rest
image, attitude, idea, identifying your of us just how much the world has
ways with his.... For the orator, follow- changed, senses, if it does not realize,
ing Aristotle and Cicero, will seek to that we exist in a world dominated by
display the appropriate 'signs' of char- the electronic media. I for one regard
acter needed to earn the audience's good these young people as a beautiful gener-
will."16 ation-although I wish that they were
That is a lesson that many contem- not so implacably self-righteous and that
porary speakers or writers have not along with their burning preoccupation
learned. Or if they have learned it, they with the present they displayed some
have chosen to ignore it. A third possi- interest in the past and some concern
bility is that they are seeking to develop for the future.
a new technique of ethical appeal. May- Extravagant and inconsistent as his
be their thinking is that the way to move pronouncements sometimes are, Mar-
shall McLuhan has indeed articulated
the epistemological and elocutionary dis-
5 "Ethical Argument and Rambler No. 154,"
QJS, LIV (December, 1968), 352. position of the present age. There are
16A Grammar of Motives and A Rhetoric of two ironies in all of this: first of all,
Motives, Meridian edition (1962), pp. 579-80. McLuhan, the apostle of the electronic
behind which
media, has propagated his message tothe establishment in all
the world largely through the ages has perpetrated
medium of injustices on the
the printed page; secondly, we have re-
have-nots. But if there has been hypoc-
turned to the oral-aural world in which risy in the older rhetoric, it has been
classical rhetoric had its beginnings over
the result of human frailty, not of an
2,000 years ago. But perhaps in these twoinherent weaknes's in that ancient art
ironies we can see the opportunity for awhich taught that a man was most per-
rapprochement between the rhetoric of suasive when he displayed himself as a
the open hand and the rhetoric of the man of good sense, good will, and good
closed fist. moral character. In the existential mood
The exponents of the older mode of of the times, it may seem that reason has
discourse have been too slow to recog-
not governed, and cannot effectively
nize the efficacy of the new techniques ofgovern, the affairs of men. But it would
communication. Who can deny that
be a simple task to demonstrate just
body rhetoric, for instance, has had itshow quickly the everyday world would
successes in affecting attitudes and ac-unravel if man, the rational animal, were
tions in regard to such matters as the to abandon logic.
Vietnam war, civil rights, the military- The open hand and the closed fist
have the same basic skeletal structure.
industrial alliance, the rationale and con-
tent of the college curriculum? On theIf rhetoric is, as Aristotle defined it, "a
other hand, the practitioners of the new discovery of all the available means of
rhetoric have been too quick to reject persuasion," let us be prepared to open
the proven soundness of many of the and close that hand as the occasion de-
strategies of the older rhetoric. Themands. Then maybe the hand-me-down
from the dim past can lend a hand-up
younger generation may regard the open
hand as bearing too much of a resem- to us poor mortals in this humming
blance to the glad hand; they may seepresent.
the civility, decorum, and orderliness of Ohio State University
the older mode of discourse as a facade Columbus
If the power of the American Way is its ability to adapt itself to change,
Black Power may give that American power one of its more severe trials.
Will the inevitable modifications strengthen or weaken its institutions? Black
Power's radical confrontation with the established power in this country
reveals strong strains of hypocrisy in the system. The Establishment may be
able to purge these tendencies. In rage at the revelation, eager for a righteous
self-justification, it may contort democratic institutions into Orwellian molds
long before 1984. It has the economic and political power to buy off or rub
out those who denounce things-as-they-are. It also has the economic and
political power and, it is hoped, strong enough democratic traditions to work
out accommodations that will not be uneasy compromises but substantial
solutions to the social ills of which Black Power is symptomatic.
Black Power, no matter what shapes it assumes in the next few years, will
remain vital as one starting point for the study of the American ethos which
is now developing and which will dominate lives for the last quarter of the
twentieth century.
ROBERT L. SCOTT and WAYNE BROCKRIEDE
From the Preface to The Rhetoric of Black Power

Rhetoric of The Open Hand and of The Closed Fist

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Rhetoric of The Open Hand and of The Closed Fist

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Rhetoric of the Open Hand and the Rhetoric of the Closed Fist

Author(s): Edward P. J. Corbett

National Council of Teachers of English is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve

George Campbell's The Philosophy

too how much a part music plays history,

illogical. Mouthing untrue or invalid

You might also like