Is Rhetoric ever Justified?

Is rhetoric ever justified?

(^1)

Rhetoric is that which appeals to men’s base characteristics using the facade of argument. (^2 for an alternate definition)

The rhetorician either has it that every argument can be justified, and because of this every argument has the right to gain airtime, so that it can compete in the marketplace of ideas. Or he revels in his ability to pull the wool over the eyes of his fellow man, never once seeking to disclose his skill to scrutiny. 

Politicians who use rhetoric to gain ascendency may also believe that the are justified in doing so, because if they did not then another, without the wherewithal to affect real change for the better, would gain ascendency over them. 

In all cases rhetoric is used to exert control, those are its means, and not to educate nor uplift another. 

It is only very few who espouse rhetorical ideas that actually believe them. Except for those that repeat them verbatim without thought, or ability to scrutinise them. 

Did Hitler really believe that Jews were the source of all evil, or did he simply espouse so out of revenge, for a perceived injury, and to spite them?

Before Zionism adopted the Star of David for its symbolism, and conflated anti-Semiticism with anti-Zionism, did they really see their Arab hosts in the Holy Lands as inherently evil?

It was only with their adoption of “the chosen People” (^3) status that their espoused World-view (amongst themselves) changed to one of evil, before that everything was about operational necessity. Even that is Zionist sanctioned terrorism that saw them bomb a hotel housing British servicemen, that eventually saw Britain quitting from the Palestine. 

Rhetoricists may argue that they pander to the needs of the people. 

People naturally want answers, and the blame game is an easy escape, and an all too easy answer, as is all rhetorical argument that simplifies things. 

But it is because of that, that it’s just to easy, that rhetoric can never be justified. 

Except by men (to themselves) who want to turn other men’s will to their own. 

Who seek power for themselves, and are not for the greater good. But even when they seek it not for themselves, they are not aware that any concentration of power carries with it the commensurate risk of actual and real tyranny. That rhetoric, in general, is used to appeal to and thereby cements power and authority. 

Indeed all social organisations, from the family upwards are made up of individuals. 

And each individual person carries a moral responsibility. Rhetoric does nothing to help them in discharging that moral duty, and in fact deadens them to it. 

So yes rhetoric does need airtime, but only sufficient and within the context of debaunching them.  

Only within the context of making us alive to it’s threat. 

And the threat of those that justify exploitation and oppression. 

When Churchill raised England to fight against facist Germany, did our boys (and the whole country) fight against facism because of facism, or because it threatened our Nation?

When our very survival is threatened can we justifiably use Nationalist argument, that, when the immediate threat is over, would cause us to descend down the same route that Hitler took?

Are arguments that appeal to our Nationalist sensibilities, that we are better and more deserving than others, ever justifiable?

The short answer is not if you are a believer, and believe in the Oneness of God and the commensurate oneness of Mankind. 

END

^1 This has only just become a pressing question for me because of late I have Conservative Politicians that I like. And that on a personal level. And yet we are all equally capable of good, as we are to wrong. The question then is about whilst you can good on an individual level, can that really justify harming people’s ability to think for themselves?

^2 It’s dictionary definition may well be that it is argument that purposely uses logical fallacies, aimed at pulling the wool over the eyes of fellow men, stymieing them into stupidity. 

Or according to the Oxford Dictionary...

TBC 

^3 The question of who copied who is a moot point.