How Rhetoric Shapes Your Opinions

The Michael Shermer Show # 426
Robin Reames breaks down the major techniques of rhetoric, pulling back the curtain on how politicians, journalists, and “journalists” convince us to believe what we believe-and to talk, vote, and act accordingly.
Understanding these techniques helps us avoid being manipulated by authority figures who don’t have our best interests at heart. It also grants us rare insight into the values that shape our own beliefs.
Reames and Shermer discuss: rhetoric vs. facts (rhetorical truths vs. empirical truths) • the point of reason (to understand reality or to persuade?) • Canons of rhetoric: invention, arrangement, style, memory, delivery • bullshitters vs. liars • induction and deduction • rhetorical, ideological, and metaphorical thinking • how to debate contentious issues
Robin Reames is associate professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago, specializing in rhetorical theory and the history of ideas. Her new book is The Ancient Art of Thinking for Yourself: The Power of Rhetoric in Polarized Times.
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[@gavinsmith9564]

Rhetoric and Critical Thinking needs to be compulsory in schools, it's self defense in the information age.

[@sulljoh1]

Dave Rubin shook my belief in the power of conversation to converge on the truth Conversation seems to make you converge with whoever you're talking to

[@gooddaysahead1]

The stories we tell ourselves (believe) are the lenses through which we judge the veracity of information we believe to be true.

[@lawrencejwinkler]

Too many commenters dont get it. Some have profoundly ignorant comments. Her book is quite challenging. The last chapters are basically your final exam testing whether you actually now know how to apply the various lenses to elucidate common ground and the real differences given you have been introduced to formal rhetoric theory. What I enjoyed about this interview is reames highlighting shermers inability to consider other points of view and his unwillingness to change how he thinks about issues before latching on his particular closely held dogmas. My legal training included understanding negotiations which is what most lawyers spend their time doing. The Harvard negotiation project materials were my bible. Formal rhetoric theory was never part of my education. Should have been. Framing the issues would have benefited. Studying Western legal thinking took me to Plato and Aristotle and the whole of legal teaching is based on the Socratic method. Reames book puts all this in context placing it in contrast with the Sophists of ancient Athens.

[@benjaminperez969]

I enjoyed this conversation. Michael Shermer, if you'd like record another conversation with another rhetorician, maybe do one with Erec Smith.

[@hueyiroquois3839]

30:05 Why do pro-abortion people always frame the argument as a women's rights issue and ignore that anti-abortion people believe that a human fetus deserves as much protection, maybe more, as any other human? John Stossel is probably the only pro-abortion who framed the argument honestly, and I found him very persuasive.

[@sulljoh1]

Pro abortion people 100% think it's a women's rights issue, pepe

[@Malavander]

I think it's because the opposition often ignores the woman's rights while also tending to draw the line of sanctity in more extreme places. No one sheds a tear over millions of sperm and eggs being lost despite the potential to become a human. Some draw the line at birth control, some at a blastocyst, some at an embryo, some at a fetus, etc. Whether or not a pregnancy happens affects the full potential of both the fetus and the mother, and no one can predict which life will be more fruitful, so you can't actually elevate one over the other. Abortions that happen at later stages are usually due to complications that would have endangered both the mother and fetuses lives anyway. There are so many variables that affect the decision, "pro-choice" means that arguing over where in the gray area to draw the line is a waste of time because every case is different. Better to err on the side of mothers having control over their lives instead of being forced to be broodmares by the state. History has shown that when women have these rights to decide when and how to plan a family, the quality of life in that society drastically improves for everyone because half the population is free to pursue their goals, accumulate more wealth and standards of living.

[@stevenmyers6291]

Great conversation! I'd like to talk with her for another 5 hours or so!

[@charliegordon-qh2ll]

Rhetoric is used to persuade not elucidate or edify so it stands to reason that rhetoric is used to tell people what to think and not make them better thinkers.

[@ShapochkinKirill]

Clever. I took a screenshot of your comment.

[@nickf.7304]

However, if it's a fact that people already use rhetoric to persuade then an understanding of rhetoric can help you see how you're being persuaded. Seeing how you are being persuaded can give you distance from the arguments being used on you and help you think more clearly about an issue.

[@charliegordon-qh2ll]

@@ShapochkinKirill Thank you.

[@gooddaysahead1]

It also can be a language skill that we use to clarify, persuade, and elucidate. Using metaphors, analogies, stories, etc., to bring forth ideas that are otherwise difficult to explain literally. To persuade, one needs to be able to rationally explain, elucidate, present facts, to be able to persuade. If you are on a debate team, you learn skills of rhetoric to assist you to make cogent arguments. Rhetoric is not the tooic, it is the skill with which you express the veracity of your arguments clearly. You can listen to 2 arguments making the same claim, yet one is far more persuasive than the other. Why? Probably better rhetorical skills.

[@gooddaysahead1]

Wrong. It is not to tell them what to think. It is. A language skill used to elucidate persuade. A. Lincoln was a master.

[@sulljoh1]

I'm actually interested in what's true Not just a "better story" A truer view of reality

[@tuckerbugeater]

what you do with the truth is more important

[@sulljoh1]

@@tuckerbugeater Hard disagree. The truth itself is more important ❤

[@eximusic]

I think she's warning you your "truer view of reality" is also coming wrapped in a rhetorical story.

[@sulljoh1]

​@@eximusic If you're right then I would like to escape, please. The political world of humans manipulating each other through stories is gross. What if we want a clearer, more objective worldview? Don't say it's impossible. The fact that science works means we must be doing something right. Nature can't be fooled by a clever orator

[@sulljoh1]

@@eximusic It's a fair warning - and good to be aware

[@Leo-yn5fx]

i downloaded this book for free

[@DeconvertedMan]

The rhetoric of this is to accept the rhetoric in this. :D

[@sulljoh1]

The idea that you can always link evidence/data to back up any claim could be true If so, we who think we're atheists/skeptics because we're following the evidence where it leads are deluding ourselves. That's hard to accept

[@albionicamerican8806]

So why doesn't rhetoric make diversitarians behave better?

[@venkataponnaganti]

🎉

[@Besseloff]

This was a big fat nothing. I learn much more by reading a Shakespeare play.

[@DanHowardMtl]

Shermer always goes back to that pizza story? I wonder why? Maybe he partakes.

[@tuckerbugeater]

shhhh

[@kevanmccutcheon7351]

This was a remarkably unsatisfying interview. She’s one of the few people who, after speaking, convinces me that her book is not worth looking at because she is so vague and makes such anodyne and ambiguous statements. I learned very little except that Cicero came up with four good categories to pay attention to regarding debates. I hope you follow up with another person who teaches about rhetoric in a more clear fashion.

[@thewakakeboarder]

Agreed

[@Eye_Of_The_Pyramid]

There is an underwater pyramid beneath Rock Lake Wisconsin that the natives referred to as "under watee teepees." For the longest time, it was taken as just native American folklore, nothing serious or worthwhile, until indeed, it was discovery in the 20th century. There aee pyramids from China to Peru completely underwater that have since been discovered. If this isn't evidence of long-lost civilizations or a global civilization, i dont know what is.

[@AndriyAndriyAndriy]

There literally is 0 credible reports about any "underwater pyramids". Not a single photo, not a single scan, nothing. Only news about it on sites where you also can read about UFO and bigfoot. If there was anything, I would expect at least a few photos or reports from respectable sources. If you Google, literally all the claims turn out to be unverifiable hoax. There is Japanese "Yonaguni Monument", which looks nothing like a pyramid, and most likely formed naturally.

[@cfmcelderry]

Biased much ms rhetoric professor?